Messages posted by Dan

I want the best quality. MPEG2 would compress it by 2/3rds.

I'm using Sony Vegas Movie Studio as it is able to re-render without compressing. My guess is that PD7 can do this as well but I've yet to figure out how.

Is there a single, in-depth, authoritative source of information regarding the menu designer? Everything I've found seems to scratch the surface.

Guys, I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for monitoring these forums and providing such useful information. There must be hundreds if not thousands of people who routinely make use of the information posted here. The value you bring to this product is tremendous and very much appreciated!

I know DVD Architect and Pinnacle can do all the things you mentioned except for the transitions between menu pages. I know Pinnacle can't do that and I'm not sure about DVD Architect.

As for hitting "Menu" on your remote and getting back to the main menu of the DVD, I don't believe that is an issue with PD7. I just tested it on a DVD I made with PD7 and it worked fine.

The DVD authoring that is built into Pinnacle's is much more flexible and is probably the simplest.

Sony's DVD Architect is the most powerful, to my knowledge, but is more difficult to use. Also, to create a polished product take much more effort with DVD Architect. Be warned, however, that the ONLY DVD Architect version that can handle Blu-Ray is the one that COMES WITH Sony's Vegas Pro (you can't buy it separately) and even that does not allow you to make Blu-Ray videos on standard DVD's that will play in a PS3 (I haven't tried it in any other machine).

When all is said and done, I'm not happy with DVD Authoring products from ANY company right now.

I just purchased my first AVCHD camcorder and was reading this thread to learn more about the concerns of editing AVCHD. (Perhaps I should have done that in reverse order!)

This is the 2nd time I've run across information regarding the converting of AVCHD to another format to improve performance in PD7. The first product I read about is called AVCHD UpShift which says it converts the files to high quality MPEG 2 (.m2t).

I'm a bit skeptical so I've been trying to find some "personal experience" stories about this product without much success. I can't imagine that it's a good idea to un-compressi, edit, and then re-compress to make an AVCHD DVD. I've always been against ripping DVD's to make another DVD as quality has to be lost in the process. Perhaps because AVCHD is such a high quality format I won't notice any degradation using a product like AVCHD UpShift.

Anyone ever try this or a similar product?

First I want to thank everyone who monitors and participates in this forum. I'm impressed with the fact that there are so many willing to share of their time to help others.

I've been working for more than a week to determine if I should switch from my current video editor to CyberLink's PowerDirector 7. There are so many incredible features to PD7 that I really wanted to be able to make a clean break but have resolved myself to the fact that I will need to continue to use my previous editor in conjunction with PD7 until PD7 can do the following:
- Reverse Video (I noticed Dafydd also uses another product to do this).
- Have a single page menu with chapters.
- Have as many chapters as I want on a single page.
- Return to the menu after playing a single chapter.
- Have different text or appearance between sub-menus.
- Jump from one menu to another (I.E. out of order).

Looking forward to using PD7 and wishing CyberLink continued success with this well designed product!

I've never used PowerDirector prior to version 7.

I can't speak to the fact that the download of the trial version is not as new as the build you receive when you purchase the product except to say that I've tried it twice, manually edited the registry and use TuneUp Utilities 2008 (a very nice system utility), and still do not show the latest build.

Regardless, today I tried several things and it seems to be running OK even with several background process running (Skype, Avast Anti-Virus, FolderShare, Windows Search, and Huey Pro). I can assure myself of a freeze if I attempt to change the background video of a menu with any one of a few AVI's that came from a digital camera back in 2004. And just a moment ago I tried to launch PD7 when it failed and wanted to send an error report. I was downloading the latest trial again so it may not have liked the delay in communication with the mother ship.

So, I'll be careful about which background videos I add to a menu and should be OK.

I've been a long time user of Pinnacle Studio and have come to appreciate the feature set of PowerDirector. In authoring menus, however, I was disappointed at the lack of flexibility of PD in comparison to Studio. The following are some limitations of PD I came across:
- Cannot have a single page menu with chapters.
- Cannot have as many chapters as I want on a single page.
- Cannot return to the menu after playing a single chapter.
- Cannot have different text or appearance between sub-menus.
- Cannot jump from one menu to another (I.E. out of order).

Reading these forums I read that PowerProducer was more powerful in creating menus. However, when using the trial version I was still unable to do any of the things I mentioned above. In fact, it seemed to have much less capability in designing menus than PD.

Am I missing something here?

I received another message from CyberLink duplicating a message sent previously.

I normally would have given up on this product a long time ago but it has some incredible features making it superior to any of the 5 other video editors I've tried.

Here's an update on all the things I've done to deal with the constant "freezing up" of Cyberlink's PowerDirector 7 after a few minutes of use:
- Uninstalled any Anti-Virus / Anti-Spyware Apps
- Turned off all start-up applications and shut off all background tasks/processes
- Completely uninstalled all other video editors
- Checked virtual memory (have twice the recommended)
- Attempted to update build but couldn't because I have a trial version
- Reinstalled PD7 after COMPLETELY removing all traces of the previous install
- Updated the video driver
- Checked the audio driver (the latest was already installed)
- Reinstalled DirectX 9c
- Updated the BIOS
- Installed it on a second machine only to have it freeze up on it as well

The most luck I've had is about 1/2 an hour of use and that is without disableing start-up apps and stopping/closing all other processes. When I did disable start-up apps and all other processes, PD7 locked up in less than 2 minutes.

I have not tried yet disableing RichVideo but will do so today. I really would hate to loose its features.

Quote:
You can download the current trial version, it is build 1915. Be sure to uninstall the older trial version first and if you can't find the instructions on what to do in the registry download and run the free Wise Registry Cleaner (www.wisecleaner.com/download.html). Then install the new trial version.

Bif,

That's precisely what I did and I still get the older build. Would really like to try the most current!

To summarize, I've done the following things to deal with the constant "freezing up" of Cyberlink's PowerDirector 7 after a few minutes of use:
- Uninstalled any Anti-Virus / Anti-Spyware Apps
- Shut off background tasks
- Complete uninstalled all other video editors
- Checked virtual memory (have twice the recommended)
- Attempted to update build but couldn't because I have a trial version
- Reinstalled PD7 after COMPLETELY removing all traces of the previous install
- Installed it on a second machine only to have it freeze up on it as well

I have not tried disabeling RichVideo as I require its features.
I do intend to try PD7 with "all start-up items disabled" per Cyberlink's recommendation to see if it makes a difference but find it difficult to accept that I should have to disable anything when other editors work and all other applications work just fine.

Thanks to the good people in this forum! You should be on Cyberlink's payroll.

Well, Dafydd, I attempted to install the patch only to have PD7 say I was not allowed to install it because my current installation is the trial version and not the purchased one. So, if the patch is the fix, I can't find out unless I buy the product first. Seems rather backward to me.

Anyway, in accord with Cyberlink support I spent a fair amount of time removing all traces of the two other video editors I had installed only to find that once again, after just a few minutes, PD7 made my hard drive get extremely busy, my CPU usage go to a minimum of 50%, and become totally unresponsive no matter what I try. Other processes continue to operate normally.

Thank you, Dafydd. I will address as soon as I can.

In addition, I just received a response from Cyberlink saying "Please uninstall [MME] and [PS] and then use PowerDirector as it is causing conflict. "

Now it may sound reasonable that there is a conflict but PD7 must be an extremely sensitive product if it can crash simply because there are other video editors installed.

Thank you, Dafydd.

I used a variety of video formats from the AVI of a Sony MiniDV to a .FLV turned DivX AVI.

The PD7 build is 7.00.1829 (just downloaded it a couple days ago).

I did receive your PM and will provide more information when able.

I've done video editing long enough to appreciate the feature set of PD7 - not the least of which is the shared content. The stability issue, though, is reminiscent of a product I used 6 years ago.

Thanks again!

I've used another product for the past several years and have been frustrated with the way they will use products from other companies to handle the things their own product should be able to do. I've also been frustrated at the way they will charge you every time you turn around for a transition or template that isn't included in the base package.

So, here comes Cyberlink with their highly rated Power Director 7. I installed the trial version on a machine I've used successfully with two other video editors only to find that after a short while, my CPU usage will skyrocket, my hard drive will run constantly, and the program will basically freeze. Everything else works fine but I'm dead in the water with PD7! I then attempted to use it on another machine and all seems OK until I go to render a very short video and PD7 freezes again!

Cyberlink's response? "...make sure that you have un-install the Anti Spy ware program, if any." For real? They then suggest I reinstall the software. I JUST INSTALLED IT on each of two machines. Another suggestion was to disable RichVideo. Though they don't detail much about RichVideo it would appear I would loose my date and time detail from my footage. I'd consider that a big compromise. A quick search in this and other forums indicates I'm not alone yet Cyberlink's canned responses fall far short of any substantive help.

Anyway, I really like the features of this program and how easy they make it to do some rather high end things. If only they could make it a stable product...