Quote: When is used? When need PD to decode during the editing process?

Reading about hw accell in Cyberlink website it's used in these processes:

1. Speed up video effect render/preview
2. Hardware decode
3. Hardware encode

I'm not a heavy user of video effects and also didn't produce so many videos, so want to know more about the 2. to understand if hw accelleration (meaning buy a new videocard) it's useful for me.

Hardware decode and Hardware encode is directly dependent on the brand of Video card and the Software Version of that Video Card.

Just how useful hardware acceleration is depends on many factors.

On my System, I rarely use Hardware Acceleration because it often creates artifacts in the video.

If you have a very fast CPU, you will not lose much time in rendering VS hardware acceleration.
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.

I didn't have a powerful CPU nor can I update it being on a laptop.

As written in my other post

http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/39104.page

I'm trying to understand where can I better invest money to do the only possible upgrades: more RAM, bigger SSD or external videocard.

First two are easy shot, the last one its more difficult to achieve (but with really big benefit in term of available GPU performances) so I want to understand the real benefits during my powerdirector usage process having a powerful videocard.

In my opinion you would do the following: 1) Add memory 2) Install a large SSD 3) Don't worry about a video card.

I just installed a 500G SSD in my laptop and everything runs faster. That may be enough.

If you are not a power user of PowerDVD 12, what are you expecting to get from a video card? As Carl says, you might get a little bit of speed but you may also NOT get as clear a video. Is you video vhips up to date with the latest drivers?

Are you having issues with the program creating the shadow files (decoding)?

One of the questions I would like to have answered is how long does it take you to encode a video? I may be as short as 1:1 or as long as 10 to 1. What formats are you encoding/decoding? What is the output from the program - DVD, video files, etc?

There are too many variables to give you a definitive answer BUT as far a an external video card, spend you money elsewhere. .
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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.

Just attention: I use PowerDirector, not PowerDVD.

Considering my average usage I didn't need speed in the produciton stage, being an amateur I didn't produce so much.

But I pass a lot of time in the editing process, and there I'm worried about the speed in the new project. A powerful videocard does speed editing? Where? That was the sense of my first question about video encoding: since I don't use many effects this is the only editing step I'm worried about that can be shorten from hw accelleration (considering Cyberlink state there are only three steps where hw accell does make some difference: effects, video encoding, production).

I think will adopt a step by step approach: first upgrade to PD12 and start working with the system as is to monitor bottleneck, next in case upgrade RAM and SSD (faster options) and let as latest the eGPU solution if I realize the need of.

Sorry, that was a typo. I did mean PowerDirector. .
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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.

Quote: I just installed a 500G SSD in my laptop and everything runs faster. That may be enough.

One of the questions I would like to have answered is how long does it take you to encode a video? I may be as short as 1:1 or as long as 10 to 1.

I installed a 480 GB in mine a couple of days ago, not expecting any increase in speed but they were on sale at Amazon for $230 and I was tired of micromanaging disk space. Unexpectedly, it decreased my rendering time by about 11%, although my WEI remained the same, 6.9, limited by my graphics score. Specifically, a 30 minute episode of The Beverly Hillbillies (about 21:30 after extraneous material removed) rendered in about 8 min., which had previously taken 9. Nice. Dell Precision 7510 Laptop
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit | Intel(R) XEON(R) CPU E3-1505M v5 @2.80 GHz
RAM: 32 GB
Windows Experience Index 7.5

In the meantime I bought and installed PD12 upgrade.

I also put all my 50GB videoclip in the SSD for faster access.

Now will start editing and will see the speed of the process and if RAM will be a problem, and maybe keep you posted.

In the meantime thanks you all for the suggestions, useful to make my mind about what to do.