Messages posted by Gary

God I hate power director. This pain in the ass program has been a thorn since the beginning.

What fries me the most is the support from spending a good sum of money only comes from youtube or an online forum.

Good bye Cyberlink.

I'm with Terry, gosh was hoping for this to work.

I did try copying my BAK file and I did rename it with a .pds and still I get nothing. If I double-click nothing happens, Power Director boots up and that's it. If I try to bring that renamed file in, I get the same message that the file is broken.

Interestingly, I look at the properties and it appears the content is there. That is, it says the file is 858 kb.

Man, what a drag...this is the first time this has happened to me in the year I've had Power Director 7.

g

Hi Cranston:

Thanks so much for the help, really appreciate your kind assistance and link forwarding! I'm working on a laptop as well, not a "pimped out desk top" as you referred! LOL!

Best-

Gary

Thanks Bif. I wasn't aware that I could view the tutorials in HD, so will try that now (looked at one earlier and couldn't make out the screen) LOL.

Appreciate the feedback and help!

Gary

Quote: I just made an attempted at making a video with Power Director 7 only (no converting or any other software used). This was rendered (after 5 crashes) as a 8000Kbps MP4 file (720p). Even though I selected 720p, it's still interlaced though. You can see that as the opening title slides in and when cars go by. I think it came out pretty cool though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVil3GxavHg&fmt=22

Right now, I have to give PD7 of rating of: Use it for SD content only. It crashed 5 times before rendering the MP4 file (an hour wasted). And it could not deal with working with multiple AVCHD files. PD7 would crash and freeze for seconds at a time. And, this was with my cores never going above 50% usage - same thign for the RAM. Something about the programming in PD7 itself is a bottleneck.

I've been forcing myself to learn Vegas on the side and it does not have these problems. It's never crashed on me during a render and it does not get sluggish when working with multiple AVCHD files. I'm seriously done with PD7 now for HD projects. I can't deal with that again (an hour lost to crash after crash). I'm sure PD7 will get fixed up at some point though.

Hi Walker-

I'm new to editing and have posted 2 You Tube vids. After watching yours, I'm really embarassed about the quality of mine. Your's is really crisp and clear! Why does my look like crud? The vids are about 10-minutes each and grainy and blury...every time I try to upload to YouTube, it's this way.

I don't mean to thread-jack, but would like to know how I can improve the quality in mine.

Thanks-Gary

Quote: Hi Susan,

I can't really help you directly with your specific problem, but can offer you this advise. If you haven't been doing so, try saving new versions of your project after nearly every major edit. I would give you project a name and add the number 1 at the end. For the next save change the 1 to a 2 and continue from there. If the audio sync problem occurs after save 24 then maybe you can go back to step 23 to avoid the problem. Once your entire project is completed you can give that version its final name and you can delete all the previous edits.

A related solution would be to render small projects separately and then combine them all at the end. For example maybe after a 10 minute segment you can render that file into your desired format. When you are done at least you'll know that that segment is in sync. After completing each individual segment you can added each back into the timeline, perform and any additional editing, render your final video.

Good luck.

I had the same problem as Susan when I produced a 30-minute movie. Thanks for your suggestions (and I had the final patch update too). I'm working on a laptop, so don't have the memory or RAM that some of you do, so the version saving (1-24) seems like an easy help.

I have a question about your last suggestion, about rendering the small projects. I have 8 discs to go through to create another movie. So after I render (produce?) the smaller, 10-minute segment...how do I add that rendered / produced segment back into the timeline? Would I import it just as I did the various discs?

Many thanks. Good Luck Susan.

Thanks for the replies, appreciate your help everyone.

Will customer support or operations produce a succinct training video or step-by-step tutorial for novices, for PD 7 (or any program)?

I posted this question a week ago, but cannot locate it on the board...and found myself needing to re-register on Cyberlink, something I had already accomplished when purchasing Power Director 7 Ultra...anyway-

My operating system is Windows XP, on an HP Pavillion laptop with Intel Centrino Duo and graphics by Nvidia. Added another 1 Gig to memory, so now have 2.

Because I am new to this, and not super technologically advnaced, I may not even have the right product for what my purpose. Please have patience with my questions.

Thanks!

We travel quite a bit. I really enjoy the camcorder (Sony DCR-DVD 108 Handycam). Started in Europe last year and took 15 DVDs!!! I know it's a lot, but it was my first time. I still have the DVD's and have been wanting to create a movie, but am overwhelmed and scared by the amount of DVD's. Took some smaller trips, with only a few DVDs and have been "practicing" with them. Small projects which is maybe a 15-minute movie from one or two DVDs turned out fine and I had fun and learned about the process. Realized I needed more memory, so bought another Gig.

One trip this year, I took 5 DVDs. I imported each disc to the Power Director 7-Ultra and began editing. When I was finished with each disc, I would import another, etc. until it was all done. I ended up with about a 25-minute movie from 4-hours of DVDs, when it was finished.

I used some of the Smartsound music and imported a couple of songs, downloaded from a CD or iTunes. It worked out nicely.

What was frustrating was:

1) Before too long, the video was out-of-sync with the audio...I found myself having to mute a lot of the clips, and add music because it was really off.

2) When I would play it back (before producing or burning the disc) often the movie would "snag" or "hang up". It was like it would get hung up and once it got going again (in a second or so) the particular clip would go in really fast motion, as if to catch up with the audio? I found myself needing to trim those clips (again) to get rid of whatever was making it funky. That in-turn was screw up the audio, so I would have to take the audio back out, and put it back in again...

3) A co-worker who has Power Director 6 told me that the more special effects I add (Magic Fix, Transitions, PIP, Titles, etc.), the more the movie will hang up. Is this true? What is the purpose of having these cool effects if I can't use very many?

4) When I import the first DVD, and create the storyboard, do my edits, etc. and am ready to import the second DVD, I import it to the same project I started. Should I be doing this, or should I import it to a new, second project, and do this for each DVD I import...until ready to merge them all together?

5) Am I using the right program? I am leary of starting my work on the 15-discs from Europe. I only want to make a 30-minute movie, but if PD 7 Ultra cannot handle this, then should I be looking at another video editing program? Should I look at another Cyberlink program? I don't want to make 4-minute movies. I want to capture special events, trips and such...sometimes combining a few on one DVD.

I am very sorry for the length of this post. I just need some help and clarification. I don't know too many other folks who do video editing, and this is becoming my favorite hobby.

Thank you for your time and help.

Happy Holidays!

Gary