Hi Adam,

According to the PowerDirector 7 specifications, it is optimized for Intel core i7 processors, which I believe is quad core.

http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/products/main_4_ENU.html

Robert Intel i7 930, 16GB ram, Radeon HD 5770 1Gb,Ver. 14.12 Win7 64 bit
Intel i7 7700 HQ, 16 GB ram Nvidia GTX 1050Ti 4GB dual drives 1 TB SSD + 1 TB HDD Win 10

PDtoots

Quad Cores are supported. Rendering times are amazingly improved with a quad core.

64 bit processing isn't supported. Sony Vegas 8 and maybe Premier CS4 supports it. (I don't mean it won't run on Vista or XP 64 - it does)

Quote: Quad Cores are supported. Rendering times are amazingly improved with a quad core.

Thanks, I think I'll grab her a Q6600 then.

Quote: Hi Adam,

According to the PowerDirector 7 specifications, it is optimized for Intel core i7 processors, which I believe is quad core.

http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/products/main_4_ENU.html

Robert

PD7 was released before the i7 was and I don't remember seeing an i7 patch either. I think that information is just all smoke and mirrors and it the advantages are all on the processor side - PD7 already supported Quad Cores. Advertising.

Hi Walker,

PD7 Build 2227c should include for Intel i7 optimization, software updates page.

Robert Intel i7 930, 16GB ram, Radeon HD 5770 1Gb,Ver. 14.12 Win7 64 bit
Intel i7 7700 HQ, 16 GB ram Nvidia GTX 1050Ti 4GB dual drives 1 TB SSD + 1 TB HDD Win 10

PDtoots

Quote: Hi Walker,

PD7 Build 2227c should include for Intel i7 optimization, software updates page.

Robert

Well Robert, I think Cyberlink is full of crap honestly. I love PD7 (mostly) so don't get me wrong here. I'm just not going to read something and smile and believe it.

-The 2227c patch was released almost a full month before the Cyberlink press release announcing that PD7 was "optimized" for the i7 core.
-I can't find any release notes for the 2227c patch. They aren't included in the patch or on Cyberlinks website (or in Google anywhere).
-There's nothing in PD7 2227c's helpfile about i7 or the three optimizations they mentioned.

And my favorite.... none of the three things listed by Cyberlink require any programing to take advantage of!!!
-Simulate Multi Threading(SMT) technology
-Triple-channel DDR3
-Intel® QuickPath technology

"Hmm... our software was made to work on dual and quad core processors so therefore it's optimized for the i7 core processors as well - lets issue a press release !!!!"

So I'm 99.9% sure that Cyberlink it totally full of crap. If the 2227c patch did include an i7 Optimization, why wait almost a full month to make a press release about it? Exactly how did PD7 get optimized when the things they list in the press release don't need programing to take advantage of?

Cyberlink just wants the general public to assume that PD7 was made to work with i7 and give you an advantage over other software. It's all smoke and mirrors. ("hmm... I have an i7 system and this video editor says it was made to work on it so this must be the one I want to by").

The other side of this is Intel (who I use to work for - good company) wanting to make consumers believe they need to upgrade to an i7 system or that it will offer a major improvement. It will be at least a year or two before the cost-performace ratio even makes it valuable option to upgrade to an i7core.

Watch Pinnacle pimp the i7 for Intel. Why do you think they're doing this (think...)?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ0koSjm--4

Open your eyes. Don't blindly believe the man people! Jeezzzz

Hi,

Thank you Robert for your input here. I have referred the postings here to CyberLink and have replies.

1. Core i7 related info can be found on this page
http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/products/item_4_5_3.html

2. From the Head of R&D at CyberLink - PD.
Core i7 has been supported since 1st GM.
This was because PDR7 was designed to be multi-core ready.
You can also see the good result in PCMag's review where 8-cores platform were tested.

I hope that goes some way to answer the issue raised here.

Dafydd
[Moderator]

Hi,

Some more information I feel should be read by Walker:

PDR7 was developed to be multi-core ready in the beginning. The review of PCMag proves this superior performance.
Full article here:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2319829,00.asp

Performance page:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2319849,00.asp
..., it's good to know that PowerDirector can effectively utilize all eight cores on a system like the xw6600. This was again confirmed in my rendering trials, in which PowerDirector proved to be a speedy producer that effectively utilizes the processing power it's afforded. For example, the program produced my 10-minute 30-second test file as an MPEG-2 in 3 minutes 25 seconds (compared with 9:15 for Studio), and efficiently used all eight cores on the HP xw6600 test bed.

Core i7 was launched in Q4. CyberLink press release of Core i7 was a joint promotion with Intel because Intel found PDR7 is the only one SW which can fully utilize all threads of Core i7 and got superior performance gain against current latest Quad Core.

I hope the details listed here are read.

Dafydd
[Moderator]

This is a question which I posted earlier, but disappeared. My basic question is what CPU usage does PD7 use when rendering. I recently upgraded from a dual core to a Q9300 since I recently got a HD AVCHD camera from Cannon. When rendering on my old system my processor usage was always 98-100% for each core.

I tried rendering the same VOB file again to test my new system and I noticed that each core maxed out at 75-77%. The video clip was recorded at 24p, 17 Mbps, and 1920x1080 resolution. I've been using the latest patch of PD until todays release of the update.

Is it reasonable not to always get near 100% CPU usage when rendering? My suspicion is that I may now have a hard drive bottle neck which is now limiting my rendering speed.

Thanks for input.
Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

My suspicion is that I may now have a hard drive bottle neck which is now limiting my rendering speed.

Most likely. Are you running on a RAID setup or just a standard drive? Hardware based RAID (like using a 3ware SATA controller) will GREATLY improve not just rendering performance, but system performance.

At least now you can surf the web while rendering with that extra horsepower.
Win8 64-bit Pro Retail
Intel i7-4770
16GB DDR3 1600 8-8-8-24
MSI Z87-G45 Motherboard
ASUS GTX 660 Direct CU II OC 2GB GPU
1 TB RAID 1 (mirrored) Drive Array
Several scratch drives for video, TMP, pagefile.

I have the quad core Q6600 chip that is in this feed + 4GB RAM and an ATI HD4670 (clocked)


Good point about the disks, but I do have a raid setup and right now am crunching a H.264 to DVD(HQ). The disks are'nt really heavilly used to be honest (well at least when working with the H.264 format). But to the point, I too only get 70-80% out of the CPUs. And thats trying both Vista home Pemium (32 bit) and XP64 Prfessional.

I did try pinnacle Studio 12, and I did use more of the CPU, but I'm massively put off by the extras you need to purchase to get the same extras you get as standard with PD7.
I'm still using PD7 in the trail mode but I'm having big issues and getting Runtime error in PDR.exe and then an abnormal program termination. ( think it may be related to Pips or tiltes?). So whilst I do like the ease of use and standard whizzy bits of PD7 and the free download site, I'm loathed to purchase it until i know this issue can be fixed.

OnTheWeb,

Thanks for your input.

Currently I have a single 500 GB hard drive and I'm using a SATA connector, not IDE. Since I purchased a Hard Drive HD camera I would like a second hard drive to backup my videos in case my primary one fails. For this purpose I might just get an external drive.

If I were to install a second internal drive what is the best method of doing this. I do not know anything about RAID setups. In the the past I've just used IDE drives with the slave/master or cable select. With SATA I thought I could just plug another one in and leave it at that. What would I need for optimum performance and to maximize CPU usage. I should point out that when I rendered a video (previously acquired in MPEG2 format) from my old camera which was standard definition I get 90% CPU usages with my new CPU. Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

Clark,

Thanks for your input. At least I know I'm not alone.

Others have had issues with crashes. I try to avoid using AVI files since that always makes my computer crash in PD. Sometimes it would crash when just inserting a fade. I avoided all my crashes by importing all my standard definition files from my old camera in MPEG2 format initially. This made the video files much smaller and PD stopped crashing.

With AVCHD (I'm not sure what the actual file format it is in, but the extension is mts.) I have not had any crashes as of yet. However, rendering a file from AVCHD after editing and back into AVCHD leads to loss of quality. Many others have commented on this in this forum.

What kind of quality are you getting when you render your high definition files to DVDHQ? Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

Thanks for the support

Ive not had much success with the HD content rendering (as it keeps crashing ) Ive now narrowed it down to the title inserts (I'll keep you all posted), so at least I'm on the right track. I do love PD7 but I'm basing my entire purchasing power (abeit small) on this being fixed.

If you do get a second SATA drive then do what I had done (common sense) place your Raw files on one drive and the export directory on the other drive). I experienced no disk issues with this config when using HD content.

From what I did manage to render, the DVD(even HQ format) would obviously be much reduced. but did notice some chosting when using the smart anti-shake feature (shame really, but this was via my PC monitor and not via a HD TV so please anyone tell me different!)
To answer your question on HD to DVD(HQ), I'm still out to judgement on if the rendering quality is better or worse than Pinnacle 12

I have the exact compilation used for pinnacle and will render this for PD7 and let you know - now I have remved the title inserts. (Pinnacle quality for rendering HD down to SD was excellent). But reiterate the point, I'm still gunning for PD7!

Clark,

The general consensus is that no single video editing software is perfect unless you want to pay several hundreds of dollars for professional software. I try to think about the bright side. For the hundred or so dollars I paid, look what I can actually do and not dwell too much on the problems (unless the software just will not run). Five years ago I would not have even considered video editing.

I can remember at least one post where someone said that they use Pinnacle for some functions and PD for others.

Good luck with your project. Let me know how it turns out. Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

Hi James,

I agree exactly, no one software does the job. I had to completely give up on PD7. It was related to the titles. If I remove them, the DVD (or file) is created OK. If I put some titles in (even the standard non customised ones), it would crash randomly (only when making the DVD or file). Hopefully Cyberlink can sort this out!

To answer some of the questions listed before. Pinnacle burns about the same CPU (70-80%). I done the same project in both.

Pinnacle has limited titles, I need titles! but it does not crash. And it has more music overlay tracks which is nice. But has awful DVD menus, pips and the before mentioned titles. So I'm authoring my project in Pinnacle (for the moment) and burning it to MPEG-2. I'll then imort this into Power Director 6 as the DVD menus are better so I can burn my DVD.

I have PD6 that came with the camcorder, and I have no crash problems, its just that for the online content, most of the good stuff is for PD7.

Thanks for the feedback andgod support

Kind regards

Clark