Messages posted by McCullough

At least that tells me it can be done! I'll have to try to figure it out. If I do I'll let you know so you can stop it

Does anyone know how to create a DVD in PowerDirector 5 that will start over again automatically once it finishes playing?

Thanks!

Susan

I think you would probably have to recapture the video. You might try to recapture at a point when the quality was poor the first time just to see if the problem is fixed.

Also, have you tried burning the file you've already captured to a disk just to see if the problem persists?

Go to Control Panel, switch to Classic View if not already set that way (along the left side there is an option), go to the System icon, under the Hardware tab click on Device Manager, a list of your hardware will come up, click the plus sign next to Display Adapters, it should show you the details on your video card. Then just Google search to find the manufacturer's website.

Susan

They may want you to make sure you have the latest drivers and/or firmware for your device. If that's the case then go to the manufacturer's website & look under support or downloads to see if you've got the latest versions of everything. I'm not sure about unplugging the firewire, though I always unplug my usb cable when I'm done transferring my files from my digital camcorder.

One thing I would do would be to make sure that virtually all programs, other than the OS and necessary files, are not running when you're working with PowerDirector. I turn off all virus protection, e-mail, internet, everything, and then check through windows task manager to make sure everything is off. It may seem like a bit much, but it really has helped the program to run smoother and I don't have any more dragging video.

Good luck!

Susan

I don't know if this will apply to your project or not, and I'm really no expert at video work at all, but I was working recently with a file transfered from a dvd that for some reason (I don't know why) showed that it was 3 plus hours long in the properties, even though the actual length was only 45 minutes. The way I handled it was: I imported it into PD5, detected the scenes, cut out the extraneous time (it showed up as blank space when done this way), and then produced the video again. This took care of the extra time and reduced the file size.

Thanks so much for the answer. I did everything you suggested and the newest product of the same game was fine. Who's to say which, or maybe all, of the steps helped, but hopefully if someone else runs into this problem in the future they'll find these posts helpful.

Susan

I did install a newer version of real player, but I had the problem before that. I have tried turning absolutely everything off that's not necessary (even though I didn't need to do it before), and I just burned another copy of the same game, so I'll see if that helps at all.

Thanks for the reply.

Susan

When I want to use the .vob files I've made on my DVR, I just copy them to my hard drive, change the file extension to .mpg and then import them in the edit window. I scoured the internet for programs to convert & found this to be the simplest.

Hope this helps!

Susan

I have been using PowerDirector 5 (5.00.1227 Deluxe) for awhile now to put my son's basketball games on DVD with no problem. Lately, no matter what source I use (analog Hi8 Camcorder, digital camcorder, or DVR recording to disk from TV) my final product has places where it's either "dragging" and slow, or "pixelated" and jumping.

Does anyone have any idea why, when this has not been a problem in the past, it's acting up now? The video footage is fine in the preview pane during editing, it's only when it's produced to disk that it has this problem.

I don't know if it matters, but I have a Pentium 4 3.00 GHz processor and 1 GB or RAM.

Thanks for any help.

Susan

Thanks, Ron, just renaming the file worked perfectly. I then had PD detect the scenes & was able to cut out all the extraneous "time" that showed up in the properties.

Thanks so much.

Susan

I know when I produce my files the final product quality depends on the type of output I select. I always use mpeg2 when I want the best final picture quality even though it produces the largest file size.

You might be surprised at what the kids might like - they laughed themselves silly when I put the Harlem Globetrotters "Sweet Georgia Brown" over a clip of their freshman year for a "looking back" piece I did to kick off this year's (their senior season) basketball season dinner.

I have used things like Bruce Springsteen's "Glory Days," Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust," I can't remember who did it, but "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" (maybe Pat Benatar) comes to mind. "Born to be wild" by Steppenwolf. I've also used recordings of marching band music from time to time, I think the University of Michigan Marching band has some on i-tunes. You might also try doing a search on i-tunes for "football music" or "sports music" to see if it gives you any ideas.

Hope this helps!

Susan

Okay, so I had a VRO file of a basketball game that won't play on most DVD players, I tried to convert it to VOB with PD5, but that did not work.

I found a program on the internet that converted it to an Mpeg file, which plays just fine on my computer. I import it into PD5 to create a DVD, it imports fine, plays fine as a clip. It is about one hour and 44 minutes in real time long, however the properties say it is three hours and sixteen minutes long, and so I cannot produce to a 4.7 gb DVD. The Mpeg file is the same size as others that I have done recently, so it's really not that big, but for some reason the properties are wrong.

When I originally recorded this with my Samsung DVR it was longer, but I cut it down to just the basketball game, and so I suspect my problem is there, but I am wondering if anyone knows of a way to change the properties so this will work the way it's supposed to.

Thanks for any help.

Susan

I do the basketball tapes for my son's high school team and I get mine from i-tunes, so you can buy it by the song.

I have a vro file created by my Samsung DVR of a local basketball game on television, about 1.5 hours long.

I would like to use my PD5 to create a new disk that can be played in other DVD players (the vro file won't play in the other three dvd players I've tried one new and two older players).

I initially imported the vro file into PD5, which took a long time, then when I tried to even view the clip it took forever and got hung up a few times. Now when I even try to import the file it hangs at "Importing 100%" and won't go on from there. I have PD5 build 1227, and ample system resources and processing power to use this program, I just can't figure out why it doesn't want to work this time.

Thanks for any help or suggestions.

Susan

Just an update to my original post - now that I open the program this way I no longer have all of the crashes and freezes that I had before. I still don't know why it works this way, but it does, for me anyway.

Susan

I don't know if you ever solved this or not, but I have had the same problem. These are a couple of things that have worked for me (no one solution works every time, but hey, I'm too cheap to buy another program):

There were two old dll files in the Powerdirector program, so I replaced the comctl32.dll and msvcp60.dll with newer versions found in the windows system 32 folder. This worked to get the program opened and working at the time, but lo and behold, later that same month it stopped opening again. Then I...

...noticed that when I opened task manager the pdr.exe process was running, even though it did not show that the program was running, and when I ended that process in task manager, the program opened again. But again, the program stopped opening for a time, and so today I...

...found a file called pdr.exe.manifest on my hard drive, and when I right clicked and told it it "open with" the "VideoEditorTL" program, Powerdirector opened.

I think maybe I'll just leave it open forever at this point!

I'm not all that computer savvy, but these things have worked for me so far, and maybe someone will answer my query as to why the pdr.exe.manifest file opens the program.

Does anyone know what the pdr.exe.manifest file is? I have been having trouble opening Powerdirector from the icon, but when I open this file with VideoEditorTL it opens the powerdirector application. Just curious as to why this works this way.

Susan

I have problems every time I use PowerDirector 5. I often have to uninstall and reinstall just to get the program to open. Now that I have it working again, when I go back to open a pds file I did a month ago, it says there's an error opening the video files (each one is a separate error) and the project just has black/blank screens where the video used to be. A pds file I started today opens just fine. Any help is appreciated.