Messages posted by AnalyticalGuy

Quote

Just keep in mind, wemb support is only VP9, lots of VP8 out there so it depends on what one's needs are.

Not sure what app plus 7 content packs you refer to. Skipping content pack is surely doable, I don't see any major performance improvements from doing such. I guess like the "Create Disc" menu module will load a tad faster, as well as any other room that has to populate a window of features. As far as timeline editing, no performance changes that I would see.

Jeff

Thank you (all) for the replies.

The main downloadable executable was
"1_CyberLink_PowerDirector18_Ultra_VDE191105-02.exe"

and the 7 content packs had filenames like
"ContentPack_Essential_PowerDirector_PCP190327-01.exe" and
"ContentPack_PremiumV_PowerDirector_PCP190521-01.exe"

For now, I haven't installed them, but it seems that I can without fearing much performance hit.

One bonus question:
Any thoughts on whether to turn on Dynamic GOP for a custom encoding profile? It's turned off for the default profiles, but in one of the few google hits I found for "Dynamic GOP" -- https://www.viraltech.co.uk/best-render-settings-in-powerdirector-for-youtube.php -- the guy says he turns his ON.

It must not matter much, since people aren't discussing it much, but I thought I'd ask.

Thanks again.

Hi. I'm a longtime PD user, upgrading from PD 14 to 18 because I want the WEBM support. I'm downloading 8 files: the PowerDirector app plus 7 content packs.

I have an older computer -- Intel i7-3770 @ 3.40 GHz, 4 Cores, 16 GB RAM, and a very limited GPU (GeForce GT 730).

I'm thinking that since I never use content packs, I should skip installing them, possibly to get a performance boost. (I've heard that upgrading from 14 to 18 might mean everything becomes slower.

Any suggestions on skipping the content packs?

Thanks.

I am still on PowerDirector 14. (I skipped 15, and haven't googled around yet to see if 16 is worth the upgrade.)

I heard about "clip markers," and saw that with PD 14, I can "Show Clip Marker Track," "Remove Selected Clip Marker" (disabled) and "Remove All Clip Markers" (disabled), but there's no right-click action (or any action) to "Add Clip Marker."

Is this correct? You can view them and remove them in PD14, but not add them?

If there's some way I can add them, please let me know.

Also, is PD 16 worth the upgrade?

Thanks.

I originally posted this in the PowerDirector 14 forum, but (after it got no replies) I thought I'd post it here, since it's a pretty version-agnostic question.

Hoping that someone either knows a trick, or a macro, or some other clever solution... Here's my scenario:

I'll often download a "montage" video full of clips -- "Wacky Vintage Ads" or "Ten Fastest Rollercoasters" -- and I'll want to split them up into separate files. In particular, I like using PowerDirector because the clips in the original montage jump all over the place in terms of volume.

You probably know what I'm talking about, but a good example of such a volume jump comes about about 1:50 in this long video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TwW3RWGZN8#t=1m43s

My goal is to take the individual long video, chop it into smaller chunks, normalize them, and save them out as individual files that go into a folder full of such silly clips, all about the same volume.

Here's my current process:

Open the long video in PowerDirector and pick all the break points between clips (based on content, and also on volume jumps).

File > Insert Project... Then insert a project ("Good Volume Clips") with a ton of clips that are already my target volume. (Enough clips to force the new clips to conform to the established good volume.)

Normalize the entire video, then delete all the "Good Volume Clips," leaving only the newly adjusted clips.

Save each clip as a separate PDS file.

Batch produce the PDS files.

I see that step #1 requires subjective decisions from me, and there's no way to automate it, but step 4 sure looks like it could be automated. (And maybe also steps 2 and 3.)

I'd like to be able to say:

"PowerDirector, here is a PDS file called 'Wacky Ads,' containing 14 clips. Please output 14 separate PDS files, called 'Wacky Ads 01' through 'Wacky Ads 14'."

I'm about certain that PowerDirector doesn't do that natively, but I'm wondering if there's some kind of macro, or other clever way to do this.

If it's truly a "macro" I'm wishing for, then I might as well wish big and ask if it could also do steps 2 and 3 as well. (They aren't difficult steps, but they take time -- especially waiting for the Normalization process to complete in step 3.)

I don't think I need to automate step 5.

Does anyone have any ideas? The ideal would be a built-in "Save Clips as Individual Files" or "Export Individual Clips" command, but I'd be willing to put a few hours (or a few dollars) into finding, creating, or even purchasing some other solution.

Thanks in advance, for any ideas.

AG

Hoping that someone either knows a trick, or a macro, or some other clever solution... Here's my scenario:

I'll often download a "montage" video full of clips -- "Wacky Vintage Ads" or "Ten Fastest Rollercoasters" -- and I'll want to split them up into separate files. In particular, I like using PowerDirector because the clips in the original montage jump all over the place in terms of volume.

You probably know what I'm talking about, but a good example of such a volume jump comes about about 1:50 in this long video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TwW3RWGZN8#t=1m43s

My goal is to take the individual long video, chop it into smaller chunks, normalize them, and save them out as individual files that go into a folder full of such silly clips, all about the same volume.

Here's my current process:

Open the long video in PowerDirector and pick all the break points between clips (based on content, and also on volume jumps).

File > Insert Project... Then insert a project ("Good Volume Clips") with a ton of clips that are already my target volume. (Enough clips to force the new clips to conform to the established good volume.)

Normalize the entire video, then delete all the "Good Volume Clips," leaving only the newly adjusted clips.

Save each clip as a separate PDS file.

Batch produce the PDS files.

I see that step #1 is subjective, and there's no way to automate it, but step 4 sure looks like it could be automated. (And maybe also steps 2 and 3.)

I'd like to be able to say:

"PowerDirector, here is a PDS file called 'Wacky Ads,' containing 14 clips. Please output 14 separate PDS files, called 'Wacky Ads 01' through 'Wacky Ads 14'."

I'm about certain that PowerDirector doesn't do that natively, but I'm wondering if there's some kind of macro, or other clever way to do this.

If it's truly a "macro" I'm wishing for, then I might as well wish big and ask if it could also do steps 2 and 3 as well. (They aren't difficult steps, but they take time -- especially waiting for the Normalization process to complete in step 3.)

I don't think I need to automate step 5.

Does anyone have any ideas? The ideal would be a built-in "Save Clips as Individual Files" or "Export Individual Clips" command, but I'd be willing to put a few hours (or a few dollars) into finding, creating, or even purchasing some other solution.

Thanks in advance, for any ideas.

AG

I'm having a brand new audio problem. I'm not sure if it's from the PowerDirector update or a recent Windows 10 update. (They both happened at about the same time, at the very end of May.)

The problem seems to be how PowerDirector reacts to a change in the global volume setting I set in the Windows Volume Mixer.

I'm hoping I'm not the only one having this problem, because it's a little hard to describe.

What happens is that volume levels in the clips I'm watching in PowerDirector jump to about double the volume they were a couple seconds ago, for no good reason I can see.

If I go out to the Windows Volume Mixer and even slightly tap a volume level there (e.g., changing a slider from 20 to 19), then the same clip I was previewing in PowerDirector drops back down to the "half volume" I was hearing before the sudden jump.

After a few minutes of moving around the timeline, previewing clips, zooming the timeline, etc., PowerDirector suddenly jumps to double the volume again.

It seems to be related to the relationship in Windows 10 between the "Master" or "Device" volume and the volume for a particular application. Normally, I would set both sliders to the same value so that the movie I'm editing sounds good to my ears, and then I don't need to touch the volume levels again. But now, something happens in the PowerDirector program and the volume gets loud, as the result of actions that seem to have nothing to do with volume levels.

I've tried reinstalling my "Realtek High Definition Audio" driver. And I see that I also have "NVIDIA High Definition Audio" driver, which doesn't make sense to me, but it's nothing that I actually chose to install, so it must have come as part of the GeForce install package from NVIDIA.

Without nearly enough information to do so, I could theorize that maybe when I take some video-related action in PowerDirector, the NVIDIA audio driver takes control away from the Realtek audio driver, causing the audio to leap to some other setting... And then, by making any adjustment using Volume Mixer, the volume will drop back to where it was.

There are clues that I don't even need the NVIDIA audio driver, in threads like this:

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/767581/not-necessary-to-install-the-nvidia-quot-hd-audio-driver-quot-/

That thread seems to say that if I don't use HDMI-Out for my audio (which I don't; I only use HDMI for video-out), then I can or should get rid of the NVIDIA audio driver.

Other options might be to disable the "NVIDIA HDMI Output" under Windows > Playback settings. Or to reinstall NVIDIA completely so that it can somehow override the Realtek installation.

Or maybe none of those are related to the PowerDirector volume suddenly jumping in volume from where it was a few seconds ago.

Has anyone else had a problem like this? Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

I'm having a brand new audio problem, but I'm not sure if it's from the PowerDirector update or a recent Windows 10 update. (They both happened at about the same time.)

The problem seems to be how PowerDirector reacts to a change in the global volume setting I set in the Windows Volume Mixer.

Should I post about it here or in a separate, new thread?

I'm hoping I'm not the onlyone having this problem, because it's a little hard to describe.

The gist of it is that volume levels in the clips I'm watching PowerDirector jump to about double the volume they were a couple seconds ago, for no good reason I can see.

If I go out to the Windows Volume Mixer and even slightly tap a volume level there (e.g., changing a slider from 20 to 19), then the same clip I was previewing in PowerDirector drops back down to the "half volume" I was hearing before the sudden jump.

After a few minutes of moving around the timeline, previewing clips, zooming the timeline, etc., PowerDirector suddenly jumps to double the volume again.

Is anyone else having this problem? Where should I post about it?

Thanks.

I think maybe I can contribute to this thread, but I'm not sure if I'm contributing to the original question or the answer.

I've been outputting some .MP4 videos from PowerDirector (using H.264, not H.265) and my results seem similar to Isak's when I try to get the videos over to our HDTV, using either of two methods: 1. dragging the file into iTunes on my PC, then trying to stream that with Apple TV, or 2. copying the file onto an extrernal hard drive and connecting that via USB to a Micca Speck video player that's connected to the HDTV.

In both cases, the video plays and seems to be working, but attempts to fast forward, or more particularly, to use controls to jump to a particular part of the video, cause weird problems. (like the video freezing, or playing but losing its audio)

Having given that long description...

What seems to work for me (although I'd welcome a better system) is to output the H.264 MP4 from PowerDirector, then use another program (VideoReDo) to perform an action on the video called "QuickStreamFix."

I'm not even 100% sure what QuickStreamFix does, but it seems to involved fixing keyframes or something like that.

Once I run QuickStreamFix on the video, it then plays perfectly, whether I use my Micca Speck or my Apple TV.

It seems that by default, PowerDirector outputs a video file that doesn't work quite right with my devices, but doing *some* kind of post-production fix makes it right.

I hope this extra detail helps in some way.

Question: Are you sure we still need to switch from "Microsoft" to "LAV Splitter" each time we run a K-Lite update?

I ask because here's what I did:

1. Around Sept 29, I followed the instructions in the YouTube video, installing K-Lite_Codec_Pack_1140_Mega.exe and then switching the two radio buttons from "Microsoft" to "LAV Splitter."

2. I ran PowerDirector, and a lot of AVI files opened just fine. (I think a couple still had problems, but I was happy enough with the ratio.)

3. Around Oct 28, I decided to run the latest K-Lite update: K-Lite_Codec_Pack_1155_Mega.exe. I don't think it occurred to me to switch the two radio buttons from "Microsoft" to "LAV Splitter."

(I'm sorry about my fuzzy memory on this step, but I'm *pretty* sure I didin't switch the radio buttons.)

4. I happened to try the two AVI files that previously caused trouble, and now they worked just fine.

5. Now I'm running the latest update, K-Lite_Codec_Pack_1165_Mega.exe. I happened to open the Codec Tweak Tool, and I see that both the radio buttons are set to "Microsoft (recommended)" again.

I'm a little torn, since I won't get a reply to this before I pick whether or not to change the radio buttons, and I'm not sure how to re-launch the Codec Tweak Tool except by running the installer.

For this install, I'll change the radio buttons to LAV Splitter, then check back on this thread later to see...

Will there come a point where we can trust the "Microsoft (recommended)" radio buttons, or will we have to use the Codec Tweak Tool and change those radio buttons to "LAV Splitter" with each new K-Lite Mega version?

Is it possible that time has already come?

Thanks.

Amazing! It works!

Optodata, you are so awesome that I'm starting to even forgive you for scaring me to death with that avatar of yours! :

Thanks.

Edit: By "It works," I mean this:

After upgrading to Windows 10, I was getting the "Media Source Error" when I tried to open an AVI in PowerDirector 13 (which had previously opened fine in Windows 8.1).

I followed Optodata's 4-step solution from the first post in this thread.

That same AVI file opened without any error at all!

So... Thanks again, Octo.

(and you might want to change "1.4.5 as of Sept 28" to "11.4.5 as of Sept 28" in your addendum to your initial post.)

P.S. Sorry about the weird spacing in my posts. I'm not mastering the rules of BB code as quickly as I might like.

Quote: Hi AnalyticalGuy. Welcome to the forum!

You have some thoughtful questions and I'm glad to see that you've worked out the answers to many of your own questions. To be perfectly honest, I think it would be much easier for other members to help and comment if you limited your questions to just a couple at a time. There's plenty of time to eleborate or ask further questions once the thread is active.

Yes, I noticed that the string of questions came out pretty long. I think I was hoping this thread might become the one-stop shop for "Are there any cases where I should use shadow files, and if so, what do I have to look out for in terms of timing and accidental deletion?"

I'll try to keep this new reply as short as possible :

Quote:

Quote: Q: Is there any way to see how long a shadow file will take to create? My experience is that it just converted my 2-hour, 2 GB source video file into a 4.1 GB shadow file over the course of 2.75 hours.

That doesn't seem right.

For one thing shadow files are supposed to be low-res versions of your source clips, so I don't know why yours is twice the size. Also, my 1GB 1920x1080 60p MP4 source clip was converted to a 180MB 720x480 30p MPEG clip in 15:40, which occurred at a processing rate of 1.1MB/s. I've attached the MediaInfo details for each one.

My computer was idle while I was running this test, so if you were doing other things or had PD minimized, that might explain why yours took almost 3 hours but it doesn't explain the gigantic file size.

I agree that it doesn't sound "right," but I'd be glad to give you the data.

Source video:

About 2.1 GB, about 2 hours, data rate about 2300kbps.

Video Codec: "H264 - MPEG-4 AVC"

With the unusual display resolution of 1808 x 1080.

Shadow File creation

I began at 10:29 AM Wednesday.

I checked the shadow file size, in progress, a couple times before leaving. At 10:53 AM, it was up to 564 MB.

At 10:57 AM, it was up to 707 MB.
(707 MB in 28 minutes = 25.25 MB per minute.)

I came home a few hours later to find the shadow file complete. File Properties listed the Last Modified time as 1:18 PM, or 169 minutes after 10:29 AM.

4.1 GB in 169 minutes = about 24.25 MB per minute.

Shadow File video:

About 4.1 GB, still about 2 hours, data rate of exactly 8300kbps.
(In fact, every shadow file PowerDirector has created, across both my computers, has been 8300kbps.)

Video Codec: "MPEG-1/2 Video (mpgv)"

With a display resolution of 720x480 (surprisingly low, considering the data rate?)

I can now scrub smoothly within the Trim tool, so I'm not complaining.

I'm just offering some data, since the numbers seemed unusual to me as well.

Thanks again.

I'll try to keep the next question(s) shorter!

AG

I've done a few more tests, and I think I have answers to most of my questions. I'll post them, to save others from having to do a bunch of typing (except to correct any mistakes in my report.

Quote: The Trim tool:

With most video files, I can "scrub" really quickly in the popup Trim tool. I can basically hold down the Up arrow on the keyboard and watch the video move at, say, half speed.

Quick correction: This is probably more like 30% speed. Meaning, it takes 3 seconds to scrub through 10 seconds of healthy source video.

Quote: But with a few video files (large files? 24 FPS files?), the Trim tool is suddenly very slow. If I hit the Up arrow 5 times in quick succession, I can watch over the next 15 seconds as the video preview slowly crawls through the 5 frames... One. Slow. Frame. At. A. Time.

Actually, if I hold the Up arrow with one of these grueling videos, I get something like 1 to 2.5 frames per second, depending on the amount of motion in the scene. I'll call it 5% speed.

Quote: I'm thinking this might be sped up with Shadow Files? (I'll ask about Hardware Acceleration in another topic.)

If you want to read no further, the answer is: Yes.

Even if I don't need to bother with shadow files for 90% to 95% of my source files, on the couple that were so hard to read or process, spending the hours creating shadow files suddenly made them smooth as silk in the Trim tool.

Quote: Shadow Files:

I've read about how to tell when a Shadow File has been created. (The little icon turns from yellow to green.)

Q: Is there any way to see how long a shadow file will take to create? If not a progress bar, then maybe some rough estimates, based on a hypothetical 1 GB, 1-hour MP4 file? Any ballpark would help. For example, it would help to know if a 1 GB, 1-hour MP4 will take more like 1 hour, 5 hours, or 24 hours...?

A: My experience: It just converted my 2-hour, 2 GB source video file into a 4.1 GB shadow file over the course of 2.75 hours. I'm not sure whether to abstract that to "approx. 25 MB per minute" or "approx 0.8 source minutes per minute."

Quote: Q: If Windows 10 decides to sleep, does shadow processing continue while the computer sleeps?

A: Apparently not.

Quote: Q: Can Windows see that the computer is busy with the "shadow processing," and therefore not sleep?

A: Also, apparently not. At least not Windows 10.

Quote: Based on what I saw today, the answer to both of those are no. I left my computer processing a large file (2 hours, 2 GB) and went to work. Nine hours later, I came home, saw that my computer had decided to sleep, and woke it up. When I did, the icon on the file was still yellow.

This leaves me with some questions...

Q: If I'm in the middle of a long (multi-hour) shadow processing session, and I quit PowerDirector, only to restart it later, will it resume the shadow processing or start over?

(In other words, do I have to leave PowerDirector running until this particular round of shadow file is 100% complete?)

A: When you turn off PowerDirector, it will immediately delete the in-progress shadow file it was creating.

Note: I tested this on a small video file -- about 4 minutes long. It's conceivable that PowerDirector behaves slightly differently with a longer source file, creating a "build" of the shadow file every half hour or so. But I doubt it.

Quote: And finally, here's a scenario:

(1) I turn on Shadow Files to work on a Project A, from source video A. (I turn on shadow files because source video A is huge and I want editing to go more smoothly.)

(2) The shadow processing completes, and the little icon turns green.

(3) Project A will take me several weeks of editing, and I'll have to come back to it. In the meantime, I save Project A, and go on to work on projects B and C for a while.

(4) For projects B and C, I turn off Shadow Files.

Quick note: Step 4 does not delete the shadow file that was created in step 2.

Quote: (5) I come back to project A later, and I turn Shadow Files back on.

Q: Will I have to wait several hours for the shadow files to be created from scratch? Or did they stay on the hard drive, despite having turned shadow files off and on for a couple days?

A: Short answer: The shadow files remain on the hard drive.

Best guess is that they will remain for whatever duration you have set under the preference called "Auto delete temporary files every __ Days" (30 days by default).

I can't guess if PowerDirector means 30 days of not being used, or how it determines when a file was last used. But the key thing is that they don't disappear the moment you turn off Shadow Files.

More detail:

At the end of step 5, If I come back, reopen Project A, and don't turn Shadow Files back on, then I'm back to something like my old grueling scrubbing speed (5%, or 1 to 2.5 frames per second).

If I enable Shadow Files again, I'm back to a very nice scrubbing speed -- something like 30% to 80% of actual speed -- possibly faster than any other source videos, but not necessarily by much.

Bottom Line:

I can turn off Shadow Files functionality for the projects that don't need them.

Any shadow files I created will remain on my hard drive (for 30 days, maybe?).

If I come back to the project for which I enabled Shadow Files, I can use the files I created previously by re-checking the checkbox.

I hope this is helpful to whoever googles for it in the future!

AG

Hi. I've been using PowerDirector for a few months now, ravenously searching this forum whenever I have questions, and almost always finding just the answers I need. (Thanks guys.)

I've also accumulated enough questions to which I couldn't find answers that I'll start a thread of my own -- about Shadow Files. (I'm mostly pursuing Shadow Files because of trouble scrubbing within the Trim tool).

My specs:

Windows 10 Pro, 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7-3770 Processor, 16 GB RAM

NVIDIA GeForce GT 640

PowerDirector runs on my 480GB SSD C: drive.

Video files sit on my 2 TB E: drive.

The Trim tool:

With most video files, I can "scrub" really quickly in the popup Trim tool. I can basically hold down the Up arrow on the keyboard and watch the video move at, say, half speed. But with a few video files (large files? 24 FPS files?), the Trim tool is suddenly very slow. If I hit the Up arrow 5 times in quick succession, I can watch over the next 15 seconds as the video preview slowly crawls through the 5 frames... One. Slow. Frame. At. A. Time.

I'm thinking this might be sped up with Shadow Files? (I'll ask about Hardware Acceleration in another topic.)

Shadow Files:

I've read about how to tell when a Shadow File has been created. (The little icon turns from yellow to green.)

Q: Is there any way to see how long a shadow file will take to create? If not a progress bar, then maybe some rough estimates, based on a hypothetical 1 GB, 1-hour MP4 file?

Any ballpark would help. For example, it would help to know if a 1 GB, 1-hour MP4 will take more like 1 hour, 5 hours, or 24 hours...?

Q: If Windows 10 decides to sleep, does shadow processing continue while the computer sleeps?

Q: Can Windows see that the computer is busy with the "shadow processing," and therefore not sleep?

Based on what I saw today, the answer to both of those are no. I left my computer processing a large file (2 hours, 2 GB) and went to work. Nine hours later, I came home, saw that my computer had decided to sleep, and woke it up. When I did, the icon on the file was still yellow.

This leaves me with some questions about going back and forth between multiple projects (some with shadow files, some without).

Q: If I'm in the middle of a long (multi-hour) shadow processing session, and I quit PowerDirector, only to restart it later, will it resume the shadow processing or start over?

(In other words, do I have to leave PowerDirector running until this particular round of shadow file is 100% complete?)

And finally, here's a scenario:

(1) I turn on Shadow Files to work on a Project A, from source video A. (I turn on shadow files because source video A is huge and I want editing to go more smoothly.)

(2) The shadow processing completes, and the little icon turns green.

(3) Project A will take several weeks, and I'll have to come back to it. In the meantime, I save Project A, and go on to work on projects B and C for a while.

(4) For projects B and C, I turn off Shadow Files.

(5) I come back to project A later, and I turn Shadow Files back on.

Q: Will I have to wait several hours for the shadow files to be created from scratch? Or did they stay on the hard drive, despite having turned shadow files off and on for a couple days?

A lot of these questions might be moot if I learn that creating shadow files doesn't prevent the glacial movement inside the Trim tool. But, either way, it would help me to have a mental model of how to work with Shadow Files -- how much I need to complete them in a single session, prevent Windows from sleeping, avoid doing other projects without shadow files until I'm done, and so on.

Thanks in advance to whoever has some answers! :

AG