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My initial tests on converting .mov footage to .mp4 footage so far seem to indicate that this completely solves the problem of audio cutting out during transitions. This causes me to question whether Cyberlink can genuinely claim its software is compatible with .mov files, including the output of Canon and Nikon DSLRs.
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Is QT Lite something that does what QuickTime would otherwise be needed for, but without the security vulnerabilities? Or can anyone confirm whether it's possible to install a version of QuickTime without the aspects that have security vulnerabilities? One article I've seen online suggests QuickTime can be installed without the QuickTime player in a way that doesn't include the vulnerabilities. That sounds doubtful to me in view of the widespread advice to uninstall QuickTime.
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Most of the time I haven't needed Quicktime, but something I installed recently required it, and I installed it, having forgotten about any security news I may have heard about Quicktime earlier in the year.
I've uninstalled Quicktime again now, but I'm feeling the need to find out what software I have might rely on it. If anyone has any examples of popular software that does rely on, or examples of kinds of software, I'd appreciate your thoughts on that. I'm researching it now.
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I use a program called "QT Lite" instead of full blown QuckTime. I'm using ver 4.1.0, which seems to be the latest, according the web.
Okay, that's interesting. Thanks for letting me know about that.
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Sorry - could you explain a little more what you mean by that? Are you saying PowerDirector is not compatible with footage from Canon and Nikon cameras?
Quicktime (MOV) format is owned by Apple. They purposelly crippled the Windows app for that format, kept it at 32 bit, denied other deveopers to create another app for this format. More, now they abandoned the Windows version, right when it was discovered a big security flaw.
The software client in PD that deals with Quicktime (and every other windows software) is bad, still 32 bit, not updated from 09.2015. Convert the MOV files to another format before editing or don't buy any devices that uses this horrible format. Or... buy a Mac.
You can try also to rename the .mov to .mp4. MOV format is a container and if the actual video content (payload) is compatible with mp4, it might work.
Well, that's appalling, and typical of what was Steve Jobs' vengeful attitude towards other platforms. But thanks for the information on it. PD15 officially supports the .mov format, including the DSLR output of Canon and Nikon cameras, so if the software has bugs - and PD15 has severe ones - then it's Cyberlink's problem as much as any user's.
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What format are your HD files (mediainfo)? If it is quicktime, then you have your answer...
Sorry - could you explain a little more what you mean by that? Are you saying PowerDirector is not compatible with footage from Canon and Nikon cameras?
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How about set the preview quality to High from HD?
Unfortunately no change in the preview quality makes any difference to the problems I'm reporting.
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(BTW, my name's not Mikael. I really am a James. Mikael is the composer of a backing track I used in a video.)
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Sorry James (or is it Mikael?) -
Even on a video background with 2 blending effects applied, the complete name is displayed, with no truncation... both in PDR & the produced file. Screenshot attached.
It would be infuriating (!) and it would be much easier to assist if others could replicate the issue.
Yes - easy to see the edge of the image in PDR, indicated by handles (aslo attached)
Cheers - Tony
Thanks again, Tony.
If this, along with at least 4 other PowerDirector 15 issues, aren't resolved urgently, there's every likelihood I'll have to abandon Cyberlink software in order to have any chance of saving my business.
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See attachment...this is with PD14 ( I added border and drop shadow to show more detail). I don't see anything missing from the "B".
Thanks very much for trying this. Would you mind trying the graphic at maybe half the size and on a black background, and adding a blending effect on a layer behind it and seeing if the problem appears?
I just can't understand why I seem to be the only person who has this problem.
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... And maybe I'm wrong about PD15 having less of this problem. I've just realised the "By" in my PowerDirector 14 output at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBLoIcQiW2U isn't cut off. Meanwhile, it IS cut off in PD15! This is truly ridiculous.
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Complicating the issue further, it seems the cut-off PNG issue is not as serious in PowerDirector 15 as it is in PowerDirector 14. So maybe that's why you can't see. I've just tested a PNG file that obviously had the problem in PowerDirector 14, and it's not obvious in PowerDirector 15. But there is one other file that has the problem about equally in PD15 as it did in 14, so I'm attaching that here, too. The left-hand edge of the "B" in this image is cut off in PowerDirector 15, too.
For an example of the problem output, see from 3:06 of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBLoIcQiW2U. The top left edge of a "W" in "www" is cut off, and the left edge of the "P" in "Phone" is cut off. This phone number image is the same one I attached earlier in this thread. Both of these images cut off in PowerDirector are not cut off when viewed on a standalone basis after export from Xara.
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I can actually guess why Xara removes the canvas - it needs to be able to "feather" the edge of the visible image if necessary, rather than the edge of the canvas. But I don't know of any way to stop it "removing the canvas" if feathering is not needed. However, Xara has so far shown no sign of recognising what I'm talking about in relation to this.
And it does seem that "removing" the canvas is not entirely what happens, because enlarging the canvas in Xara makes a difference to the result in PowerDirector. You might see the phone number file I attached is called "Phone number with buffer". That refers to the fact that in creating that PNG file, I had already enlarged the canvas above and below the image in order to solve the problem of its edges being cut off. I hadn't noticed that the left edge of the image was also being cut off, so I hadn't increased the canvas on the left. That's why this image has its left edge cut off in PowerDirector but doesn't have its top or bottom cut off.
I don't know why you're not seeing the left edge cut off in PowerDirector. I'm wondering if it's because you're just not displaying it large enough to see that, or if such a small amount is cut off that you can't tell unless you know how wide the edge of the "P" was in the first place.
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In PD15, I have the same problem with "Cyberlink PowerDirector found a temporary file that may be the project file automatically saved last time. Do you want to try and recover the project and open it?". This message, and the same temporary file, comes back every time I start the software, regardless of whether I say "yes" or "no", regardless of whether I save the temporary file material or not if I do load it, and regardless of whether I manually delete all temporary files. None of the suggestions made in this or other related threads that I've found so far make any difference without reinstalling PD15. I'll probably try reinstalling soon.
You should start your own new topic. The is a very old thread.
http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/forums/show/87.page
Click on New Topic button at the top of forum.
Thanks Carl. Will do.
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Hi James2016 -
Your "Phone number with buffer.png" displays as expected here in PDR, just as Carl found.
I don't know my way round Xara well enough to offer advice, but I have noticed that when you export a PNG it removes the "canvas" & exports only the graphic created... much like the PhotoDirector background removal tool. By default it crops to the edge of the graphic. Photoshop & Paint.NET export PNGs with the canvas included.
Even the your image displays correctly here, there may be a setting in Xara that will correct your issue.
Cheers - Tony
This is totally infuriating, and it's one of several PowerDirector problems that threaten to greatly damage my business if they're not urgently resolved.
Why does my software work differently from other people's?
And how is it possible to say that Xara removes the canvas? I ask for two reasons: I just finished reading a Xara support ticket response in which the support person is unaware that Xara PNGs are different. And the other reason is that the other related problem I was talking about that prompted me to send the phone number PNG is that I've discovered you can effectively see the edge of the canvas of a transparent Xara PNG in PowerDirector. And the reason you can see it is that all PowerDirector titling displays differently when it's on top of a Xara transparent PNG. It displays more brightly in color and loses anti-aliasing around the edges. So if you have titling that animates across a Xara transparent PNG, the produced video output is unusable.
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Sorry to go silent on this conversation earlier. Other things came up that kept me busy, but now that PowerDirector's creating an increasing number of issues, I thought I'd report something new that could relate to this.
I've discovered that transparent PNGs exported from Xara software don't play well with PowerDirector. Beats me why two identical-looking transparent PNGs - one export from Adobe software, and one from Xara, would behave differently in PowerDirector, but that is the case, and it's possibly responsible for the clipping of the PNGs.
So while you may not be able to replicate the problem with your own PNGs, can I leave you with one here and have you try that out in your copy of PowerDirector? The attached transparent PNG phone number ends up with the left-hand edge of the "p" in "Phone" clipped off. I'm interested to know if it does that in your software.
James
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The drivers are up to date. According to Microsoft. Which, I guess, as usual, means nothing.
Did I say Microsoft??? Use the nVidia drivers, don't rely on MS to provide you the nVidia drivers!
I don't know whether you saw my comment further up, but I did get the nVidia update. The result was it changed the available settings in hardware acceleration in PD15. What it didn't change was PD's appalling level of dysfunctionality.
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I tried going back to PowerDirector 14, and have found it doesn't have the transition problem I've talked about in this thread. But I can't edit my projects there, because version 14 won't open version 15 files.
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Since PowerDirector 15 doesn't work, I've gone back to version 14. It doesn't have the transition problem I've described here. But version 14 is useless to me for my current projects unless I start them again, because PowerDirector 15 files can't be imported into version 14.
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Hi Jeff. Thanks very much for having a look at this. I've attached a screenshot with some annotations.
I can't cause an audio drop out over the transition duration issue yet on my 2309 release. Maybe it's related to whatever enhancement you have done to the preceeding clips (orange icon on clip) be it "Fix /Enhance" or "Power Tools" type operation as some can be very CPU intense. If you use your same transition out in the right part of your timeline where you have no enhancements applied to the DSC_0560 clip does audio still drop there?
More than likely it might just be a timeline playback issue, have you tried producing the timeline and/or just this range of timeline and see if it's in the final output?
Jeff
The enhancements indicated by the "i" are just simple pans and zooms to provide a little variety in video that is mostly a talking head. The problem occurs even if they don't exist, and also happens in any new project I start that has transitions.
The things that are different about the transitions in the lower track are: (1) they're on a lower track and; (2) they're not transitioning to or from anything on the same track. However, on repeating that arrangement in a new project, I find that the error occurs on the transition INTO the clip but not on the transition OUT of it. So it may actually be behaving exactly the same as the top track - that is, it may be that in all cases the problem is the part of the transition that goes INTO the clip.
The video output works fine. But the problem in the editor means editing is so inefficient as to make PD15 virtually useless, because I can only get a proper view of what it looks by producing it.
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