Messages posted by Jimp77

Quote

Quote Is there a standard route by which such issues should be progressed. I had already called the distribution centre for the software and been sent (another) and apparently identical back-up disk of PD15 DeLuxe and the other software

Please read this sticky and supply a screenshot of the popup window showing the version of PowerDirector: https://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/50105.page#post_box_263481 .

PD15 Deluxe does not support 4k videos and some of the other video formats.

Hello Tomasc
Here is a document I attached to my earlier posting. I hope it helps. Sorry if the posting here shows some frustration - it is not of course directed at you. I am grateful for your interest.

Some questions are floating in my head - - -

How can it be that a later verson (PD15) does not support functionality that is present in an earlier version PD14?

And would you agree that if that is the case, it should be made clear? Do you mean that PD14 DOES support 4k?

Is it correct that the ''DeLuxe'', ''Ultra'' or ''Ultimate designations which go with the release number (such as 14 or 15) have some relevance to major aspects of the functionality contained? and if so, why is that not made clear - so much effort goes by Cyberlink into marketing the product and deluging the market place in pop-ups and ads. selling upgrades, but if I were a non-exec director of Cyberlink I would be putting more thought into how to be more informative about the product releases.

When software is applied many ''features'' are used in the same session. In such cases what is a user to make of a message ''The feature you are using is not supported'' - in many or most cases it would be possible to state which feature is at fault (not supported) or to give a short list of possibilities, don't you think?

I am trying to be helpful here, not (just) critical of cyberlink.

For newcomers especially it would be best to advance a good product to a good experience by removing un-necessary road-blocks from the learning curve.

Thank heaven for an active and supportive community - but Cyberlink should not be content to eave all the heavy lifting to them.

Best wishes

Quote What I see from your DxDiag:

The notebook has an internal HDD with 250GB, ~70GB free.

The notebook has an external HDD with 1TB, ~130GB free.

The notebook has a dual core processor (4 threads) with 1.8 GHz

I think, that is to low for 4K video editing. The error message is irritating, because PD 15 is fully compatible to that file format.
But I think, the missing ressources are the problem for bigger files.
What could you do?
I don't know, just ideas:

don't use big files.

Switch from 100MB/s to 60MB/s, the files will become smaller.

Don't use 4K, but FullHD instead. The files will be much smaller.

Use a bigger external HDD and make sure that it is connected to USB 3.0

Sorry, I have no further suggestions.

Hatti

Thanks Hatti and all who commented.

I have found out at one level why the import of clips into Power Director 15 did not work.

In my earlier post I said that I had a version of PD14 on the PC. After failing all attempts to load into PD15 one possibility occurred -- that on the one occasion out of many when I managed to load clips I might have inadvertantly opened PD14 from the so-called ''Ultimate Suite''.

I had of course been assuming that it would be better to use the later PD15 which I assumed would be an upgrade - as so frequently marketed by the numerous Cyberlink ads and pop-ups.

The fact is that my copy of PD15 just does not work in that there is no way I can load clips.
It appears to be nothing to do with the lack of power or disk space.

Testing the possibility that I might have on one occasion opened PD14, I switched to that and within 20 minutes had loaded (in groups, working slowly to monitor & note any problems) about 400 short clips obtained from visits to each of the Channel Islnds.

Very frustrating as you wrote Hatti - for you and all who advised me and also for me because of the lost 10 hours plus and because I have a registered copy of PD15 which does not seem to work.

As Hatti and others have confirmed that they are using it without problem, I have to assume that either I just have a rogue copy - or (as guessed by ynotfish (thanks for the idea

) I have been sent a trial version of PD15.

Is there a standard route by which such issues should be progressed. I had already called the distribution centre for the software and been sent (another) and apparently identical back-up disk of PD15 DeLuxe and the other software

Thanks again to all who read and commented - a community forum of this kind is incredibly helpful to all, perhaps especilly to newcomers like me and I apprecite the time spent and ideas given.

Hi Longedge
https://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/65639.page

is the link. I have followed Hatti's advice meanwhile.
Try to attach here the DXDiag file as suggested.

I have submitted several times with ths txt file and a Word document (but Submit has failed each time) I will send the files one at a time amd hope that helps

Thanks for your interest

EDIT addition
I have tried to convert the Word with embedded screen shots into a PDF and will now re-send with that hopefully attached.

Yesterday i managed to import 20 or so short clips as a test having followed Hatti's suggestion to ensure a big amount of disk space is available. I then began to edit initially by reducing length of clips and deleting some, saved the project OK and thought the problems I had been having had been resolved.

Before this one success, import had been failing every time with the message
This feature is not supported by your verion of the software (Very unhelpfully it did not state which feature was not supported.)

Equally unhelpfully it offered me the chance to upgrade as if that was the solution, although replies to my earlier posting and my one success indicated that the camera software combination should work fine.

Today I tried to set up a new project importing a slightly larger number of files. I cannot get past the same error message and have no clue why the import apparently fails. If I click away the message it reverts to previous screen and sits waiting.

If I drag the Failure message to one side, I see a blue bar in message box. The bar runs the full width of the box and the title is
Importing Media (100%) it also refers to the last clip in the list (I have just been trying to import 3 or 4 very short clips as a test.
After that there is nothing further. I expected to see the short video files having been imported. But nothing. I waited (Hatti said recoding was needed) but still no signs of anything happening.

I tried with just one short clip to minimise recodng time. Still nothing except the ''Feature not supported - ''box and behind that the Importing Media action box.- -

I would be pleased to have suggestions - my impression so far is that the software is very far from intuitive and in some cases it seems to be downright unhelpful - surely simple tasks like importing a few short clips should be repeatable.

Of course the problem may just be one of my inexperience with the software. Could there be a rogue preference setting. As far as i am aware I am using the same preferences as yesterday when it worked (once only out of 20 or more attempts to import data).

This is a separate posting to follow up the very recent one on importing video clips, which was effectively ended when I happily posted that thanks to Hatti my import problem had been solved!

Quote Hi Jimp77 -
Your PDR15 wouldn't be a trial version, would it??? If so that would explain it.

Hi Tony and thanks for the suggestion.

No. It is a full version. Perhaps just my ''playing'' on the assumption that it should all be intuitive but missing a couple of points on the way including the need to free up disk. Seems OK now - as per my reply to Hatti.

System error messages could be more useful IMHO. I will use the tutorials more !

Thanks Hatti
Every statement helpful

It was a hundred or so clips. I perservered with the benefit of your advice.
Main conclusion was that my previous attempts -assuming the software use should be intuitive i.e. not reading any instructions - had allowed me to get more familiar with the system but had also involved me creating / loading files of some size.
After a good disk clean up and amending a couple of the preferences (Edit--Preferences-- shadow files --etc) all worked as expected.

I will start to look into the editing options in the next days

I have a Sony Handycam FGR-AXP33
It records to SDXC card according to the small guide in XAVC-S which is supported - or supposed to be - by Power Director (PD), prem Elements and others.

As I read via Google, XAVC-S allows 4k recording in highly compressed form with MPEG-4 AVC/H264 and records in MP4 file.

Google tells me that PD13 is XAVC-S certified for Sony video devices.

I can load the clips without problem into Power DVD 15 & 17 and play them.

I am new to Power Director but supposed that when I open a new project, set to 16:9 aspect and then select import media folder and navigate to the right folder the clips will be imported.

However, having tried most options in case I have missed something simple, I find that PD15 has only imported the .JPG still images into the media library but not the video clips. I have selected ''media files'' and ''video'' at different attempts.

PD15 reads through the file as if importing - even stops a couple of times (out of about 100) on specific clips and gives an error message for that clip which I have OK'd and it continues until the whole file (50GB) has been read. Then simply states that it has failed because my Version does not support the Features I am using.

Any suggestions as to what I might not have set correctly or whether this is a known problem with the camera & software combination - or what I could try would be welcomed.

Thank you

Thanks again Hatti. Based on your comments I found a trial version of TMPGEnc MPEG Smart Renderer 5 and selecting
Advanced Tools and Mpeg 2 VBR then browsing to select the m2v file both m2v and related wav are loaded as input ready to press Start and the mpg file is produced.

After that importing the m2v into Director 15 (or 14) brings in the related wav as well - or import the mpg.
Could not be simpler - as many things when you know how. 30 day trial and this software is part of a wider family as you already know.

The Renderer 5 utility I used would cost $69.95 to buy. So simple I was tempted but looking at the specs it does exclude some functions from the earlier version - now 64 bit OS only, no HDV capture, MPEG files for video CD etc. so not sure whether it would present other limitations later.

Can you advise what software you have found it worth adding or necessary to add in order to work with the Cyberlink options - you mentioned FFMPEG for the above function (I will try and follow your suggested option to recreate the mpg files).

TMPGEnc family of software looks comprehensive, but has quite a few packages running to high cost. Are there gaps in the Cyberlink software that need to be filled by other or is the importing of files from older editing systems which gnerate m2v a '' special case''?

Basically I just want to edit my old files and author playable DVDs with titles and put multiple old home movies to BluRay for my children to play and to archive.
I have very recently got a Sony Handycam FDR-AXP33 (HD1080 & 4k) so will also want to edit and author to DVD or BluRay from that.

Thanks again for the mpg steer that pointed me in the right direction.

Quote

Quote PowerDirector is a little bit like Adobe Premiere. It is a video editor.
So, drag the .m2v file to the video part of track1 and the .wav to the audio part of track1.
If they are synchronized, the should have the same length. And here ya go!
Choose create disk and make a DVD.

Hatti

Vielen dank Hatti ! Thanks for the quick response to my post.
I noted a typo in my original and hope it does not affect the issue.
Actually I have PowerDVD15 but am still using Director14 which I bought some time ago but as I moved house am only now beginning to use. Wanted to establish that I could make DVDs and re-edit some of my old video files (Premiere 6.5) before starting again with a new system and new projects.

I have tried again an find that I can add the media filename.m2v and filename.WAV to PowerDVD and it plays the video media but I get no sound.

When I try to import the files into Director, it lists the available WAV files from the folder (including filename.WAV) but does not show any of the corresponding .m2v files, so it does not 'see' filename.m2v as a video file.

I note that neither the list of video file extension types nor the list of all media extension types includes m2v.

So Power DVD plays the video only but Director import does not see the listed video media files on attempted import but does see and allows import of the audio files.

Any suggestions/ i realise that as I am new to the system there may be some settings that I need to tweak, but as I understand from your post that m2v files should work I am wondering what to try next.
Or is it that only a later (or an earlier) version of director could import m2v?

When I open my media folder in Windows 10 it lists both video and audio files and hovering on the m2v correctly describes it as 'Movie Clip'

Best wishes
Jimp77

Quote PowerDirector is a little bit like Adobe Premiere. It is a video editor.
So, drag the .m2v file to the video part of track1 and the .wav to the audio part of track1.
If they are synchronized, the should have the same length. And here ya go!
Choose create disk and make a DVD.

Hatti

Vielen dank Hatti ! Thanks for the quick response to my post.
I noted a typo in my original and hope it does not affect the issue.
Actually I have PowerDVD15 but am still using Director14 which I bought some time ago but as I moved house am only now beginning to use. Wanted to establish that I could make DVDs and re-edit some of my old video files (Premiere 6.5) before starting again with a new system and new projects.

I have tried again an find that I can add the media filename.m2v and filename.WAV to PowerDVD and it plays the video media but I get no sound.

When I try to import the files into Director, it lists the available WAV files from the folder (including filename.WAV) but does not show any of the corresponding .m2v files, so it does not 'see' filename.m2v as a video file.

I note that neither the list of video file extension types nor the list of all media extension types includes m2v.

So Power DVD plays the video only but Director import does not see the listed video media files on attempted import but does see and allows import of the audio files.

Any suggestions/ i realise that as I am new to the system there may be some settings that I need to tweak, but as I understand from your post that m2v files should work I am wondering what to try next.
Or is it that only a later (or an earlier) version of director could import m2v?

When I open my media folder in Windows 10 it lists both video and audio files and hovering on the m2v correctly describes it as 'Movie Clip'

Best wishes
Jimp77

I have just started with Director 15 and would like to get back into editing some of my old videos.
I have a disk with lots of video files of type .m2v derived originally from Premiere 6.5.
I used to use the Premiere provided MPEG encoder.

Director 15 plays the video file without sound. It can also play the WAV sound files separately.

I cannot see a way of combining these files to create a DVD. Is there a way I could re-edit this video.
It is not really feasible to start again from the source data - even if the tapes still work after years.

As I come new to the software I realise this may prove to be a basic issue and obvious to some, but your help and tips would be very welcome.

Jimp77