Some issues with PD20

goody_fyre11

Member Joined: Jul 10, 2018 21:18 Messages: 56 Offline

Solved by

Oct 16, 2021 21:05

I decided to get into PowerDirector 20 after using 17 for the longest time, and I'm having some issues with it, some of which are just things that are different from 17 that may not be able to be changed.

1. PowerDirector 17 had an option that was called something like "Enable Disk Operations" that allowed you to right-click on media in the media room and "Delete From Disk". I don't see this option anywhere in 20 and it's not a default feature.

2. Whenever you're playing your project in the editor, the line flashes between gray and red. How do I prevent it from flashing so it stays one color?

3. How do I add clips to a tag so that they only appear in the media room when I filter by that tag? By default, all imported media will appear in the media room all together. However, I can create tags on the left-hand side which lets me sort them. The problem is that I can't figure out how to add media to those tags so they don't appear all in one pane. I tried removing them from the project, highlighting the tag, then importing them again, but they just default to that one page where all the media gets imported to. How do I add tags to media to seperate them?

4. Has creating folders within the GUI for organizing clips been added yet? If so, then I don't need to worry about Problem 3.

5. Compared to 17, 20's editor feels laggy. There's no input lag, but there's things like screen tearing whenever you scroll through things. Is there a setting to use hardware acceleration for the editor itself?

6. Videos that have been sped-up with the Video Speed tool have a very hard time playing in the editor, often crashing the entire program. This was an issue in 17 as well. OpenCL is enabled and these are my specs:

Intel Core i9-10900K
NVIDIA RTX 2080 Super
64 GB DDR4 Memory
Samsung EVO 2TB SSD

There should be no lag when playing any kind of video in the editor, sped up or not, especially not with my specs. How do I fix this?

optodata

Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline

Oct 16, 2021 23:25

Quote 1. PowerDirector 17 had an option that was called something like "Enable Disk Operations" that allowed you to right-click on media in the media room and "Delete From Disk". I don't see this option anywhere in 20 and it's not a default feature.

That feature has been removed. You can use File | Rate Us & Provide Suggestions to see if they can bring it back

Quote 2. Whenever you're playing your project in the editor, the line flashes between gray and red. How do I prevent it from flashing so it stays one color?

Which line are you talking about? A clear description or a marked up screenshot or screen recording would help

Quote 3. How do I add clips to a tag so that they only appear in the media room when I filter by that tag? By default, all imported media will appear in the media room all together. However, I can create tags on the left-hand side which lets me sort them. The problem is that I can't figure out how to add media to those tags so they don't appear all in one pane. I tried removing them from the project, highlighting the tag, then importing them again, but they just default to that one page where all the media gets imported to. How do I add tags to media to seperate them?

4. Has creating folders within the GUI for organizing clips been added yet? If so, then I don't need to worry about Problem 3.

Try right-clicking on a blank area in the Media Library and use this

Quote 5. Compared to 17, 20's editor feels laggy. There's no input lag, but there's things like screen tearing whenever you scroll through things. Is there a setting to use hardware acceleration for the editor itself?

Depending on which types of edits you've made, lowering the preview resolution, using shadow files or using an intermediate codec like MagicYUV may help. You can also try updating your video driver and enabling/disabling OpenCL and Hardware Decoding from the Preferences | Hardware Acceleration tab.

Quote 6. Videos that have been sped-up with the Video Speed tool have a very hard time playing in the editor, often crashing the entire program. This was an issue in 17 as well. OpenCL is enabled and these are my specs:

Intel Core i9-10900K
NVIDIA RTX 2080 Super
64 GB DDR4 Memory
Samsung EVO 2TB SSD

There should be no lag when playing any kind of video in the editor, sped up or not, especially not with my specs. How do I fix this?

I'm not aware of any system that could play back a sustained section of sped up encoded video on the timeline. My CPU has nearly 2x the processing power and it can't do that either.

The reason is that PD has to decode the video stream one frame at a time and has to recreate every single intervening frame before it can pick the one frame it will use, then repeat the process every time for each usable frame. If you were using an intermediate codec (huge files size but with non-encoded frames), playback would be smooth even with sped up clips becuae each frame is a stand-alone image.

The quicker solution is to use the Range Selection tool then click on Produce Range to convert the hard-to-preview clip into a regular, finished clip.

Finally, the editor shouldn't crash under any circumstances. Post your DxDiag specs and maybe the MediaInfo details of the clip you're using to see if there might be a conflict.

goody_fyre11

Member Joined: Jul 10, 2018 21:18 Messages: 56 Offline

Oct 17, 2021 02:45

1. The "Create Folder" option is there, however it's always grayed out for me.

2. The blinking line is quite strange. It's this one:

https://imgur.com/a/LPB1ig5

However, the blinking effect doesn't show up if I record my window and screenshots of this line actually change depending on where the screenshot is oriented on my screen. I've never seen a screenshot change depending on where it is on my computer. It's bizarre.

Also, any reason why file operations were removed? That was very helpful.

JL_JL

Senior Contributor Location: Arizona, USA Joined: Oct 01, 2006 20:01 Messages: 6091 Offline

Oct 17, 2021 10:05

Quote 1. The "Create Folder" option is there, however it's always grayed out for me.

It's only available in the top level Media Library, if you are inside say a "tagged" library it is not available.

Jeff

goody_fyre11

Member Joined: Jul 10, 2018 21:18 Messages: 56 Offline

Oct 17, 2021 11:51

I wasn't inside a tagged library. It's grayed out in even the default one that all the imported media clips go into.

optodata

Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline

Oct 17, 2021 13:30

I don't recall ever seeing the playhead marker be anything but red, and about the only thing I can imagine is that it might be related to your video driver. Does anything change if you switch the timeline preview output color (YUV/RGB) or maybe the OpenCL setting?

As for the unusable Create Folder option, what happens if you first use File | Import Folder and choose a folder that has clips in subfolders. That should preserve the folder structure in the Media Library like this:

I also don't have any solid info on why the very helpful Delete from disk command was removed, but maybe this was the reason?

goody_fyre11

Member Joined: Jul 10, 2018 21:18 Messages: 56 Offline

Oct 17, 2021 13:40

PD17 didn't have the red line issue with this same driver. Also yeah, I imported a video and suddently the folder option became available.

One more thing - is there a way to restore the line colors for the "snap to" markers? In PD17 they were blue/yellow/red, but here they're all a dark gray color that can be hard to see.

JL_JL

Senior Contributor Location: Arizona, USA Joined: Oct 01, 2006 20:01 Messages: 6091 Offline

Oct 18, 2021 17:34

Quote PD17 didn't have the red line issue with this same driver. Also yeah, I imported a video and suddently the folder option became available.

One more thing - is there a way to restore the line colors for the "snap to" markers? In PD17 they were blue/yellow/red, but here they're all a dark gray color that can be hard to see.

Kind of odd that importing a video corrected the folder creating issue. If the "Media Content" is selected and it is empty, there is no right mouse button contextual menu for the "Create Folder" to be greyed out as was indicated.

My snap to markers appear to be the proper colors, nothing is shades of gray as indicated. Sounds like you've got some personalized color settings possibly at play, might try to "Restore defaults" in Nvidia control panel if you happened to be adjusting colors there.

Jeff