Ongoing problems after updating to windows 8.1

edega1

Newbie Joined: Jan 16, 2013 13:03 Messages: 12 Offline

Solved by

Jan 22, 2014 08:53

Hi everyone,

I've been unable to use PowerDirector for a couple of months now after updating my windows to 8.1. I've posted about these problems elsewhere on the forum and was very grateful to receive some good suggestions on things to try to fix my problems but unfortunately none of them were successful. I'm now in contact with cyberlink tech support but it's a very slow process and I'm finding it quite frustrating, as I wait for several days for a response and they then ask me to do something I've already told them I've done (usually it's just to keep uninstalling and reinstalling things!) I'm working towards a deadline and am getting increasingly stressed so I thought I might see if anyone has any other suggestions for things I might try.

The film I'm making is a stop motion animation so the only files I'm using are jpeg files, and they are all on one track. After updating to windows 8.1, I started having problems with playback. When I press play to preview my project, the film plays very slowly, it's jerky and it'll stop playing at random points on the timeline, despite there being no breaks on the timeline at all. My PC spec is:

Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-3770 (3.4GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard ASUS® P8H61-MX USB3/SI: uATX, USB 3.0, SATA 3.0Gb/s
Memory (RAM) 16GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 8GB)
Graphics Card 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 650 - DVI, mHDMI, VGA - 3D Vision Ready

The things I have already tried are:

Installing PD updates (v3230 and then v3625)
Updating my graphics card driver (to 331.82)
Various things within PD, like unchecking the 'enable HD video processing (shadow files)' box, lowering preview resolution
I've uninstalled and reinstalled PD several times

One suggestion I got from tech support was to try 'non real-time preview mode' but because my film is stop motion I need to be able to watch it through at the correct speed to ensure movement is smooth. Is there anything else anyone can think of that would be causing these problems? I'd be very grateful for any help with this problem!

Thank you!

edega1

Newbie Joined: Jan 16, 2013 13:03 Messages: 12 Offline

Jan 27, 2014 10:09

I thought it might help if I included a visual example of what's happening when I try to use my software. I made a video of my screen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM0FaXwZUSs

For some reason the screen capture software doesn't show what's going on in the preview screen (it's not blank when I preview it on my PC, just jerky!) but you can see from watching the timeline what's happening.

Thank you!

stevek

Senior Contributor Location: Houston, Texas USA Joined: Jan 25, 2011 12:18 Messages: 4663 Offline

Jan 29, 2014 10:45

Please post again when you have selected "movie" in the preview screen rather than clip. .
.
BoilerPlate: To posters who ask for help -- it is nice to thank the volunteers who try to answer your questions !
Anything I post unless stated with a reference is my personal opinion.

RobAC

Contributor Joined: Mar 09, 2013 18:20 Messages: 406 Offline

Jan 31, 2014 19:18

(Steve, at around the 1 min mark at the end it was switched to movie and it was still blank. It was brief- I almost missed it and had to watch a second time.)

Anyway- i just did a test myself with random pics in a time lapse doing the exact same thing you show and had no issues in my PD 12.

Have you already tried the following:

1.) Do you have your Preview quality set to "High Preview" or lower Resolution? (anything higher like Full HD Preview has always been weird and can give you blank stuttering.) I use High Preview always to get the best results.

2.) Have you tried selecting all pics in the timeline and clicking on the "Slideshow" tab above the pics?
Select "Timelapse" then "Customize" under the preview window that pops up, enter 10 -20 frames or so depending on how fast you want the pictures to switch.

Does that work? Because this is strange that you are getting that blank screen.

Rob
PD 14 Ultimate Suite / Win10 Pro x64
1. Gigabyte Brix PRO / i7-4770R Intel Iris Pro 5200 / 16 GB / 1 TB SSD
2. Lenovo X230T / 8GB / Intel HD4000 + ViDock 4 Plus & ASUS Nvidia 660 Ti / Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIZw3GPwKMo&feature=youtu.be

edega1

Newbie Joined: Jan 16, 2013 13:03 Messages: 12 Offline

Jan 31, 2014 20:34

Hi Rob and Steve,

Thank you both very much for responding to my post. I didn't explain this very well before but it's not actually a blank preview window I have a problem with. The preview window is working fine, it's just when I tried to make a video of my monitor (to show the forum the problem I'm having) the software I used (to capture what I was doing on the screen) didn't capture what was being displayed in the preview window, if that makes sense!

In reality, the preview window isn't blank, and I am able to (kind of) play back my video but it plays very slowly (despite the fact that the clips are VERY short) and playback is jerky and will suddenly stop playing at random points on the timeline.

I've tried all the preview quality options from high to low and it doesn't seem to make any difference at all, sadly. I haven't tried the slideshow method you suggested though Rob, I'll certainly give that a go and see if it helps.

It's very odd because before I updated to windows 8.1 I was working on the exact same project using the exact same methods and it worked fine. Very frustrating! Thank you for your advice though, I'll let you know how I get on :

edega1

Newbie Joined: Jan 16, 2013 13:03 Messages: 12 Offline

Feb 10, 2014 10:11

Hi,

Sorry it's taken me a while to respond, I've been away from home for the last couple of weeks.

Steve, here is a new screenshot video where I have made sure 'movie' is selected rather than 'clip' as you asked:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48VsPNc2STw

As you can see, I'm having the same problem. Just to reiterate, it's not the blank preview screen that's the problem (this is just an annoying feature of the screen capture software, it is not actually blank when I'm using PD) If you watch the timeline after I press play you can see it's playing the first few bits (but much slower than 00:00:01!) and then just stopping.

Rob- I had a go at using the slideshow option you suggested, but it plays it in exactly the same way ie very slow and it stops playing after the first three photos.

I'm really at a loss to know what to do with it, I feel like I've tried everything!

Ellie

Aus_Sean

Newbie Location: Australia Joined: Nov 27, 2013 19:55 Messages: 25 Offline

Feb 11, 2014 01:11

I'm at work, procrastinating, though cannot access youtube so taking a little blind stab at your problem. If you do a "render preview" does it work smoothly? If you don't know what I'm referring to, search youtube for "Power Director 12 render preview", Michael Bishop posted it. It may be a work around, but might assist for the time being. Have you made any colour correction to you video? I can add all sorts of graphics, but once I fiddle with colours, it slows significantly, to a point where if it's important colour correction I use the render preview alternative.

There's been quite a number of threads re NVidia drivers and issues with win8/8.1, can you revert back to the video driver pre-8.1 update?

edega1

Newbie Joined: Jan 16, 2013 13:03 Messages: 12 Offline

Feb 14, 2014 07:20

Hi Sean,

Thanks for your response, I just tried the render preview option but sadly I'm still having the same problem, it's playing really slowly and stopping playing suddenly for no apparent reason!

I haven't added any effects/colour correction at all to my video, it is literally just a collection of still photos set to play quickly one after the other, and for some reason Power Director just can't cope with it.

After much emailing back and forth (I think this has been going on for about 2 months now!) with tech support, I just received the following email:

"In regards to your concern for PowerDirector 11, I would like to inform you that CyberLink escalation team able to observe "stop suddenly" in PowerDirector11.

We will report this issue to RD team and further we found out that this issue may be mitigated by using .png files you may find jpg to png converter online and use it as a workaround."

I tried using png files instead of jpg but that didn't make any difference so it's looking like there's no solution to my problem. I'm not really sure what to do from here other than to try and request a refund for my PD software and look for some better software?