Have you tried a uninstall and re-install of Powerdirector 10?

There are posts in the forum that indicate that the first install of Powerdirector does not always complete, a second install seems to work.

I also assume that you are connected to the internet and have activated your components.

See:
http://www.cyberlink.com/prog/support/cs/product-faq-content.do?id=12834&prodId=4&prodVerId=930

Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

Thanks for the help. When I first loaded PD10 I did try uninstalling and reinstalling, because I figured I may have had an install problem. When I did that I ran my registry cleaner before I reloaded PD10. I see some references to a Cleaner software that I did not use. From what I read the Cleaner will let you load over the top of your existing copy. Is that what you are recommending? By the way, do you see any limitations to my PC?

Hey Ricm,
I can't offer any help at this point, but I am experiencing the same problem in PD10. I'm trying to put together my first movie so I am just a beginner. The same issue arises of video freezes on the time line while audio plays. The rendering does the same thing. My video was taken in mp4 I've tried rendering in mp4 (preferred) as well as .avi and .mov. Same problem in all of them. I'm using fade transitions which I read in one forum might be an issue. I took out all transitions and had the same problem. My freezes are totally random. One time through one clip will freeze. Next time it might be two others. My freezes do seem to occur for one full clip, not starting in the middle.
I did do a uninstall and reinstall recently to try and correct another problem.

Fisher2223,
Thanks for weighing in. When you search the forum for “Freeze or “Freezes”, you can see that a number of people are suffering the same fate. I am a technician in another industry so my technical head gets to thinking; How can some people not have any problems while others have nothing but problems. (Discounting those with obviously inadequate computers)

I am thinking there has to be something different about our computers...But what?

Attached is my DxDiag.txt file. Maybe a comparison will help?

One common problem with new users of Powerdirector is the setting for preview.

The preview is not meant to be a High Definition display. If you have High Def preview, you really cause the video display to lag, and freeze. I use the High or Normal setting, and still have to wait sometime for the display to 'catchup'.

Don't push the display much, take it slow with fast forward. I use 4X and still get jumps when I pause or play. 8X really causes a huge jump when you pause or play. I am editing HD video when these conditions happen.

If I am editing SD video, there is little or no lag and display response is good. Standard Definition Video does not put the load on the computer that High Definition Video does.



Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

Well count me in as another problem child. I installed it on my desktop with the same freezing issues a few times. With is a PhenomX4 with 8 gig's and 1T HDD and Radeon 6970 X2.

Then i installed it on my I3 Notebook with a completely lower spec and it done the same thing.

This is the second product i buy from this company that is giving problems. I am definately thinking of getting a refund.

I am really curious as to why so many folk report freezes and crashes with PD10.

From my own experience I can make PD10 crash any time I want ! All I have to do is upset the bios settings a bit, and the main cause will be if I am over-clocking. That will almost guarantee a crash on my system.

If I leave all the bios settings to normal, it has not caused a problem and works perfectly. I have used almost every feature in PD10 with 100% success.

I am, and always have been very fussy about what programs install start-up helpers and I keep watch and remove everything that I find unnecessary. I have also found that to do this, one tool isn't enough. So I use Ccleaner and a tool called Starter. With those two, I keep the start-ups lean, and also clean up the registry.

Perhaps a combination of these tips may help some of you who are experiencing freezes and crashes.

I have had a look at the logs and the hardware looks fine to me. Some better than mine. I ask those folk to take a close look at these ideas and let us know, I would like to see if we can solve some of these problems.


....and one final note, make sure you are not running any other programs in the background.

Intel Core i7 3770K 3.6 Ghz,
GTX 680, 2 X Benq23 3D monitors,
6G DDR3, Win 7 64, Win 10 (Insider) 64
PCIE SSD, Intel Sata SSD 2 500 Gbyte Seagate,
Minoru 3D WebCam, NVIDIA 3D Vision-Ready

Quote: Well count me in as another problem child. I installed it on my desktop with the same freezing issues a few times. With is a PhenomX4 with 8 gig's and 1T HDD and Radeon 6970 X2.

Then i installed it on my I3 Notebook with a completely lower spec and it done the same thing.

This is the second product i buy from this company that is giving problems. I am definately thinking of getting a refund.

Jayson -

There are many people here who run PD on computers with a wide range of specs without any significant problems, myself included. There are also people, like those in this thread, who seem plagued by them.

Since you've installed the software on two machines you own with wildly different specs, my first question would be - what is similar between your two machines? Are you running the same anti-virus software? Any utilities or other background applications? What other software do the two machines have in common?

Just a hunch, but if we assume that PD isn't the root cause of your problem, then some other similarity between the two systems may provide a clue as to what is.
PowerDirector 10 Ultra
Dell XPS Studio - i7 3.4 GHz / 8 GB RAM / Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

Thanks everyone for helping me get to the bottom of this issue. I am at this moment short on time so I will just drop a couple of quick notes:

Carl312: I have noticed the lag you are talking about and have tried running the preview in lower resolutions, but it doesn’t seem to matter. The problem happens all of the time when I render and the preview is off at that time. By the way, I have turned off any of PD10’s accelerations and still have problems.

Kingsmedow: You ideas seem to make sense. I have not done anything to overclock the Bios, so I don’t think that pertains, but other Start-up apps may in fact be what is the problem. I will look more into this when I have time.

There are two other things about my computer that I consider suspicious as well: One, I have a wireless mouse and Keyboard. Second, I have Comcast Cable and run Constant Guard antivirus. Does anyone else have either of these? On their affected box?

Thanks, folks, for giving us a hand on this. I spent some time last night trying some different things. None of them worked, but we might be able to cross them off the list of possible solutions.
1. I couldn't find where to change the preview quality so I changed the preview screen size to as small as I could and still see the movie thinking this might reduce the load on the machine. Same result. Like ricm I then tried to render with no preview (in Standard rather the High Quality as before) and got the same freezing as before.
2. Thinking it was a resource problem, I ran msconfig on the start line and turned off all non-microsoft background programs (included anti-virus) and rebooted. Same halting and freezing. I also made sure my temp folders were empty.
3. In a "hail mary" I moved my raw footage files to the same folder that I have PD thinking maybe there was a delay finding the video files.
4. Finally, I once again deleted the fade transitions and ran without them as well with others. It does seem to consistently freeze on the transitions.
Last night I was convinced that the 4 GB of memory that I have is not enough. But I see that Jayson has 8GB and has the same problems. I have never messed with the BIOS on this machine so I assume they are set to a standard setting.
My next idea is to monitor the CPU usage graph as I run the movie. Does anyone know how to do this in Windows 7?

Quote: Thanks, folks, for giving us a hand on this. I spent some time last night trying some different things. None of them worked, but we might be able to cross them off the list of possible solutions.
1. I couldn't find where to change the preview quality so I changed the preview screen size to as small as I could and still see the movie thinking this might reduce the load on the machine. Same result. Like ricm I then tried to render with no preview (in Standard rather the High Quality as before) and got the same freezing as before.
2. Thinking it was a resource problem, I ran msconfig on the start line and turned off all non-microsoft background programs (included anti-virus) and rebooted. Same halting and freezing. I also made sure my temp folders were empty.
3. In a "hail mary" I moved my raw footage files to the same folder that I have PD thinking maybe there was a delay finding the video files.
4. Finally, I once again deleted the fade transitions and ran without them as well with others. It does seem to consistently freeze on the transitions.
Last night I was convinced that the 4 GB of memory that I have is not enough. But I see that Jayson has 8GB and has the same problems. I have never messed with the BIOS on this machine so I assume they are set to a standard setting.
My next idea is to monitor the CPU usage graph as I run the movie. Does anyone know how to do this in Windows 7?

Open Task Manager and click on Performance,,and at the bottom you will see Resource Monitor,, click to open, and you will several options including CPU. There are gadgets that will do the job but this will get you the same result. Intel Core i7 3770K 3.6 Ghz,
GTX 680, 2 X Benq23 3D monitors,
6G DDR3, Win 7 64, Win 10 (Insider) 64
PCIE SSD, Intel Sata SSD 2 500 Gbyte Seagate,
Minoru 3D WebCam, NVIDIA 3D Vision-Ready

Thanks Kingsmeadow. Pretty easy.
Interesting results. I would be interested to see if you guys are getting something similar.
When no programs are running my CPU is running about 2-5%. When I open PD10 and my movie, but it is not running, it jumps to a pretty consistent 50-55%. Once the movie is being previewed, but on pause, it is hovering around 75%. When the movie is running it runs between 75 and 100%. When it hits 100% it begins to skip and then freeze. This happens not only on transitions, but more often than not. There is always a spike as the next clip begins.
Something else that is interesting is that some clips require more CPU usage than others. A few clips can run at 75% while others spike and push the usage up to 85-90%. These are the problem clips, of course.
I tried pausing the movie here and there when the usage spiked to see if I could stop the freeze. Maybe the CPU could catch up. Nope. Didn't work.

Quote: Thanks Kingsmeadow. Pretty easy.
Interesting results. I would be interested to see if you guys are getting something similar.
When no programs are running my CPU is running about 2-5%. When I open PD10 and my movie, but it is not running, it jumps to a pretty consistent 50-55%. Once the movie is being previewed, but on pause, it is hovering around 75%. When the movie is running it runs between 75 and 100%. When it hits 100% it begins to skip and then freeze. This happens not only on transitions, but more often than not. There is always a spike as the next clip begins.
Something else that is interesting is that some clips require more CPU usage than others. A few clips can run at 75% while others spike and push the usage up to 85-90%. These are the problem clips, of course.
I tried pausing the movie here and there when the usage spiked to see if I could stop the freeze. Maybe the CPU could catch up. Nope. Didn't work.

I see you are running Vista,, I wonder if I read on this forum that Vista is sometimes a problem,,perhaps someone senior can confirm this. Intel Core i7 3770K 3.6 Ghz,
GTX 680, 2 X Benq23 3D monitors,
6G DDR3, Win 7 64, Win 10 (Insider) 64
PCIE SSD, Intel Sata SSD 2 500 Gbyte Seagate,
Minoru 3D WebCam, NVIDIA 3D Vision-Ready

Quote:
Open Task Manager and click on Performance,,and at the bottom you will see Resource Monitor,, click to open, and you will several options including CPU. There are gadgets that will do the job but this will get you the same result.

Personally, I prefer the gadgets. I have one that shows the individual CPUs, and another that is a GPU meter.

I just think they are easier to watch. Jerry Schwartz

Quote: 1. I couldn't find where to change the preview quality so I changed the preview screen size to as small as I could and still see the movie thinking this might reduce the load on the machine. Same result. Like ricm I then tried to render with no preview (in Standard rather the High Quality as before) and got the same freezing as before.

You adjust the preview quality by clicking on the rectangle below the preview viewer,
See the attachement.


Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

Fisher2223 -

Setting the Preview Quality to a modest level is very important when you're running a low end GPU (NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nForce 430) & a dual core processor. That's probably got a lot to do with the lagging/freezing you're experiencing.

Your DxDiag says Vista, but you mentioned Win 7. Which OS is it? or were you referring to a different PC?

kingsmeadow - yes, you have read the Vista comment in this forum. Perhaps the writer might clarify.

Cheers - Tony
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Hi all. I had the same problem unstable videos ( Jerky). No matter what i tried in preview, authoring, burning, the end results was not as good as what came out of the camera. Ask carl 312 I gave him a hard time. What i wanted to know what part of my computer was causing the problem. I came across this. Hit start button --control panel--systems--Windows Experience Index-=--. Read your lowest subscore, mine was 5.0 Primary hard disk. That tells you the weakest part of your computer, and can only perform to that level (5.0) the rest of my score was, 7.4--7.4--7.9--7.9--5.0 . 7.9 is the highest score you can achieve . By those readings I thought i had a top computer but the hard disk could not cope with the reading and writing on the same disk for HD editing. I bought and installed a SATA 7500 rpm hard disk and my rating went to 7.0 It has improved my blu-ray playback by 90% The only part of the video that is unstable is the first 4seconds. perhaps a 10,000 rpm hard disk would be better.To sum it up I believe if your computer cannot have a sub score of 6.5/7.9 forget about HD editing and burning of a blu-ray disk.Perhaps ALL moderators can confirm or deny this . Also all power director 10 users that claim they have good results please state your lowest sub score. Good luck.

Great stuff, Guys. Thanks.

First off, my mistake. I'm running Vista on this computer.

I've attached the Windows Experience results. Are they as bad as I think? Any ideas on how to increase them?

I adjusted the preview quality. Thanks Carl312. (Tough to miss that button.) Still catching as before.

It seems strange to me that the CPU is running at 50% (give or take) when all I have done is open PD10 and opened my movie file. The movie is not previewing/running.

Has anyone looked at the log files for ricm and myself? As far as I can tell my computer meets the minimum requirements for PD10.

Thanks again.