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Hey, hope that's helpful.
I ended up returning my burner, finding I had the same problem, trying a different cord from my Power Supply and it fixed the problem. 
I've never tried an external burner, though... Hope you can find the problem!
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Hi there,
I have PowerDirector 5 Premium and I just installed it on a Vista computer (downloaded the Vista compatible version), but I can't seem to get in to the audio mixing room or that voice over room. I can't click on them. It seems to me I had a problem like this a while back and it was a simple solution, but I can't remember what I did to fix it.
Any help would be appreciated. I don't want to go back to my XP computer because I'm already part-way through editing the video and I don't want to lose all my work. 
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Just a quick thought...
How much time are you giving it at 50%? Generally it produces the video from 1-50% (or thereabouts) and then it burns it to the disk from 50% and on. Give it enough time to burn the disk.
The other problem could be your DVD burner.
I had this problem a while back and it would just hang there and wouldn't burn the disk. It turned out to be my DVD burner... it was a while ago so I can't remember the problem. It either had given up the ghost or it wasn't getting enough power (the cord was bad) and I switch powercords from my power supply and it worked okay.
Try giving it enough time (10-20 minutes is plenty) and then if that doesn't work, make sure your DVD burner is working okay.
If it still doesn't work, don't burn it to the disk, just produce it to DVD files on your computer and then try using another program (like NERO) to burn the actual DVD files to the disk--that should confirm whether it's your burner or PowerDirector that's acting up...
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Hey, sorry to hear that. It's extremely frustrating!!!
Here's what I've learned since and it's made a huge difference for me.
First, make sure you have enough ram. It makes a big difference when you're editing movies.
Second, work with the task manager loaded up so you can see how hard your processor is working. I'm not sure what it's like in Vista, but in XP you can load it up (cntrl+alt+delete) and then minimize it and it'll show you whether your processor is working at it's max or not.
NOTE: One of the reasons (from what I've found) for broken files is that I would start having trouble so I'd hit "Save" and it would save it in it's "trouble" state and I'd have a broken file. Save your file only when your processor isn't struggling to keep up and when you're not in the middle of an action.
Third, never save the same movie under the same file name--ever. This will seem extreme at first, but this alone may save you the trouble of broken files. Someone suggested that I save a second copy of the file, but I find that this works better. For example: Start your file and save it as "Movie 01.pds" When you do some work on it, save it again as "Movie 02.pds" When you do some more work, save it as "Movie 03.pds". What this does is it ensures that the most you will ever lose is up until your last save--unless, of course, it's messed up from the beginning...  . Since I've started doing this, I've had little to no problems. If I have trouble loading up "Movie 17.pds", I can always go back and load up "Movie 16.pds" or "15" and I've lost hardly anything. A little extra work and it's saved me a lot of anguish.
That should save you running into this problem. For your files that are lost... I'm not sure there's any hope. I don't even want to think back to the files I've lost... it brings up bad feelings. Hopefully this will save you experiencing it anymore.
Shawn
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Thanks,
That's a big help. My big concern was that I didn't want to produce it and then find that when I used a DVD authoring program I'd lose a lot of quality.
I guess if I'm sticking with the same format (MPEG2 and DVD-Video) I shouldn't lose much in the producing of the actual DVD.
Thanks again,
Shawn
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Hey,
I just took a look and it sounds like it's the same in PD5. Thanks a lot for your help! I kind of thought that would be the best way to do it, but I wasn't sure if AVI would be better.
Thanks!
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Awesome! Thanks a lot!
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Hey,
I have a question about DVD authoring.
If I want to produce a couple of videos in PowerDirector and then use some kind of DVD authoring tool (Like PowerProducer or Nero or whatever), what format is the best to produce the clips in PD5? Should I produce them to VOB files or MPeg or AVI or what?
I want to be able to produce them in PowerDirector 5 and then use the DVD authoring program to produce a DVD, but I don't want to lose video quality because I'm producing and then converting it and so on.
Any help would be appreciated.
Shawn
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Hey,
Maybe I can ask something here about DVD authoring.
If I want to produce a couple of videos in PowerDirector and then use some kind of DVD authoring tool, how should I produce the clips in PD5? Should I produce them to VOB files or MPeg or AVI or what?
I want to be able to produce and then when I take the produced files (produced in PD5) and then use a DVD authoring program to turn them into a DVD with cool Special Features or multiple videos, etc, but I don't want to lose quality when I do it.
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Ahh... thanks for the updated info. I keep checking to see if it's available. I'll wait another little bit and then start checking again.
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Hey there,
Just a quick question.
The biggest problem I face when making a video is coming up with cool sound effects or music to run in the background. I've looked around the net and you have to buy most of the decent stuff.
My question is this... does anyone know of a decent sound effects and music CD that has a good collection, useful for making videos sound great? I don't want to pay too much because I'm cheap, but I wouldn't mind some help finding something. Anyone know of a CD that's not too expensive?
Shawn
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Awesome! Thanks a lot.
Shawn
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Well... I guess we'll both be waiting for the PD 6 trial to come out. Hope it's what you're after when you get the chance to check it out.
Shawn
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Yeah,
When I tried to get the PD 6 trial I ended up getting the PD 5 trial. I guess we'll have to wait for 6 to come out.
As for the Dolby Digital Audio... I don't know much about it. Hope you can get that figured out, that's pretty frustrating. Have you contacted tech support?
Shawn
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Hey there,
Just a quick question...
I've heard talk of a PD 6 Trial Version--is there one out there somewhere? I wouldn't mind checking it out to compare with PD 5.
Shawn
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Hey,
I'll try to give as honest an opinion as I can.
When I was looking for software (last year), I checked out a bunch of different editors. What I found was this:
Video Editors all have good things and bad things about them, you just have to figure out what it is you need and go with the software that has that/those features. For me, PowerDirector had a few of features that others didn't have. For one, it has a voice over option that I REALLY wanted. Second, it's an extremely well-rounded program (it does just about everything). Third, it's extremely easy to pick up and run with--compared with Premiere Elements 2 which I just couldn't figure out.
Anyway, all that to say, you need to figure out what you want in an editor and go with the one that has that/those feature(s). I wish I could be more help than that, but aside from this advice, I'll just be speaking from bias.
I love PowerDirector. I enjoy using it, it works well, it does just about everything I want it to.
Does that help at all, or makes things worse?
Shawn
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Hey,
I could be wrong, but I think PowerDirector 5 Premium is certified and ready to go with VISTA, without an upgrade.
Could be wrong, but I think you should be fine just using it as it is.
Shawn
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Hey,
I'm not sure there's much you can do, other than upgrade to a faster processor. I think it's slow loading up due to just how much processing power it takes (I doubled my ram recently and I don't find it loads too much faster).
I think the difference between PD3 and PD5 would simply come down to how much more complicated a program PD5 would be.
Hope that helps.
Shawn
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Hey,
When I'm making a movie, I'll often do a produce at a low quality so that I can get an idea of what the final video will look like without taking the time to render it to a DVD/CD.
I use produce for this.
I also use produce when I want to make a simple video to show to some people when I can simply use the computer to play it.
I hope that helps.
Shawn
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Hey,
Thanks for your help. I started back at square one and was able to get it done. It was a Christmas video for my Church (the teens in the Church acted out the Christmas story).
Thanks for the clear and quick help. I've been saving backups of my pds files so hopefully I won't run into this problem again.
Shawn
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