Powerdirector is driving me Nuts!

mirha494

Newbie Joined: Aug 26, 2009 17:34 Messages: 33 Offline

Solved by

Apr 08, 2010 06:01

I am facing some really problems with my Power Director 8. I don’t know whether I should continue using it or switch to some other similar software. I have updated it with the latest patch but the software is out of control! Here are the problems I facing all the time.

1. When I open a recently modified project, I am asked to point out the files that belong to it. PD find the files and loads the project. However, if I edit the project and save it, then open it again after 5 minutes, some of the clips on the video line are missing and completely black while others are there. This is a mystery because I have all the files in the same folder. E.g. if I have 2 mts files named video1.mts and video2.mts and separate these into several clips, the clips that belong to video2.mts would usually be missing while the clips that belong to video1.mts would be there! This is driving me nuts!

2. When I crop a video, it looks great and I simply produce it. So far so god. However, if I open that project few hours later and then produce the movie again, the cropped video have lost the quality and looks pretty poor despite that I have not changed anything with the project.

These things are driving me nuts because I can never rely on the editor and I am forced to start from the scratch when the editor is not displaying the clips or the cropped videos as it should because they used to look great. However, the editor seems to live its own life and it do whatever it falls in its behavior. If I do not solve these problems I must switch to some other editor because I can’t have the things like this as it takes me a lot of time to do things over and over again despite that I am not doing anything wrong!

Dafydd B

Senior Contributor Joined: Aug 26, 2006 08:20 Messages: 11973 Offline

Apr 08, 2010 08:02

Resolve this issue very quickly.

1. provide a diagnostic of your system.
2. state if you're system is creating shadow file?
3. State where you are editing these files from - name the location address and harddrive type

If you use the search capability of the forum you will see similar concerns and the same type of answer with a good outcome.

Dafydd
[Moderator]

mirha494

Newbie Joined: Aug 26, 2009 17:34 Messages: 33 Offline

Apr 08, 2010 08:45

Quote: Resolve this issue very quickly.

1. provide a diagnostic of your system.
2. state if you're system is creating shadow file?
3. State where you are editing these files from - name the location address and harddrive type

If you use the search capability of the forum you will see similar concerns and the same type of answer with a good outcome.

Dafydd
[Moderator]

Hello Dafydd, thanks for the quick response. Let me answer your questions.

1. What should I use to provide a diagnostic of my system, any speicifc software?

2. Shadow files, well, I have been Googling a bit but can't find out whether my system is doing it. Is it good or not, can I check it on some way (I am running Windows XP Pro).

3. I am editing the files from a externa hard drive that I often disconnect after the work is done and carry with me. Do you think that could cause the mess I am facing?

Thanks in advance.

TheShadowman

Member Location: St Albans, Herts, United Kingdom Joined: Dec 31, 2009 12:05 Messages: 57 Offline

Apr 08, 2010 11:36

edited

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at Apr 09. 2010 02:53

Anonymous

Apr 08, 2010 13:29

Quote:
...
Hello Dafydd, thanks for the quick response. Let me answer your questions.

1. What should I use to provide a diagnostic of my system, any speicifc software?

Hi Mirsad,
In the forum index there is a sticky thread from Dafydd entitled "PLEASE READ - PowerDirector - information we request and tasks to carry out. " - within the first lines you'll find instructions of how to provide a system diagnosis.

Quote:
2. Shadow files, well, I have been Googling a bit but can't find out whether my system is doing it. Is it good or not, can I check it on some way (I am running Windows XP Pro).

I apologize for my grin - your statement reminds me of my own 'lessons' I had to take. What Dafydd means is the 'shadow files' feature PDR uses - independent from XP or any 'common Google-d answer'. You'll find out using the menu in PDR: Go to "Edit" - "Preferences", mark the tab "General" and find the checkbox for "Enable file processing to speed up ...." if it's marked, you ARE using shadow files.
And - most probably - THIS is the hound in the system, so to speak: Try to unmark this option, and I bet, your primary problem concerning the 'lost scenes' is gone. For unknown reasons this option was by default unmarked in prior builds of PDR8, but in build 2508 it is marked - causing heaps of problems and instabilities.

Quote:
3. I am editing the files from a externa hard drive that I often disconnect after the work is done and carry with me. Do you think that could cause the mess I am facing?

Thanks in advance.

MAY be.
How do you behave in disconnecting this external drive? Simply pull the cord? Or do you use the 'disconnect device' feature from XP, wait for the system's OK and pull the cord then? Only the latter method really provides that ALL data are physically written to the drive. Otherwise you risk that there are still (editing) data cached somewhere in the memories of XP and - of course - never found their way to the drive. So, next time you connect it, your data are lost.

BTW - I'd recommend a switch to Win7.
I my own worked with WinXP and PDR8 encountering numerous 'out of memory' problems - none of them has come up under Win7 - yet!

Michael

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at Apr 08. 2010 13:35

BarryTheCrab

Senior Contributor Location: USA Joined: Nov 06, 2008 22:18 Messages: 6240 Offline

Apr 08, 2010 13:32

Pardon me, but his name is "Dafydd". HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
Nvidia GTX 960(4GB)/16GB DDR3/
Canon Vixia HV30/HF-M40/HF-M41/HF-G20/Olympus E-PL5.
Tape capture using 6 VCR, TBC-1000, Elite BVP4+, Sony D8 camcorder with TBC.
https://www.facebook.com/BarryAFTT

Anonymous

Apr 08, 2010 13:36

Oops.
How embarrassing....
I apologize again - hopefully he hasn't seen it yet.
I've corrected it.
Sorry, again.
Michael.

vn800rider

Senior Contributor Location: Darwen, UK Joined: May 15, 2008 04:32 Messages: 1949 Offline

Apr 08, 2010 15:44

Using USB drives may cause issues if the OS assigns drive letters dynamically, given that the standard .pds file uses absolute file referencing which will relate to the last drive configuration.
To avoid the external drive being assigned different drive letters each time it is mounted, it can be called from a folder (in XP and Vista - don't know about Win 7). This may avoid the issue of PD "losing" files due to the OS assigning different drive letters.

This link applys to XP .
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1676&page=9

This seems to apply as well to vista
http://lifehacker.com/373389/mount-usb-drives-in-assigned-folders-to-keep-them-straight

But a quick google will return loads of articles.

Mounting as a folder seems to be quite effective and prevents PD and other progs from losing track of things on external drives.

To be truly portable the packed project also needs any customised menus, titles etc that have been used so Dafydd's post here needs to be considered :
http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/10568.page#46987

Cheers
Adrian
Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
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AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.