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I have placed a tech support request to fix this. The ticket number is: CS001463896
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It's worse than I thought. That's not just an idle process sitting memory. I have a power monitor hooked up to my PC and when the PD6 process stays in memory the PC uses an extra 70 watts of electric power, which means it's loading the CPU substantially. That is a 50% increase compared to when PD6 is not running.
I haven't measured it with multiple stuck instances but I'm sure it's worse. That's a lot wattage down the drain for nothing.
This has to get fixed.
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PD6 is not closing down properly. If I use it several times during the day and close it each time, you can go into Task Manager and see that each instance is still there and it never stops running. This is with version 6225.0
I have attached a screenshot of the task manager to show it does not shut down properly when you exit PD6.
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Having just made the switch from AMD 940 quad core to Intel, I couldn't be happier and I loved my AMD system.
The Intel 3770 and 4770 series i7 processors with 4 cores + Hyperthreading (effectively 8 cores) pull very strong in Cyberlink products. But it's a trickier decision than just processor. The Intel motherboards have massive DD3 memory bandwidth as well as PCIe 3.0 support (more bandwidth in the video card channels) along with native USB 3.0 support. On top of that, power and heat. The Intel processor TDP (dissipated power) is far lower than the AMD 8300-series processors. My CPU case runs far cooler than it used to be, which was a little heater and more expensive to run, even at idle. The mSATA drive slot right on the Intel motherboard is also sweet for a cache drive use... yes, you can use a SSD on AMD systems, but this is right on the motherboard next to the processor socket and doesn't take up space or cables.
I crunched the AMD numbers vs. Intel for a strong system and it always came down to about $100 premium for the Intel solution, basically the price difference to go for the i7 4770 processor over the AMD 8350. I also considered that the Intel 1150 socket is brand new, and should survive at least 3 more cycles of processor upgrades, not sure where AMD is going after the AM3+ socket.
AMD has just announced some newer processors than the 8350, faster clocks but serious, serious power consumption and heat, with TDP ratings near 250 (which is 3 times more power and heat than the Intel).
Anyway, on my second week with my new Intel system and it was well worth it. Powerdirector and Photodirector run fast on it, and my other photo editing software really appreciates the Intel hyperthreading cores. I've also utilized the RAMdisk function the motherboard provides to use for temp files in certain software. Hated to spend the extra Intel money, but the performance has been worth it in my case.
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Notes:
Updates PhotoDirector 4 (Windows) to build 3929
Install this patch update to improve compatibility with the latest cameras.
Not sure what else is in the update.
Here: http://www.cyberlink.com/support/product-update.do?locale=en_US
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Here's some longshot stuff you may try if you are pretty comfortable with troubleshooting:
Is there a BIOS update for the motherboard from the motherboard manufacturer? Are you running the correct memory speeds in your motherboard and not overclocking anything including the video card?
Have you tried turning off your antivirus software (or using a different one temporarily).
Try Changing your Page file size in your Advanced System Settings... this will force a new page file to be created and remove the possibility of page file corruption.
Run the Windows System File Checker. This is a built in program in windows (SFC.exe). You run this from a command prompt and use something like: SFC /SCANNOW. This will scan all your critical windows system files and make sure they are the correct versions. You will need in the installation CD or access to the original operating system media files if it asks during the process. This could take up to 1/2 hour of so depending on your system speed.
Try installing PD4 into a different folder than the default.
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OTW!
So nice to see you. Unfortunately, I suspect the answer is NO! The YT uploader within PD is archaic, it should allow for more than just the wmv file-type. It wouldn't be so annoying but to alter a profile and get it to show up in the YT/PD/UI, well, it's just a big pain in the arse.
I can get the custom profile to show up, but it is a .WMV profile
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Like previous versions, you can edit and modify the built-in YouTube uploader profiles to suit your needs. And now the PowerDirector upgrade patches don't wipe them out, either, like they used to.  I got lucky.
Since I'm on a slower satellite broadband feed, I couldn't use the high bandwidth YouTube profiles, and even the standard def version have too high of bitrates for my needs. I settled on 720x480 with about 800k custom bitrate, 32k audio, which is much lower than the stock profiles.
That all works, but the YouTube uploader relies on .WMV type files, which cannot use hardware acceleration, so they render quite slowly. So, I'm on a mission to figure out how to get the built-in PD11 youtube uploader to use AVCHD, or MP4 instead, like I must do manually now.
Any ideas?
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I suspect you'll need to clip out the offending audio piece and maybe dub-in a muted .wav portion to replace it.
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This are some great shots. Be great to crank out some panoramas with those kind of beautiful landscapes.
While many software products can do single-image HDR-like enhancements, I now shoot photos that matter with my auto exposure bracketing turned on, so you get 3 shots at -1, 0, +1 ev so that it greatly improves the chances of getting the lighting right and allows you the option to do true multi-shot HDR combining. Plus, it has saved my bacon more than once on high contrast exposures that wash out the skies and clouds and can only be salvaged through HDR manipulation.
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I underestimated the cool things you can do with background blur. Basically it blurs the whole image, then you 'reveal' what you want to be clear in your image using the 'scrubber'. It changes the whole way the photo looks. Kind of like the 'miniaturization effect' that some cameras now have, but with better image control.
It works good in images where the foreground or background may be distracting... just blur them away.
These aren't perfect images as I did them fast for examples, but you could spend some time and create high quality ones.
Fun to do.
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There's software out there (Photomizer Scan 2) that can do this, but I don't see any ability to do it in Photodirector 4.
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OK, here's one I did. The content aware object removal can sometimes produce some laughable quirks, but it does most of the work and with a little cleanup you can get decent results from surprisingly tricky photo situations.
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So evidently PD 11 has some problems when trying to edit a VOB file.
Again, thanks a million
Now that you mention this, I was playing with a VOB file the other day and had some similar issues. I didn't pay much attention to it at the time because I was just screwing around with something. I may take a second look and see if I can reproduce the same results.
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Had some fun with this one. The seal and the background penguins were already there. I added the polar bear, cat, and the penguin who is checking out the seal by removing the backgrounds from other photos and using the photocomposer.
The regional selection tool is awesome since you can adjust the tones of just certain areas of the photo so the blend in better.
Basic stuff for experts, but the point is I've only used the software for about 15 minutes and you can do some pretty advanced stuff without a heavy learning curve.
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I'm guessing if Pix had a dollar for every person that declares it's 'not their machine' he'd probably be retired by now.
You could be right. It might not be. But a 9600M video card is not the target for high-end video or photo processing in general. Cyberlink software tends to be pretty demanding on the hardware side of the equation.
That said, have you cleaned out your temp directories? Possibly try re-creating your page file. What else is running in memory when it crashes? Have you stripped it down and tried it? Have you turned of your anti-virus and tried it and configured the anti-virus to keep off the photo working directories?
So, there are few things more you could try if you have any patience left.
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However I'm very put off by this test, as you can imagine, so it's up to you if you want to identify and rectify the issues.
Are you running with current video card drivers and do you have a decent video card? I'm running the CNET version and have not had any crashes. I've saved a dozen or so different .PNG files with the background remover tool.
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Good news, and congratulations to Cyberlink. PD11 is the first software that can render Windows media center files properly (win7 and win , without the audio getting out of sync towards the end of the rendered files. It also imports the .WTV files much quicker than in the past, meaning it imports in several minutes instead of hours for a 1 hour source clip. GPU acceleration also works properly. 
Not even Microsoft's own moviemaker software can do this properly, plus is terribly slow, so it is a big deal. Funny thing is only PD11 can do it, other Cyberlink software like Expresso will not work correctly yet, and the audio always gets out of synch.
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The GTX 660 is around 200 euro's.
I use mp4 as output format so i can benefit from these cards.
I'm not using much enhancements.
BTW, will the editing in PD11 also increase with a faster graphics card? Sometimes it's very slow when editing video files or when previewing in HD etc.
Yes, your editing experience will be significantly better with a faster graphics card than an HD5450.
Regarding your system/harddisk questions:
The ideal system would look like this:
Fast, multicore hyperthreaded processor like Intel i7 or true multiprocessor system
Fast Graphics GPU / SLI configuration (multiple GPU cards ganged together)
Operating system on its own SSD drive.
Paging file on its own SSD cache drive
Temp file variables configured with their own SSD cache drive.
Dedicated source drive (possibly multiple source drives)
Dedicated destination drive with significant write speed for HD production such as RAID array because SSD is too pricey.
So, it depends how serious you want to get. 
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No doubt the 660 and 660ti are powerful cards, but expensive. It depends what your needs are. I have a GTX460 and it works for me and was only about $80 US on eBay. Faster is always more fun but more expensive 
Some big considerations are you using output formats that leverage the extra GPU processing power? For example, if you produce to a .WMV format, hardware acceleration is not available and will mostly use your CPU and not your graphics card. MP4 and AVCHD output formats will take advantage the extra graphics hardware available.
Also, if you turn on many of the Fix/Enhance features like stabilization, this shifts more load on to the CPU compared to the GPU, so it somewhat depends on which Powerdirector features you frequently use as to how much you'll gain from hardware acceleration.
I'll answer your harddisk questions a bit later as it is time for dinner.
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