v1.0.8

Easy Epic Drone Movie Maker (E2DM2) - v1.0.8

E2DM2 v1.0.8 improves onboarding at every supported window size and adds a clear, accessible in-app Privacy Policy. This release focuses on making the first-run experience reliable, transparent, and easier to understand.

Highlights

• Onboarding highlights now remain aligned when E2DM2 is windowed, maximized, resized, or used on a display smaller than 1920x1080.
• Checked onboarding options now display a proper checkmark instead of an ambiguous solid-colored square.
• A complete Privacy Policy is available from Help > Privacy Policy, immediately above About E2DM2.
• The Privacy Policy uses a scrollable, resizable modal with explicit high-contrast colors that remain readable with Windows light and dark themes.
• The About dialog and startup splash screen now identify the application as version 1.0.8.

Onboarding Improvements

Highlights stay attached to the intended controls

Onboarding spotlights could previously drift away from buttons, tables, and other interface elements when the application was not maximized at 1920x1080. The offset varied with the layout: on smaller windows, a tour could highlight part of a table row or a status field instead of the control described by the onboarding card.

E2DM2 now calculates each spotlight from the target's real on-screen position and translates it into the onboarding overlay's coordinate system. This removes the fixed vertical correction that only happened to look correct at one window configuration.

The overlay also responds to window and target geometry changes. If E2DM2 is resized while a tour is open, the overlay fills the new window and recalculates both the highlighted area and the explanatory card after the interface finishes rearranging itself.

The correction applies consistently to:

• the Welcome Screen tour;
• the Workspace and Footage tour;
• the Soundtrack tour;
• the Produce tour;
• the Preview and Selection tour; and
• the Music Library tour.

Onboarding checkboxes are visually unambiguous

The checked state of Never show this again previously depended on an embedded SVG image that Qt did not reliably render on every Windows configuration. The result was a blue square with no visible tick.

The checkmark is now painted directly by E2DM2. Checked controls show a clear white tick inside the blue box across supported Qt and Windows styles. The same correction is applied to the welcome screen's opt-out checkbox.

Privacy and Transparency

New in-app Privacy Policy

The Help menu now includes Privacy Policy directly above About E2DM2. It opens a dedicated modal window that can be resized and scrolled through the complete policy without leaving the application.

The policy begins with a plain-language summary and then explains:

• which videos, audio files, project settings, previews, caches, renders, preferences, and logs remain locally on the user's computer;
• that E2DM2 does not upload footage for cloud processing and contains no advertising analytics or cross-app tracking;
• how automatic and manual update checks communicate with GitHub;
• what is sent to Supabase when a user chooses to activate or deactivate an optional Pro license;
• how Stripe and the E2DM2 website are involved when a user chooses to purchase a license or submit a contact request;
• why information is used and when service providers may process it;
• retention, deletion, and security practices;
• user choices and privacy rights; and
• how to contact E2DM2 with a privacy request or complaint.

Adding this policy does not introduce new telemetry, cloud video processing, or background collection. It documents the application's existing local-first behavior and its limited network functions.

Readable with Windows light and dark themes

The policy viewer now explicitly defines its page background, body text, headings, links, selected text, and scrollbar colors. Windows can no longer apply a dark editor background while leaving E2DM2's dark text in place. The document remains high contrast and readable regardless of the active system palette.

Technical Improvements

• Replaced resolution-dependent spotlight offsets with reliable global-to-overlay coordinate conversion.
• Added deferred layout updates so spotlight and popup positions are measured after responsive layouts settle.
• Added target and parent resize tracking for active onboarding tours.
• Added a reusable native-painted onboarding checkbox checkmark.
• Added a dedicated privacy-policy content module and scrollable policy dialog.
• Added palette-independent colors for the privacy document and its selection states.
• Added regression coverage for nested onboarding targets, live window resizing, Help menu ordering, complete scrollable policy content, and forced dark palettes.
• The full automated test suite passes with 167 tests.

Privacy Reminder

E2DM2 continues to process imported footage, custom audio, previews, and rendered movies locally. Update checks and optional Pro licensing use the limited network connections described in the Privacy Policy. Users can disable automatic update checks under View > Options > Automatic Updates.

Download and Installation

1. Download E2DM2-Setup-1.0.8.exe from the assets section below.
2. Double-click the installer and follow the on-screen instructions.
3. The installer can replace an earlier E2DM2 version while preserving existing projects and user-created media.
4. After installation, open Help > About E2DM2 to confirm that version 1.0.8 is running.

Existing projects do not need to be recreated or re-imported for these improvements.

v1.0.7

Easy Epic Drone Movie Maker (E2DM2) - v1.0.7

E2DM2 v1.0.7 fixes incorrect "not enough footage" warnings for variable-frame-rate videos and prevents a quality-control error when producing an approved shortened montage.

What Was Fixed

Variable-frame-rate clips now stay together

Some drones record at a nominal frame rate such as 29.97 fps while reporting a slightly different average for every clip. E2DM2 previously rounded those raw averages to two decimal places and treated each result as a separate output group.

For example, a project containing more than 12 minutes of 1920x1080 footage could report clips at 29.41, 29.42, and 29.43 fps. Although all of the clips came from the same recording format, E2DM2 split them into three groups. Two groups contained only about 2:49 and 2:54 of footage, so the application warned that there was not enough material for a 3:47 song even though the complete project had plenty.

E2DM2 now recognizes these small variations as variable-frame-rate measurements of the same standard recording cadence. In this example, the clips are grouped together as 29.97 fps footage and used as one source pool. The complete 12+ minutes are available to the montage planner, producing one full-length 3:47 edit without the incorrect shortage warning.

This correction is applied when a project is planned, so existing projects benefit automatically. The clips do not need to be removed and imported again.

"Proceed and Fade Out" no longer fails quality control

When footage really is shorter than a soundtrack, E2DM2 can preserve the song's cuts and effects for as long as possible and fade out the shortened result. In one tight, fragmented source layout, the planner attempted to preserve a dissolve by reducing an intentional source jump to approximately 4.40 seconds. Quality control correctly rejected that plan because intentional jumps must be at least 4.5 seconds, resulting in this error:

Shortened montage QC failed: 1 long cut(s) use an ambiguous source jump below 4.5s

The planner now keeps the 4.5-second quality requirement intact. If clip boundaries leave insufficient room for a safe intentional jump, E2DM2 removes the weakest optional dissolve and uses a continuous cut instead. The shortened montage can then be produced and faded out without violating its editing rules.

Technical Improvements

• Normalizes small variable-frame-rate differences to common recording cadences before grouping footage.
• Uses the normalized cadence for consistent montage delivery timing.
• Prevents fragmented clips from silently shrinking intentional source jumps below the quality-control threshold.
• Falls back to a clean continuous cut when an optional dissolve cannot be placed safely.
• Adds regression coverage for both mixed 29.4x fps clips and shortened montages split across source files.

Download & Installation

1. Download E2DM2-Setup-1.0.7.exe from the assets section below.
2. Double-click the installer.
3. Follow the on-screen instructions. The installer can replace an earlier E2DM2 version while keeping your projects available.

v1.0.6

Easy Epic Drone Movie Maker (E2DM2) - v1.0.6

E2DM2 v1.0.6 adds direct access to Contact & Info from the Help menu.

What's New

• Added a "Contact & Info" option in the Help menu to quickly open the support and contact page.

Download & Installation

1. Download E2DM2-Setup-1.0.6.exe from the assets section below.
2. Double-click the installer.
3. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation.

v1.0.5

Easy Epic Drone Movie Maker (E2DM2) - v1.0.5

E2DM2 v1.0.5 adds background automatic update checking with user settings configuration.

What's New

• Added background automatic update checks on startup (running at most once a day to respect API limits).
• Added an "Automatic Updates" tab in the Options dialog to allow opting out of automatic checks.

Download & Installation

1. Download E2DM2-Setup-1.0.5.exe from the assets section below.
2. Double-click the installer.
3. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation.

v1.0.4

Easy Epic Drone Movie Maker (E2DM2) - v1.0.4

E2DM2 v1.0.4 makes it possible to produce a polished, music-driven video even when a project does not contain enough footage for the entire selected song.

What's New

• Added a clear confirmation window when the available footage is shorter than the selected song preset requires.
• The confirmation now shows the available footage, song length, footage required for the full edit, missing footage, and estimated shortened video length.
• Shortened Epic Montage and Real Estate renders retain the song's authored cuts, transitions, effects, and intended pacing for as long as the footage allows.
• Shortened videos now finish with a synchronized five-second fade to black and music fade-out.
• The same shortened-render choice is supported when adding jobs to the render queue and is preserved in saved render plans.
• Improved handling of source/target duration shortfalls that previously stopped production with repeated validation errors.

Download & Installation

1. Download E2DM2-Setup-1.0.4.exe from the assets section below.
2. Double-click the installer.
3. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation.

v1.0.3

Easy Epic Drone Movie Maker (E2DM2) - v1.0.3

We are excited to release E2DM2 v1.0.3! This update improves video smoothness, adds royalty-free music indicators, and includes several interface refinements.

---

What’s New

• Improved montage smoothness by preserving the original frame cadence and reducing micro-stutter.
• Added a Royalty-free column to the Music Library.
• Added clear gold star and red X indicators for music licensing status.
• Improved icon sharpness and scaling on high-DPI displays.
• General stability and interface improvements.

---

Download & Installation

1. Download E2DM2-Setup-1.0.3.exe from the assets section below.
2. Double-click the installer.
3. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation.

v1.0.2

Easy Epic Drone Movie Maker (E2DM2) - v1.0.2

We are excited to release E2DM2 v1.0.2! This update introduces automatic software updates, smoother editing transitions, UI refinements, and new Pro License feature controls.

---

Go Pro: Gain Complete Control

Unlock full creative freedom with the Pro License:

• Add custom soundtracks, including MP3, WAV, and AAC files.
• Export high-resolution 4K drone video outputs.
• Access the Custom Preset Editor to fine-tune beat markers and visual effect triggers.

Get your Pro License here for $19.95 CAD (Special Launch Price).

---

Download & Installation

1. Download E2DM2-Setup-1.0.2.exe from the assets section below.
2. Double-click the installer.
3. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation.