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Downloading the file and installing would be quick and easy instead using device manager. I always download the file, save it in my backup and then install the drivers.
Device manager will only detect WHQ (microsoft approved and lab-tested drivers) which lag being the current drivers by sometimes as much as a year.
That's really not the best option for video drivers, many which are updated monthly, and you simply have to get them from the graphics card manufacturer.
You're spot on about the WHQ drivers. However as I already posted, it's best NOT to get drivers from the card manufacturer. You should get them direct from the GPU manufacturer.
Chris - The best way to get accurate info on your video card and driver is to use a program called GPU-Z. Simply google it to find a download.
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Thanks very much for that David, I'll give it a try.
This seems a silly question, but what's the best way to update my drivers? Do I it via Control Panel, System and Device Manager?
No, you should get them direct from the GPU maker. For example, if you have a graphics card from Saphire, Asus, HIS, BFG, XFX, ignore those and go straight to either Ati or Nvidia.
Download the latest driver for you card, i.e Radeon HD3800, or Geforce 8600, and your operating system. Note there are different drivers for 32bit and 64bit systems. The download should be a complete installer package.
If you have on-board graphics, then you might need to get the latest chipset drivers. These will be either from Intel or Nvidia.
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Check for a video driver update. A PC being only a month old, means it's probably got drivers that are 2 or 3 versions out of date.
Also the manufacturer's drivers that are usually pre-installed aren't as good as the official ATi/Nvidia drivers.
My system running Vista64 ran PD7 a little sluggishly with Forceware 177.98, but wouldn't run at all with 180.42. Now it runs very well with Forceware 181.22.
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Thank you, but what does this mean exactly?
From what I understand... Avivo is a piece of hardware dedicated to one task and one task alone. It is nothing like CUDA 
Compute Unified Device Architecture or CUDA lets programmers manipulate the hardware in a GPU.
Instead of having a dedicated piece of hardware to do a single job, (like Ati's Avivo, or Nvidia's PureVideoHD) the Geforce 8 cards and Ati/AMD's Radeon 3*** cards are programmable. Just like regular CPU's.
The Ati/AMD version of CUDA is called CAL, (Compute Abstraction Layer).
Video rendering is a highly parallel function, so GPU's are ideally suited to do it very very fast.
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I just read that hardware acceleration on GPU's has now been added to PD7. It should make rendering really quick compared to even a fast quad core CPU.
The only downside is that it's been written in CUDA which only runs on Geforce 8 cards are newer. It might have been better to write the code in either openGL or even DirectX, so that everybody could take advantage of faster rendering. But I guess there were good reasons not to.
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Aside from the reverse video, which would be nice, the other things are more about dvd authoring. I wouldn't really expect a £50 editing package to be very good at those things. But after saying that, Power Producer isn't very good at those things either.
I actually quite like the sense of achievement when bringing together elements from 3 or 4 different packages to produce 1 final result.
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No, I don't think you are missing anything. I also think Power Producer is very under powered. As far as I can tell the only advantage Power Producer has over Power Director is the ability to use more than one video file.
I wasted money on PP4, and the trial of PP5 wasn't any better. I don't really understand, because PD6 and PD7 are so good for the cost. Now I edit my films in PD7 and author them in a trial version of Adobe Encore.
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You CAN load the folder containing an mp3 without any problems. It only hangs when you load a file (or files) within the folder.
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Unfortunately my rig with Power Director installed threw a wobbly when I swapped the graphics card, so I couldn't test it.
However I did manage to get it to accept a Radeon X1950PRO that also has 256MB of ram. It worked perfectly well, but I used the same driver I normally use. (The regular card is a X1950XTX 512).
I still think it's probably down to the drivers. You could give these a go instead.
http://downloads.guru3d.com/DNA-ATi-8.6-Vista-download-1979.html
They are modded drivers based on the official catalyst drivers.
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First of all, you will need to upgrade to a 64bit OS to be able to use all of your 4GB of RAM. You are probably getting access to somewhere around 3-3.5GB at the moment.
Also depending on some options in the BIOS (and DELL's tend to be on the low performance/stability first side), you might actually only be getting access to 2GB of RAM.
Run Task Manager to find the total RAM available.
I would try updating the Graphics drivers. Use ATI drivers rather than DELL ones. Also I would imagine the integrated graphics on the HP are limited to a maximum of 256MB of RAM and probably only 128MB. So that would suggest the amount of graphics memory isn't the problem.
Tommorow I will dig out an old 64MB graphics card and see if I can edit FullHD, and then report back.
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Dafydd, I'm impressed.
Within 2 hours of your e-mail to myself, I received a download link from CL Customer Support. It downloaded the full 600+mb package that accepted my original key, and I now have a working 1915 build.
Thanks
Dave.
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Thanks Dafydd.
I must say that this is the first significant problem I've had with PD7. PD6 threw it's dummy out on a regular basis, but it appears to me that Cyberlink have learned some lessons from that.
Also I have to add that at this price point, PD7 is quite a decent package. I've read a few complaints that would be justified on a £500 piece of software, but considering PD7's minimal price, I find it very good.
To confirm another members findings, I too have solved most minor issues by working with smaller projects. Instead of 1 huge timeline with hundreds of media files and effects, I tend to render individual chapters and then combine these together.
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Hi all,
I have PD7 ultra build 1628a purchased online as a upgrade from PD6 Deluxe. When I try to run the 1915 patch, I get an error message saying, that I need the full version of PD7 and not the trial version.
Also I've noticed that in addition to the "isale" reference in My account, I now have a "retail" upgrade reference that definitely wasn't there when I registered PD7.
I've come here first to get an answer, as tech support will just say "re-install"
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This might sound like a stupid question, but how do I get hold of the latest PD7 patch? I'm using build 1628a, but the option to update isn't available. 
Generally I like PD7, the biggest plus for me over PD6 is multiple PIP tracks. Unlike Dafydd, I prefer to work on one big project time-line, so the more I can fit into a single time-line the better for me. 
I've read most of the posts relating to PD7, and while I don't want to jump on the band wagon of blame, I do think PD7 should have been debugged a little better before release.
I'm not a software engineer, but I know enough about PC hardware to know that PD7 is NOT a very demanding piece of code. Heck, a 3 generation old Athlon is more than powerful enough to decode full screen mpeg2 in software.
I hope Cyberlink can sort out most of the problems quickly, because, as I said, in general I liked PD6 and I like PD7 more. 
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PowerDirector uses the CPU only to produce movies, no processing is done on the GPU.
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It would seem that PD7 is indeed in conflict with your hardware or related driver.
Personaly I would try different drivers for both my video card and sound card. Creative are well known to have very poor driver support, and we both know Nvidia drivers are released to improve a 3dmark score or frame rate, rather than to improve compatibility.
But, having said that there is a good chance PD7 won't work with any driver combination, and a refund might be your best bet.
I've just noticed that the ram you have is only rated at 166mhz (333ddr), while a core2duo at 2.66 runs on an FSB of either 266 or 333mhz. While this shouldn't be any problem, some chipsets (nforce 630) really don't like running the ram and FSB at anything other than a 1:1 ratio
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I've had so many problems with 64bit Vista and Xfi drivers, that I've upgraded that machine back to XP. I wouldn't rule out a conflict with PD7+Vista64+Xfi.
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I haven't got a definitive answer for you, but I can't open any projects I did with PD5Express in PD7. Everything I've done with PD6Deluxe opens fine in PD7 however.
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In 99.9% of situations all you need to do is change the file extension to .mpg.
*.mod files are mpeg2 files in disguise.
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You might have sorted this out already, but I did the following and it let me "toggle" between needing a key and not needing a key for the lite version.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE][SOFTWARE][CyberLink][PowerDirector???][IsCDKeyAct]
You need to change this value from 1 to 0
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