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More than likely your video is of a variable framerate and not really 30fps constant. You can use a utility like MediaInfo to verify file framerate. Variable framerate files do/can/have caused PD issues. Converting the clips to a more compatible format at constant framerate with a utility prior to editing in PD often helps.
As added info, you can move audio at a 1/10 of a frame interval in PD, vs video which is adjusted at a frame interval.
Jeff
The files being produced by PowerDirector are in fact Variable, according to MediaInfo. Do you have a suggestion to stop PD from doing so?
Just for the record, my whole process involves this:
Take multiple MOV (29.97 fps, 1920x1080) files from camera
Use PD to stitch them together
Produce a single MP4 (1920x1080 29.97fps, H.264 AVC)
Start new project
Use PD to extract the audio from the MP4 as WAV
Tweak the WAV in Audacity
Place the MP4 and the WAV on the timeline
Lament that the WAV is longer than the MP4.
For the record, the original MOV files are Constant bit rate...
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Continuing the saga:
I tested three clips, all created with PD 15s presets, using the H.264 AVC preset:
1920x1080 at 120p
1920x1080 at 30p (my intended resolution)
1280x720 at 30p
I plopped all three into a new projected, extracted their audio, and put each one on the timeline with its extracted audio.
In all three cases, the WAV file was slightly longer than the MP4. The video is 1,26;16, and the audio is 1,26;17.
Of interest, nothing was gained between 30p and 120p. The audio was equally bad. However, the lower resolution (1280x720) was notably less bad. It's extracted audio was still longer than the clip it came from, but the difference was not as noticable until near the end of the clip.
Examining all three WAV files in Audacity, however, revealed three nearly identical clips. None was longer than the other.
I also attempted a custom profile with exactly 30 fps (instead of 29.97) and 1920x1080. This created a slightly shorter video file at 1,26;15, but the audio file was still longer at 1,26;16. Like the lower res example above, this was synced at the beginning, but did not sync by the end.
To add to the information on here:
Windows 10 Pro
PowerDirector 15 Ultimate
Core i5-2320 CPU (3.00 GHz)
32GB RAM
GPU: AMD Radeon 6800 HD, 1 (?) GB
(Yes, I know this is an aging computer...)
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And if audio can be moved at 1/10 frame interval, I do not see how. Mine snaps to the nearest frame when dragging, no matter how far I zoom in.
In PD15 to activate the 1/10 frame one needs to adjust in pref, pref > Editing "Enlarge timeline scale for audio track"
Jeff
Thanks, Jeff, I had just found that setting and was about to post it. You beat me to it.
That may help a lot.
I'm still a little bothered that the video clip is a different length. I attempted extracting the audio with an outside program (Hail, Audacity!). Dropping that audio into the timeline caused the same issue - the audio was longer than the video clip. The only thing I can think of is that PD is "reading" the video file wrong somehow, or without enough fidelity. It's also possible that the trouble lies somewhere in the difference between 30 fps and the 29.97 fps that PD seems to generate.
EDIT: Playing both the extracted audio and the video clip together, and they refuse to sync even now. Moving by 1/10 of a frame, or a few tenths, does not seem to help.
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More than likely your video is of a variable framerate and not really 30fps constant. You can use a utility like MediaInfo to verify file framerate. Variable framerate files do/can/have caused PD issues. Converting the clips to a more compatible format at constant framerate with a utility prior to editing in PD often helps.
As added info, you can move audio at a 1/10 of a frame interval in PD, vs video which is adjusted at a frame interval.
Jeff
Thanks for the reply Jeff.
The file in question was created by PD 15 itself, using the H.264 AVC format, 1920x1080 30p setting. As far as I know, the frame rate is not variable, nor do I know of any way to have PD "produce" fixed rates vs variable.
And if audio can be moved at 1/10 frame interval, I do not see how. Mine snaps to the nearest frame when dragging, no matter how far I zoom in.
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Okay, this one is frustrating...
It only just started happening. I drop a clip into the library, extract its audio, then put both the clip and the extracted audio on the timeline. The audio is exactly ONE frame larger that the clip it came from! (at 30 fps) Playing both the original clip at the same time as the extracted audio, and they are just out of sync enough to create a robotic sound. Syncing the audio does not work, because PD can only line up to the nearest frame, not to the half-frame. The longer clip is either just ahead of the original or just after the original, depending on if you line up the beginning or end. This never used to happen -- what's going on??
The only change was recently adjusting my output. For a small project, I briefly used a 640x480 MP4 (H.264 AVC) preset. Then and since coming back to my usual 1920x1080/30p (H.264 AVC) preset, this has been happening. What's going on??
EDIT: On VERY close inspection, the extracted audio for my current clip (this was happening elsewhere too) has 0.0217 secs of silence added to its start. This is less than the 0.0333 secs for each frame of 30 fps video. Because PowerDirector can only align to the closest frame, I'm always going to be off, unless I start trimming with a very precise scalpel.
But trimming was never necessary before, and adds a ton of precise time to my editing processes. Why is this happening?
EDIT2: Attempting with multiple files, of differing resolutions, had mixed results. SOme were fine, others were not.
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Hi All,
This thread has been referred to CL for their attention.
Cheers
PowerDirector Moderator
On 12/19 I got this reply, two weeks after my original support ticket:
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Dear Jonathan,Thank you for writing back.Regarding your concern, I would like to inform that we are able to reproduce the issue in our lab and the engineer is assigned to check the issue.Use the below mentioned link to get back for further queries:https://membership.cyberlink.com/support/service/technical-support.do Please feel free to contact us back for any further clarification or for any assistance related to CyberLink products.Thank You and Best RegardsDeepakCyberLink Technical Support
--------------
Another month later, and I have seen no further progress on this. I've had the software for almost two months - when is this going to get fixed? I'm putting out nearly two videos per week, and this bug is degrading the quality of each one.
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Thanks for referring this post. Please keep me updated on when a fix is available. I also have a tech support ticket open - but have only received a generic response thus far, asking for DxDiag and other unrelated info. And getting that took most of a week.
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Hi JonathanS -
You're absolutely right. PDR15 does go about it differently. As you say, it seems to blur the border into the font face, rather than just "outwards".
PDR14 & 15 screenshots attached.
Cheers - Tony
Thanks for the corroboration! But how do I get it to stop doing that? "Font Face" already has a blur option - if I wanted that effect I could enable it there!
(Nice work on your videos, by the way - I've encountered a few of them as I learn.)
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I upgraded from 14 to 15. I was disappointed to find out that 15 does not have any better audio quality (as I was promised). However, the big issue right now is that the titles are screwed up.
Adding blur to the borders of titles was a nice touch to keep the lettering legible while softening the effect. Something has happened with border-blur in 15, however, where not only is the border blurred, but so is the font "face" itself. This narrows the letters, robs them of their crisp edges, and makes them far less legible. Attached are screenshots from the rendered videos, one from PD 14 and the other from PD 15.
This is a major bug, and has put a complete stop on my workflow. I've been missing release date deadlines because of it.
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I have PowerDirector 14 Ultimate. Is it worth the upgrade to 15? Also, my version 14 came with AudioDirector 6. Will that still work if I upgrade since 15 Ultimate does not come with AudioDirector. Upgrade ends in 4 hours Ugh. So hopefully someone responds soon. ![]()
I picked it up for additional masking and crop/zoom functionality. Being able to crop a 16:9 video into a vertical rectangle on one side was useful to me, and to have masking that moves.
I was, however, promised that audio would be better. I purchased it, installed it, and found out that it wasn't. It's still maxed out at 384 kbps. I asked about it, and got brushed off. Also, my titles are screwed up.
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I am having this trouble, too. Same issue - WAV file audio from Audacity is not rendering a waveform. And similarly, I need to use it to be able to see when I begin speaking and where I have stopped. Without being able to see the waveform, I'm having to rely on the drop-the-needle method to figure out where the "keeper" parts are.
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Why? GTX960 works in PCI 2.0 slots too.Also, you are better off giving up to MOV files. QuickTime is not supported anymore by Apple and it has serious security flaws:https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/TA16-105A
Interesting. I did not know modern cards would fit into previous generations' slots. I figured there was a physical difference that would disallow it. And I cannot give up on MOV files, unfortunately. The Zoom Q8 camera will only record movies as MOV files. If it were not so, I would not have bothered purchasing PowerDirector in the first place, since most other files types can be handled by the wide variety of other (cheaper) software packages out there for Windows.
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SVRT only applies to unaltered sections of the timeline. Basically which portions of the timeline were not changed and thus can be skipped over during the rendering process. Any section of timeline that has any modification needs to be rendered, hence your red line.
If it's a common workflow of yours to apply color corrections, especially if to the whole timeline, these are primarily a CPU task and a improved GPU will offer little benefit even if hardware encoding is used.
Yes, I was coming to that understanding of how SVRT works, and I think in most cases it is not going to help me. Color correction (from within PowerDirector) did seem to help in a couple videos that I shot thus far, especially when I do not have the right environment setting (ex. Auto, Concert, Night) when I originally recorded the event, or for when lighting is less than ideal.
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@JonathanS - just ditch that ancient AMD card and get a nvidia GTX960 (not another number) - if your system is a desktop. That's the only way you will get correct and fast H265/HVEC encoding.
Thanks for mentioning this card. Alas - the graphics card is actually an upgrade in my even older desktop system (with a PCI 2.0 slot instead of a 3.0). To upgrade the videocard further, I likely have to replace the whole thing or build anew from scratch (which is awefully tempting right now).
Testing another theory posted here, I took two MOV clips, the first 18 minutes long and the second 17, and produced a single mp4 (H.264 AVC) file. I them opened the file up for editing in PowerDirector as a new project. I dropped it onto the timeline and went straight to Produce, and hit Intelligent SVRT. For the first time, it had a response, a single line custom profile, and I chose Apply. Finally, the SVRT radio dial became available.
However, I applied some crops, zooms, color corrections, titles, and a new wav sound track, and now, thogugh Intelligent SVRT produces a profile, the profile is red. There is a red bar across the entire project.
For now, since it is available, I will continue with Hardware encoding, since I cannot tell the difference (and because the camera image is pretty terrible, anyway, even in its raw form), and it shaves a good few minutes off of the longer projects. Eventually, I will be upgrading the camera, the mics, and the desktop, but the initial investments have to pay themselves off first.
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There still are discrepancies in your three posts. In this post you claim to updated to the latest video card driver on 5/20 for your AMD Radeon HD 6800: http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/48526.page . Doing that will disable all hardware acceleration (encoding) on that pc.
There's no discrepancy. This morning on 5/20, I updated to the latest Radeon HD 6800 driver, by the name of Crimson, and then proceded to use hardware acceleration. The website claimed it is their last update for this video card, since it has already moved to "legacy" support, and considered "beta."
Yes, under fast motion cpu encoding works well, gpu (HA - HE hardware acceleration) encoding can produce motion artifacts that does not appear under cpu encoding. Most people see no difference so that is why they use HA.
...
The speed increase in HE is very minimal with that Radeon HD 6800 series video card you have as you have found. I don’t use HE.
In this case I am assuming that the "motion artifacts" you refer to here are undesirable? Though the speed increase is minimal when dealing with a 3 min clip, when handling 30-75 min clips, it may be helpful.
Look at it this way. Once you produced a file put that produced file back on the timeline. View svrt info and you will find svrt is available so you don’t render the same video twice.
That could be very helpful in this discussion.
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So the questions that remain are: Hardware acceleration or no? Do I need to upgrade my system, and if so, to what?
That is up to you. Other users and contributors here can give you other opinions on this.
Yes please.
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As mentioned before, no profiles come up under the Intelligent SVRT option. So we can't get a baseline there.
In the custom profile menu, under Rate Control, there is only Average Bitrate; there is no max. This might be different using other formats, though - presently I'm using H.264 AVC, because my older system apparently doesn't support H.265 HEVC (yet - I'd love to get feedback on a system upgrade that would be worthwhile).
So I ran a few tests on a segment that was 4m31s long. Using H.264 AVC, here were some results:
. (standard) 1920x1080/30p (16Mps) profile, w/ Hardware acceleration: ~7 min to produce a 460Mb file
. (standard) 1920x1080/30p (16Mps) profile, w/o Hardware acceleration: ~9 min to produce a 534Mb file
. (custom) 1920x1080/30p (average bitrate set to 22,250) profile, w/ Hardware acceleration: ~7 min to produce a 350Mb file
. (custom) 1920x1080/30p (average bitrate set to 28,000) profile, w/ Hardware acceleration: ~7 min to produce a 435Mb file
So a couple interesting pieces:
. Using the custom profile with an average bitrate did not substantially change the time it took to produce the file.
. Using hardware acceleration does substantially change the time it took to produce the file.
. Using hardware acceleration substantially reduces the size of the output file.
. Increasing the average bitrate does increade the filesize, but not to size of the provided 16Mbps profile.
And generates a couple questions: Why does using hardware acceleration reduce the filesize? Is this a "good thing"?
My untrained eye cannot "see" a difference between any of these files. Is there a quality difference that I should be looking for?
There's still no SVRT available. As a last ditch attempt, I set the camera to 16Mbps instead of 24, recorded a 5s clip, and imported it to PowerDirector. Intelligent SVRT would still not recommend any profile. So it can't be the length of the clips that I am using, or the fact that I was recording in 24 Mbps, or the title slides or anything else. SVRT simply doesn't seem to be available for my camera and/or hardware configuration.
So the questions that remain are: Hardware acceleration or no? Do I need to upgrade my system, and if so, to what?
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Good call - as you noted on another thread, I was also trying to use H.265 HEVC when I should have been using H.264 AVC on this system. Doing that opens up the option for Hardware video acceleration", which does seem to make an improvement on speed (I assume this means my video card can support it).
But you also nailed it when you noted that my Mbps did not line up. So I've opened up a Custom Profile here a few items I could use advice on:
For Frame Rate, by default the setting is 29.97fps. Should that remain, or should I set it to 30fps? (the source seems to be 29.97)
Also, the default bitrate is 15,500 - which is what I assume is to be used for 16Mbps. What value should I use for 24Mbps? 23,250?
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They are continuous - lemme give that a try!
Oh, so very close! Doing this does create a MOV file that is exactly the size of the two files combined, but when I import the new file into PowerDirector, the clip ends where the first clip originally ended. Is this related to the MOV "tags", for example, the tag says that the file is only so long, when there is actually two clips worth of info in them?
Does anyone else have a favorite utility that accomplishes this? Fusing two MOV files together without "producing" them?
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Thanks tomasc, but why would an older file be playable while a newer file would not?
... unless you hit the nail on the head and the previous files were created with H.264 AVC, because after some experimentation, I earlier found out that H.265 HEVC was not supported natively in Windows 10...
Yeah, that would do it. Thanks for reminding me!
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The details for the MOV files are in my initial post. I am already using H264 HEVC, mp4, with identical specs to the original videos. If there's a reason I should try another format, I would like to know.
When I choose Intelligent SVRT, I get the message "No SVRT profiles available for the current project." Thus why I am asking if SVRT technology is unavailable for MOV files, or unavailable for MOV files of a certain size, or something else.
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I have what I consider to be an average system, just starting to show some age:
Intel Core i5, second gen
32 GB RAM, DDR3-1333
AMD Radeon HD 6800 series video card, 1 GB RAM
Windows 10, 64bit
PowerDirector 14 (2820)
My camera is a Zoom q8, a popular device and brand among musicians. It produces MOV files (only), up to ~3.6GB in size, 1920x1080p, 30fps, with 48kHz wav audio. (It can also produce the lesser-known "3M HD", 2304 x 1296 pixels @ 30fps /24mbps, which PowerDirector does not seem to support.)
When I try to produce the MOV files, however, there are no options under Intelligent SVRT. Are the files too large? Is MOV unavailable for SVRT? (As a side question, what is the best option for production format, anyway? H.265 and Quicktime are not natively supported in Windows 10...)
I'm lamenting that recently upgrading my 12GB of RAM to 32GB of RAM seems to have no effect on the production time, and that a simple 25 minute movie still takes around an hour and a half to produce (from two MOV files and a WAV into one HEVC MP4 file). What else can I do to speed things up, without sacrificing video or audio quality? Is my system simply too under-powered for what I am pushing it to do? If I need to upgrade the system, what is the ideal (affordable) setup?
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In the last two days, I upgraded the RAM in my desktop computer from 12 GB to 32 GB, and I updated PowerDirector 14 to the latest version (14.0.2820.0). However, instead of working better than ever before, now all newer videos have a black screen with their audio running in the background? Here's a timeline:
5/13 - Produced a working video in H.264 HEVC
5/15 - Produced three small videos in H.264 HEVC. I cannot recall if I tested on the desktop, but they worked on another computer.
5/19 - Updated PowerDirector. Installed new RAM.
5/19 - Produced further videos in H.264 HEVC that no longer work on the desktop (but work on other devices).
5/20 - Updated video card to latest driver. No effect.
The videos from 5/15 and 5/19 no longer display correctly on this machine - just the black screen with sound in the background. The video from 5/13, however, still plays just fine. I don't remember any difference in my settings between 5/13 and 5/15. What's going on? Why are only these files coming out black, but not older files?
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