hey guys, here are my updates so far...
*I verified that I am using the latest version of cyberlink power director 9 ultra 64
*I installed instacodecs_1290 and ffdshow_rev3949_20110725 (hope I did this correctly, I just googled them and downloaded each pack and installed)
*I updated my video card driver
*I confirmed that the video clips I was trying to install had a .MOV extension and the file type was quicktime
...so I started up the application and the first thing it did was freeze for a few seconds like it was before all the changes, then it got a hold of itself and actually started working correctly, I have yet to do any real editing but the app is definitely responding a lot better than before, all of the basic right clicks and un links are no longer causing crashing problems, I have by no means done any real editing so I will update this thread once I do some real work to see if any of the symptoms come back but for now it looks much better
THANKS GUYS FOR ALL YOUR HELP ON THIS!!!!!
2 more questions...the first thing I did to diagnose this issue was to change the virtual memory on my machine to initial size 12288 and max 12288 (this was recommended by the cyberlink support team), do you guys recommend i keep these settings...lower them, raise them? also, ynotfish eluded to the fact that my graphics card wasn't exactly the greatest, was just wondering if this is something I should really invest in and upgrade and if it will really make much of a difference on my system (i couldn't find where to check if hardware acceleration was turned on and also didn't know how that would help or hurt things), also wondering if more ram would make a difference
again thanks for all the great input