This is the troubleshooting guide I have been using> I have tried all suggestions at this point except trying to determine if I have the latest graphics card driver. I have put that one off a bit because I'm going to have my more tech savy son help me with it.

http://www.cyberlink.com/support/product-faq-content.do?id=14947&prodId=4

Quote: Let us know if you have a nVidia graphics card and if removing the geforce experience this solves your problem.

Using DirectX Diagnostic tool, I retrieved this information about the specs on my computer:

Card name: AMD Radeon R9 200 Series

Manufacturer: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

ALSO, FYI

Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit (10.0, Build 10586)

Processor: Intel Core i7-4790K CPU @ 4.00GHz (8CPUs), ~4.0Ghz

Thanks, that narrows it down that you don't have an Nvidia card and are not experiencing the common crash that tomasc linked for you.

Can you post the following two screens so we can see a little better exactly what you have?

1) project window with pref opened with the "Hardware Acceleration" tab active, the same as pic PD14_CD2
2) the create disc setup page so we can see exactly the settings used, the same as pic PD14_CD1

Once verified exactly what you have we can walk through a few options and just using the "Create a folder" so one is not wasting your discs to see if issue can be narrowed down. To be honest, I've seen chapters hang rendering and simply redoing all the chapter points resolves the issue. First things first, post these to screen captures and from there maybe we can crawl and get some resolution.

I don't think it has anything to do with the size of your project. I burn larger projects on a near weekly basis.

Thanks
Jeff

Thank you Jeff. I believe this is what you wanted.

Thanks, I would try the following to debug and maybe localize the issue you are having. Start by copying your "Super 8 BluRay Experimenting with Menu.pds" to test1.pds so we are not working on your original pds file.

In the pref > "Hardware Acceleration" make sure nothing is checked.

Load test1.pds into PD14 and in the "Chapter Room" delete all chapters and then navigate to "Create Disc" module and select "No menu" from "Menu Preference" tab and try to burn with just your disc iso setting. If this creates a iso without hanging, you have a good starting point. This would show the "Create Disc" module can encode your timeline without issue.

If above was successful, copy your "Super 8 BluRay Experimenting with Menu.pds" to test2.pds.
Load test2.pds into PD14 and navigate to "Create Disc" module and select a default menu from "Menu Preference" tab (World Monopoly is fine) apply to all pages and try to burn with just your disc iso setting. Be patient, it will take some time to create 33+ pages of the menu structure during the less than 20% progress bar region. Additionally, when using a menu with 99 chapters you may get a hang/not responding near the 20% progress mark, just sit tight for awhile and see if progress continues.

If above was successful, copy your "Super 8 BluRay Experimenting with Menu.pds" to test3.pds
Load test3.pds into PD14 and in the "Chapter Room" delete all chapters and then navigate to "Create Disc" module and select your menu from "Menu Preference" and apply to all pages and try to burn with just your disc iso setting.

If test1.pds was not successful, your option is to try and "Produce" the timeline as at times that can be successful even though the timeline encoding during "Create Disc" fails. This produced file can then be used in a new project to create a disc.

Jeff

Test 1 was successful. Test 2 was not, it locked/froze at 16%, despite giving it time to come out of it. I did not try any further tests. So if I'm following what you are doing here, maybe that narrows it down to 1) hardware acceleration, 2) the chapters, or 3) my custom menu.

Good info, so now we know it's something with a menu since test1.pds was successful. My first guess would be your chapters since they caused a canned PD14 menu to fail at 16% which is during the menu page creation stage. Again, as I mentioned earlier I've seen these "Chapter points" get corrupt for a better lack of words and simply need to be redone. I know 99 of them.

Since test2.pds failed, I would do the same test2 with all 99 chapters deleted, or at least 50-99 deleted since you failed around 16% and see if you are successful. If this is successful, I'd do the same with your custom menu. If that's successful, then I hate to say it but I think that's pointing to your chapters and to try and correct you need to redo your 99 Chapter points.

My project trying to mimic yours as close as possible with 99 chapters, same overall duration is successful so some hope.

Jeff

Quote: I am new to Power Director and created my first video on blu ray. When I preview the disc before burning everything works great but after the disc is burned the navigation buttons on the scene menu disappear. They are there but invisable. I have tried reloading the program, recreating new menus, using different nav. buttons etc. but nothing has worked. Does anyone know how to fix this problem? Is there a bug in the power director program regarding menus? Thank you!

Hello, Stacey!

Chapters in a video need to be set whilst the video is on the timeline. This can be done in three ways, 1) Set chapters evenly by number of chapters[you determine how many chapters you want in the video]. 2) Set chapters evenly by time[this depends on the length of your video, if, say 25 minutes, and you select 5 minute spacing, then four chapter markers will appear, at 5, 10, 15 and 20 minutes respectively, if the video is slightly longer than the 25 minutes, a fifth marker will appear at 25 minutes]. 3) Set the chapters randomly at your own discretion[you watch your video and set chapter markers by clicking the C+ icon at your chosen points]. There is a fourth option which, if you've used several different videos and strung them together on the timeline, will insert a chapter marker at the beginning of each video. When you've set your chapters, then you switch to "create Disc" and you'll see your naviigation buttons on the screen in your menu. Hope this is of help.

Cheers!

Neil.

Just like to elaborate on recreating chapters out of necessity. I see problems when new chapters are added later in between what has already been set.

Example of this: Use auto chapter selection on my other NLE allows one to place chapters anywhere forward and backward on the timeline and it previews properly but the disc will not. On PD users have claimed problems also and asks why it previews okay but not the same in the final disc.

Say a 90 chapter timeline and a new chapter is needed between chapter 50 and 51. I would write down the time of every chapter on paper. Delete all chapters 51 through 90. Add the new chapter 51. Add the other 40 chapters in time sequence as written on paper. You have 99 chapters which is easy once you have written the times on paper. Adding chapters in increasing time is the way I do it. Be ready for the next test as suggested by Jeff.

Also see that in your Preferences.png that you have shadow files enabled. With a pc of your description you probably don’t need them if the clips are already sd and you are creating in sd video.

Don’t want to contribute to information overload. I would go ahead and do the next test. You can reuse BD-RE.

I ran the tests Jeff suggested and have concluded that there must be a problem with my chapters. Since I have to re-do them all anyway, I am going back through a more time-consuming process of making sure the chapter points and names match my 3 DVD version of this project. That way, whether there are 3 DVD discs or 1 BR disc, I have 99 chapters all with the same names. Just an update here. Will post more later.

Thanks for the update. On your next project think about this: You can have 3 separate 99 chapter 8 GB DVD-DL projects. That way if you ever decide to create a Blu-ray project it will be easy. Just select a menu, import all 3 projects, author, and burn. There is no need to create a separate project for BD at all like you are doing now. Save time.

99 Chapters? Ouch! That's one heck of a lot of chapters to be putting onto a video! I usually limit myself to about 15 or 20 chapters, depending on the length of the video, if it's going to run for at least an hour, that is. If it's a 30-minute job, probably 5 chapters will do, but if it's really short, like 5 minutes, then it becomes the chapter itself, in among other clips of roughly the same length.

Cheers!

Neil.

Quote: Thanks for the update. On your next project think about this: You can have 3 separate 99 chapter 8 GB DVD-DL projects. That way if you ever decide to create a Blu-ray project it will be easy. Just select a menu, import all 3 projects, author, and burn. There is no need to create a separate project for BD at all like you are doing now. Save time.

THANK YOU! This is a VERY intruiging suggestion. I had no idea this was possible. Thank you. I'm at a point where I could still do this. Time saving is good, but moreover, it might help me accomplish another goal inasmuch as I wish I had maybe 15 or 20 more chapter spots total. For example, in trying to stay within 99 chapters, I combined footage of an airplane crash and a circus, but I left them together because they were in consecutive order and I didn't think a lot of people would want to watch (or rewatch) either one - they get to skip both at the same time. Haha. So 3x99 possible is better than 99, so if you are saying that's possible by this method and would work on a BD player, then that's actually better for alot of reasons (cousins, brothers, aunts, uncles are very likely going to want to skip things and find themselves/their families in a chapter, etc).

My only concern/question would be that I also really need a "Play All" feature on the BD. My mother has Ahlzeimers, lives in Assisted Living, and above anything else, I want someone who works there to be able to just come in, press play, and she can watch all 5 1/2 hours if she wants. She can't navigate a BR menu and won't be attempting to skip chapters. I don't want it to stop between disc 1, disc 2, disc 3, so-to-speak.

No need to go to any effort to try this on your end if you do not know the answer off the top of your head. I can try it myself this evening. Just wanted to share my thought process here.

The underlying video is Super 8 shots from the 1960's and 1970s and 80's. The cartridges they used way back then were ony 4.5 minutes long. Then after developing, they could be spliced into larger rolls. So he would film some event (say, Easter), for maybe a minute or two. That event might have a huge part of the extended family in it. Then the next event he filmed might be a birthday, back at our house, with only immediate family, and again only a minute or two, tops. Then it might skip to an airshow and film 3 rolls (haha). I had to cut quite a bit of that out. Don't get me wrong, some chapters are 10 minutes long, like vacations taken where the subject stays consistent. Suffice it to say, the level of interest is going to change depending on who is watching and what is there - people obviously like to watch themselves. So I know 99 chapters is a ridiculous number of chapters, and the fact that I might even want more is going to make some people question my sanity. I would NEVER do that on stuff I film now, but becuase of the nature of the footage (5.5 hours of lots of short scenes covering 20 years) and its purpose, I like the idea of using a greater-than-usual (perhaps bordering on ridiculous, I know) number of chapter points.

The use of 99 chapters is a title limit. It was discussed in some detail here years ago, http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/8838.page;jsessionid=EAA0B0C76B59588116C3F64AF5FE0F56#37686 Since your custom menu template is only text base is a good thing, the motion thumbnails become too "expensive" size wise and consume too much of the menu size allotment.

Yes, one can have a DVD or BD with more than 99 chapters, you simply need to import each pds project in the "Create Disc" module so they are a "Title". Each "Title", i.e. unique timeline, can only have 99 Chapters.

You can effectively also have a "Play All" on the BD depending how you specify "Title" playback action.

Jeff

I am no longer having the problem with the computer hanging/locking up during the "authoring step." What I did to get there was following the advice of re-doing the chapters carefully and in order, without going back and inserting any new ones. Out of an abundance of precaution, I did not go back and delete any either unless it was the last chapter in the timeline (the one I was currently working with).

Although this may not have been necessary, before starting this, I "produced" the video in my timeline first and worked with the produced in a new project video. I did this because there was a lot going on there with titles, very short interspliced black color boards, transitions, that I thought may be interfering with the chapter points.

So, now that it will go through the "authoring" step correctly, my next step is to get back to the button issue. I will post. I cannot tell tomasc and Jeff "thank you" enough.

Quote: 1st fix found earlier is to author and burn your video using a previous version of PD although you could edit and produce the mpeg-2 file with PD14.

2nd fix is to use a Cyberlink menu such as Cinematic which is the default menu in PD14. It has 6 thumbnails instead of 10 in your custom menu.

3rd fix is to use H.264 instead of mpeg-2 for video encoding. Your 10 item text only menu should display those navigation buttons previously missing and you could also add about another 2 hours of video to that BD to fill it up if you want to.

Thank you tomasc. I think I am down to the 1st or 3rd options because I do not want to give up my custom menus. I have tried the third option several times tonight. Every time I try to encode my newly cleaned up project (no chapter problems now) in mpeg-2 I do not get a lockup/hang, however, everytime I try to encode in H.264 I do get a lockup/hang. This is all happening in the "authoring" step - just saving a disc image as you all suggested during testing.

I have not tried the 1st option and don't think it sounds very pleasant after spending all of this time redoing chapters, etc. Crossing my fingers that someone will send an update that fixes the bug that is preventing the navigation buttons from showing up.

Based on what you have done before try the second option for now. Save the project as a slightly different name each time adding like 1, 2, 3, etc. as suggested by Jeff so that you could always go back. On the Menu Preferences tab choose the 6 thumbnail Cinematics menu and uncheck all 4 checkboxes on the left bottom of your screen.

On the 2D Disc tab choose BD 25GB, MPEG-2, etc.

On the Burn in 2D tab, I see that the Enable Hardware Video decoder is grayed out. Don’t check it. Uncheck Save as disc image. Check Create a Folder. Create a filename at the end of the path to your liking. If you get a message that there is not enough space then change it to BD 50GB. Don’t worry. The folder will fit in a BD 25GB when you get ready to burn it. I believe that there may be a limit of 1 GB for menus but is not sure of this in PD14.

Let us know if the folder is created successfully.

P.S. I do not know why you are not able to create a h.264 encoded disc image but mpeg-2 was okay. I have not contacted Cyberlink support. This may be yet another bug in PD14. I never create disc images because I have to burn them to a disc to find out if there are bugs or typos, and other problems or mistakes wheras I can always check the created folder on my hard drive for problems and play it with a software player such as vlc or powerdvd, etc. before burning it to disc using say imgburn or powerdvd.

On second thought try the h.264 encoding first in Create a folder with Save as disc image unchecked. If this works then you have found yet another bug in PD14.

Changing the graphics card driver may be required for the h.264 hardware encoding to work and may be necessary to get the created folder. For now leave it alone. You have other things to do first.

Good luck.

Quote: Crossing my fingers that someone will send an update that fixes the bug that is preventing the navigation buttons from showing up.

Here you go, http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/4388.page Simply follow the 5 steps outlined there and you should be good, at least it works for me in PD14 with BD, MPEG2, and a custom menu with 99 chapters.

Jeff

Quote:

Quote: Crossing my fingers that someone will send an update that fixes the bug that is preventing the navigation buttons from showing up.

Here you go, http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/4388.page Simply follow the 5 steps outlined there and you should be good, at least it works for me in PD14 with BD, MPEG2, and a custom menu with 99 chapters.

Jeff

Thanks Jeff. I thought I knew what you were referring to until I got to the step that says "adjust sliders to the left..." I could not see any sliders except those which move the entire title page around on the screen (horizontally and vertically) in menu designer. That does not affect the degree of the zoom. I noticed this fix was from PD7 and I am in PD14, so I also had wondered if maybe that explains why I don't see the slider you are talking about. I could also just be confused.



Jerry

Quote: Good luck.

Tomasc, the wealth of information you conveyed in that last post is apprecaited. I am especially hopeful that your "P.S." suggestion means that I can do testing of what the BD will look like without actually having to burn a BD. Even trying to be conservative, I am going through a stack of those things like they grow on trees with all of my testing.

As far as the rest, I will get to work on that this ASAP and report back.

P.S. I have thought of a Plan B if I can't get it to work with your much apprecaited assistance and/or Jeff's much appreciated assistance. You're gonna think it's hokey, but why couldn't I just use photoshop and try to carefully place buttons on the background picture? I think the number and type of buttons differ depending on how deep you are into the menus, so I would have to create several different background photos, and then use those background photos in several very similar but slightly different custom menus. Then I could "apply to this page only" instead of "apply all." Super cheezy way to fix this, but at some point I have to weigh the benefits/time associated with trying to fix it "the right" way. Now, under this way of fixing it, I could not get the navigation buttons to be anything other than just static; the "underlining" that shows up when you are trying to select the buttons with a DVD/BD remote would have to line up perfectly with the background image.

The things pictured in my custom menus are photos of my Dad's Super 8 camera, a photo of the stack of film canisters he labeled with an old label maker, and a photo of one of the reels of film, etc (all the actual stuff, not stock/internet photos). With so many chapters, I want a list only and 10 chapters per page. I didn't want anyone to think I was totally crazy in thinking I need the custom menu so bad. The default menus are fine for testing, I get that, but the final product has to have the custom menu or it's no bueno.

somemildviolins - Excellent Idea you have. It can be simpler than you think. Change your preview quality to full HD. Maybe temporarily add a white background to the menu. Take a screenshot of the preview of the second scenes menu. Save the screenshot and your 4 buttons will be permantly there on the scenes menu after processing with photoshop and saving as a png with a a transparent background with only the 4 button showing. In menu designer that would be your scenes page background.