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That backup CD should work, your key they gave you should activate it. They give you a limited window of time to get your download and when folks encounter failed downloads and cannot get the complete file by the end of that window (I forget if it's 2 days, 3 days or what) you are blocked.
Cyberlink does not handle this, they have a contract with Digital River to manage the download delivery and unfortunately it can be complicated.
My advice for folks purchasing would be to order the "box" version and wait for that to arrive. Or pay the extra $10.95 for the backup CD and don't get too frustrated if the download method goes south.
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How much memory do you have on that ATI?
I had to replace an ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT that had 256MB with an Nvidia GeForce 8800GT 512MB to solve problems with both PD7 and another editing program.
So the first thing I wondered about is your ATI card.
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I could find no way to hear audio when "scrubbing through" the timeline. However if your audio you need to edit on the beat is the audio on the timeline you can expand the timeline until you can easily see the beats on the audio track and just keep repeating playback until you see the exact beat you want to edit on.
Unfortunately this doesn't seem to work on the music track as the waveform does not show there.
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John,
When dealing with trying to work a project between different builds, releases, and versions of a given software, there is frequently a compatibility problem. The conventional advice (and wisdom) has been once a project is started in one build or version it is best completed in that one.
What I would do depends on what format you are trying to edit. Best and most reliable would be to do the re-install as suggested being sure you have a clean registry after uninstalling and before re-installing.
Then go back to your original media and begin the edit anew. Could be a bit of a PITA but I find when I've had to do that I pretty much remember enough of what I did and it's gone far faster than I dreaded (and this was with other software).
Approach #2 is if you edited in standard def. Clean off or delete material in the title track and the music track and render to a full screen AVI. Then in build 1915 import that AVI as new media, have PD7 detect scenes and when that is done drag 'n drop the scenes to the timeline in order. Add new titles on the title track and redo the music on the music track.
If you use the magic music (SmartSound) seriously consider acquiring their standalone music program. Right now the Express Tracks Edition is free with any music purchase from their albums and for very limited time they still offer 6 new albums for $49.95. I just snapped up Scoring Suites at that price even though I already have the Scoring Edition software.
This package will let you score to specific lengths and export to a file you can drag 'n drop to the music track of almost any video editing package. And all of their newer disks are multilayer giving you tremendous flexibility in muting or reducing specific instrument layers.
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From what I've seen trying PD7 on three different computers, one being quad core and two being dual core, the resolution of the AVCHD clips has some bearing on how fast or sluggish things get.
I have Canon HF100's and the full 1920x1080 files seem to be handled without seeming sluggish on the quad core 2.4Ghz machine which also has a GeForce 8800GT 512MB graphics card.
A dual core AMD 64x2 5000+ (meeting minimum specs according to Cyberlink) was some sluggish and often gave stuttering playback from the timeline.
A laptop with Intel Core2 Duo dual core 2.0Ghz will edit 1440x1080 files albeit a tad slow.
Until I put the GeForce 8800GT in the quad core machine, using Pinnacle Studio 11 it would warn of not enough graphics memory to edit 1920x1080 using hardware acceleration and proceeded to shut that off. Attempting to continue editing was successful but extremely sluggish for a while. But I also had frequent crashes. Setting the camera for 1440x1080 helped a lot, I was able to edit a couple of projects without too much trouble. A bit slow but AVCHD tends to be slow to some degree in many editors.
You might try setting your camera for 1440x1080 and see if that improves things any. On the tests I ran, looking at rendered WMV files on computer with Samsung 21.6" monitor, and BD compliant output to regular DVD+R played on a Sony Blu-ray connected to 42" LCD 1080p TV resolution still looked great.
The situation is likely to get worse with the next generation of AVCHD camcorders coming. Mine is 17Mbps at 1920x1080, 12Mbps at 1440x1080. The Canon HF11 just released has 24Mbps and other manufacturers are looking at similarly increased bitrates.
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Mine is OK for now but if I had the resources to get another machine I would go for quad core 3GHz or faster if possible. My answer to your question is:
BOTH! More cores AND more speed.
I'm seeing references to Q6700 or Q9300 (I have Q6600 and it's just barely OK for AVCHD) processors so I'd look at maybe a Q9300 and whatever MB it works well on.
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It is most likely graphics related.
I had the same problem in a desktop quad core and a graphics card with 256MB on board. When I changed to an Nvidia GeForce Nvidia 8800GT with 512MB on board the problem went away.
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Ray, we need to see a sample short clip showing what you describe.
Also what format are you working in? SD, HDV, AVCHD?
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Joe,
Titles reside on the title track, not on the main video track. If you are not starting out on the main track with some kind of "leader" the first title will overlay on the first video clip(s) on the main video track.
Go up to the light grey media bar and click on the down arrowhead at the right. You will get a pulldown menu with media choices, select color boards. Now click on the black one and drag it down to the main video track on the timeline, and stretch it out for say about 8-10 seconds.
You should have nothing on the timeline at that point except a black clip. Go to the title room and pick the first title style and drag it down to the title track. Edit it to show what you want and then adjust it's length to less than the black clip on the main track.
Now add a few of your wedding video clips after the black clip and when you play it you should see black, then your title on black, then black followed by the first video clip.
Also what I said above about titles fading in and out is incorrect. In PowerDirector the only way I found to make titles fade in and out is to set them up as a separate video project, render them to a file and re-import the file so you can put that on the main video track. There you can apply the fade transitions.
Transitions do not work on the title track.
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I've only been able to come up with one way. Using black background.
Transistions, including the fade, do not function on the title track. So what I did was to:
1. Place a black color board on the timeline in a new project.
2. Place and edit the title on the title track set to the same length as the black color board.
3. Produce (render out) that to a media importable file. In my case I work with AVCHD media so I rendered to a streaming 1440x1080 WMV file.
4. Open the project that needs the title and import that title clip, place it between 2 black color boards, then add the fade transition to the beginning and the end of the title clip.
When you play it you see a black frame, the title fades in then fades out to black.
This might also work for a title over video as long as there is little to no movement in the video clip you use.
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Quote:
There is mention of a trial build 1915 if I remember correctly, yet the Cyberlink link points to an build 1829 at Cnet, and I have not found a link to 1915 anywhere (trial).
Download the trial version again but this time from this section of this site (http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/download/trials_4_ENU.html), that one will always be the latest build, in this case it is 1915.
Cnet and other sites will probably always have an older build.
Quote:
My issues are random freezes at start (logo screen), if I get past that, then I am free to edit, but when I go to author or burn, I get the same freeze again (not always but a good portion of time). These freezes affect my entire computer, not just the program, I have to "hard reset" to recover. I am running an AMD 3000+XP with 2Gig of RAM, 250G HDD, Nvidia 6600 video with 256MB Vram. OS is Windows XP Home SP2.
I suspect your editing computer is not up to what editing takes these days. Are you trying to work with DV, HDV, or AVCHD?
What you list should be able to handle DV and I surmise that is what you are trying to edit.
I suggest first uninstalling PowerDirector entirely, run something like WiseRegistryCleaner or the Registry Cleaner part of CCleaner (formerly Crap Cleaner) both free, then download the trial from the link above and give that a try. Some of your issues may have been corrected in the 1915 build.
One other idea. Video editing is RAPIDLY moving in directions that will absolutely require an extremely fast dual core or serious quad core processor. The relatively new machine with AMD Athlon 64x2 5000+ dual core processor I purchased 11 months ago had to be set aside because it was too sluggish with HDV (and that's with 3GB RAM)
What it takes for me to edit AVCHD is one with Intel Q6600 quad core 2.4Ghz processor, 4GB RAM (although a 32bit OS only accesses 3GB), and an Nvidia 8800GT 512MB graphics card (and the processor is a tad slow for some software)
It's getting insane.
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We need a tad more information here.
Does the aspect ratio of your project on the timeline match that of the video?
Do you lose edge material from both the sides and the top and bottom?
Most camcorders do "overscan" and actually capture a bit more than you see in the viewfinder or on the LCD. I once had a lens hood fit on my wide angle that did not appear in the image on the LCD or viewfinder, but once I imported it into an editor I could see edges of it. Fortunately the editor allowed some zooming into the video allowing me to effectively "crop" it out.
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Bob,
If that patch is to correct the problem in future video projects but will do nothing on the current one you have 40 hours invested in, you might try this:
Keep the current project as reference and start out fresh, saving your pds file under an alternate filename. I had to do that once for another reason (a captured video file had corrupted and I had to recapture an hour long tape) and even without a reference I was able to accomplish a re-edit in about 1/3 the time it took me to do it the first time.
Just a suggestion but if the patch works it should save the project for you.
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I don't fully understand all the details of it, but from what I've read AVI is not a single format rather it seems to be a "wrapper" and there are different format variations of AVI.
What a lot of still cameras use for "movie" mode isn't always fully compatible with video editing programs and this may be part of what you're running into.
However if the "large file" AVI you render to can then be imported as media and put on the timeline to be edited give that a try and see if you can render to a satisfactory looking MPEG2.
Before I moved into HD, I used to render projects to DVD and then to AVI so that I would have a copy that could play on a computer with Windows Media Player and the resulting AVI file was always huge'ish.
Give Power Director a run with some video shot with a good SD video cam or HD stuff and that will tell you more about the potential.
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Quote:
Beautiful pieces. The second one with blurr effect is mystifying ! 
Thanks for the kind words. The blur effect is a "radial blur" that came with one of the effects packs for Pinnacle Studio.
I haven't checked out the effects room much yet, but there is probably something similar there.
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Thanks guys,
Both of those were entered in competition, neither won anything.
The winning entries were superb. I enter some of these challenges knowing the kind of talent I'm going up against. There is a good interchange of comments from the competitors and it's very much like "free film school".
dvinfo.net has 2 challenge venues, one is more the "story telling" type and when I can get actors this one is the most fun to do. The other is more environmental in theme and these two short films were done for that venue.
The UWOL (Under Water Over Land) challenges are limited to 3 minutes with titles and credits not counting against time so long as they are not obnoxiously long.
The "story" venue challenges are usually limited to 3 minutes including titles/credits but occasionally a theme allows up to 5 minutes.
Watching each contest over the last year and half and seeing what folks accomplish it's very apparent that everybody who participates regularly grows in video making skill.
Anyway last night I uploaded another one that is not a polished finished product but uses a portion of the material from a project I'm working on as I can. It was edited in PowerDirector.
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Put black color board on the main video track and stretch it out to 2 minutes or 10 minutes by clicking on the right hand edge and dragging it out to the timecode desired on the timeline.
Go to the title section and click and drag whichever style you want to edit down to the title track. Set it's duration to 1 second and edit the text in it to show 09:59 (for a 10 minute countdown), enlarge that and put it in the center of the screen. Use one of the bold colors for the numerals.
Leave the title track "selected" and go up to the director's chair icon, click, then click on edit, click copy, then paste.
Keep doing this until you fill the timeline title track with one second titles, then go back and double click on each and edit the numerals so the second one is 09:58, the third 09:57 and so on until you have them all edited on down to 00:01.
When you play it you will have a digital countdown by the second. It'll take a while, I just tried it for 5 seconds and it works.
Be sure to save it as a pds file and you can bring it back and add a video presentation to it any time.
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Sophie,
I think all editing programs do the same thing. You generally cannot leave spaces inside a project on the timeline.
However, you can at any time insert a clip between any two clips on the timeline. The only problem I've encountered doing this has been where I try to insert a clip where a transition such as a fade already occupies the conjunction of two clips, then the one I'm trying to insert jumps to another junction point.
So I delete the transition, put the insert clip where I want it, and then redo the transition.
You have the flexibility you want, you just have to do it in a different manner than you picture in your mind. It still works out the same and after you do it a few times you'll get used to it.
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Two things come to mind. Check your virtual memory (pagefile I believe). This is disk space used as extra memory and you can concievably configure as much as 4 times the amount of RAM installed on your system.
I have 4GB RAM so right now I have 12GB of virtual memory allocated.
Also, whenever I'm about to give an editor a critical task (rendering to me is quite critical) I shut the computer down normally (power down as if through for the night) and then do a power up "cold boot", start up the editor and go right into the intended task. The theory is you start with fresh memory allocations since nothing else has used memory that might not be released.
Just a couple of guesses that might be worth a try.
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I very rarely use the "exotic" transitions, I feel they call too much attention to themselves. So I mostly use fades and dissolves.
The one marked "fade" in the transitions "room" is really a dissolve from one scene to the next, what used to be called a "lap dissolve" in film days when you often had to do it by fading to black, rewind an appropriate length of film in the camera, then start filming while you opened the iris to get a cross dissolve from one scene to the next.
Power Director doesn't seem to have a true fade to black or fade in from black as found in some other editors so I make my own where needed by combining the "cross dissolve" it does have with a black color board. It works.
I haven't tried it yet but we should be able to effect a fade to or from white by using the fade in conjunction with a white color board.
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I'm going to guess your AMD 64x2 dual core 4000+ may be part of the problem.
With AMD dual core 5000+ considered the minimum for AVCHD editing in PD7 (and I know you can't even get to the editing interface right now), and mine (AMD 64x2 dual core 5000+) was extremely sluggish to the point I wouldn't even attempt a project with it, you might want to look at something with more processing horsepower.
I'm running PD7 Ultra on a machine with Intel Q6600 2.4Ghz quad core processor and to get it work right I had to change out graphics cards from an ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB to GeForce 8800GT with 512MB (it appears that in my machine the 256MB on the graphics card was likely a serious constraint).
I don't know, it's tough to suggest someone may have to get a new machine to use a certain program but I can tell you that what is coming down the road in the way of hi def improvements will pretty much require it.
Good luck to you.
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