As much as I like the intuitive handling of this application, I am very much annoyed by serious issues with the Cyberlink PowerDirector 5.0.1227 (the most recent patch level). I use the software to mix together about 50 small MPEG1 videos (I recorded with my digital camera), a few titles and some sound files in WAV-format. (I also tried MP3 files, same problem with those).
My problem is:
At some point in the middle of the project the application just crashes without any error message. When I reopen the project it loads all the media files. At the point where the time line should be created the application crashes again. This happens with almost every video project I start (except the very tiny ones).
Now for the strange things:
I suspected an error in the PDS file. This I made backups of the PDS file regularly so I would be able to open older versions of the project in case of crash. But, whenever a crash within a new project happened, the old backup files (which were created at a point where everything was still fine) could not be opened either! I doubt that the PDS files are corrupt as they seem to be just simple plain text XML files.
I have no clue what causes the error. I tried reinstalling the application; no success. I tried launching the project file from a different computer; no success. Same error.
It is extremely annoying when you put hours of work into a video project, then it crashes, and then you cannot even open old backup files anymore. It is very strange that CyberLink doesn't come up with a solution for this common issue.
Any clues about how to solve this issue?
Thanks,
Frank