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Dafydd - just signed up for SMWOV. I'm trying to track down some documentation or video training for PowerDVD10, do you happen to know of anything? Just bought it yesterday and not having stellar results. I'll provide you guys with my technical info, but I'd like to muck about a bit before I do, to see if I can get it working.
Or is there some documentation in PowerDVD that I'm missing?
Thanks in advance,
Hugh
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Sigh - well I tried out my new DVD10 and got poor results. I know the problem is me and not the software, but I have been looking around for documentation without much success. Did you guys figure it out by trial and error or did you find some learning material? I will send in my technical info, but I'd like to muck around a bit myself first.
Couple of experiments that didn't go so well. I created a movie in PD8 that included some DV tape video as well as some AVCHD lite video (I think it is 1200 by 720 roughly).
I burned it to disk. When I played it back the HD stuff was in a window within a window, so very small, and very poor quality. The DV tape stuff wasn't noticably better than normal DV tape.
When I compared just the AVCHD lite file playing in Windows Media and then in DVD10, I could see the difference. When I started I had the option to turn on ATI streaming but that turned off True Theatre. With True Theatre it was noticably smoother but I wouldn't say the picture was better. Without True Theatre the picture wasn't as good as it was just played on Windows Media.
Don't spend alot of time on this, but if you know of some good reading or videos let me know.
Hugh
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Cap'n - I have seen your comments many times in the PD8 forum. I don't even need a trial, I'm just going to buy it.
I'll have to settle with just playing HD on my pc (windows media player) hooked to my HDTV via HDMI. The only HD stuff I have is video I have shot. I'm saving up for my next computer to get solid state drives and Blueray. I can hear the argument now with my wife!
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Learn something every day!
I have two high definition TV's - one up stairs and one down.
Everything works fine on the TV upstairs (1080). It is newer and I guess higher definition than the older one.
I am playing my high definition video from my laptop directly to my TV using an HDMI cable.
No need for VGA quality when I can have high def. 
When I use PD8 and preview on full screen it is not perfect, but good enough for a family preview.
If I want full quality I produce it and view thru windows media player.
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I use PD8 and I have been reading about PowerDVD and I an not sure if it will help me.
I notice that when I play STD (not HD) DVD's on my PC and play to my HDTV over HDMI, the quality isn't as good as when I play the DVD on my home theatre DVD player.
Also, I don't have a high definition video player of any kind other than my PC. I want to be able to play the AVCHD HD movies that I have created on my laptop over HDMI to the HDTV.
Will PowerDVD improve the picture quality in these two scenarios?
Also, there seems to be a pretty frustrated user group out there, should I stay away from the product all together?
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I get very good results when I preview on my laptop. No stuttering and near perfect quality. I'd like to be able to preview over my HD TV through my HDMI cable. I get an error that 'the device must support 1080 x 720' (which it does).
If I produce the movie and play it through Windows Media player it plays perfectly. (wish the same could be said for DVD).
Any one have any ideas on why I can't preview? Seems to me the graphics of the TV shouldn't be a problem.
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Yes I had it working on the iMac with Leapord. Would like to get it into PD8 without going thru an extra file conversion though. Also had it working on an HP laptop with windows 7 and PD8. Only started having problems when I converted to my Dell laptop with windows 7.
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Let me know if you get it working Jamie.
Barry - I'm getting the same errors using Microsoft Movie maker and Photoshop Elements.
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Dafydd - you'll see my recent post that I'm having trouble importing files that I can import to my wife's iMac from 8mm via a Sony mini DV camera.
I could go back and get the files from my wife's iMac in .dv file format and convert but I've assumed that every time a file is converted you lose quality (from 8mm to Apple to PD8 versus 8mm to PD .
If my assumption is wrong, let me know!
Andrew - I was using 'MPEG Streamclick' software to convert large files on the Mac to multiple files short files. Check it out at http://www.squared5.com/
MPEG Streamclip is a powerful free video converter, player, editor for Mac and Windows. It can play many movie files, not only MPEGs; it can convert MPEG files between muxed/demuxed formats for authoring; it can encode movies to many formats, including iPod; it can cut, trim and join movies. MPEG Streamclip can also download videos from YouTube and Google by entering the page URL.
You can use MPEG Streamclip to open and play most movie formats including MPEG files or transport streams; edit them with Cut, Copy, Paste, and Trim; set In/Out points and convert them into muxed or demuxed files, or export them to QuickTime, AVI, DV and MPEG-4 files with more than professional quality, so you can easily import them in a DVD authoring tool, and use them with many other applications or devices.
Supported input formats: MPEG, VOB, PS, M2P, MOD, VRO, DAT, MOV, DV, AVI, MP4, TS, M2T, MMV, REC, VID, AVR, M2V, M1V, MPV, AIFF, M1A, MP2, MPA, AC3, ...
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I have been capturing 8mm tapes using the feature on my Sony mini DV camera that allows the signal to just flow thru to my pc succesfully on an iMac with iMovie and on my previous pc - an HP Pavillion with Powerdirector8.
For some reason I can't get it working with my new Dell laptop.
FYI - I have the Canaon 8mm camera plugged into the Sony mini DV camera via RCA and the Sony plugged into the computer via firewire.
I get intermittent errors - gawd I hate intermittent errors.
1) if I have no tape in the sony mini dv camera I get a message in PD8 that there is no tape. This looks like an obvious problem except that in this case the source video is supposed to come from the 8mm camera I have plugged into the Sony. I'm certain I used to leave the cassette blank on the Sony when doing this transfer but my memory is vague.
2) when I first put a tape in, I'll hit play on the 8mm sometimes the 8mm image shows up in the preview window in PD8, sometimes not.
3) when it does and I hit record in PD8, a window comes up in PD8 asking for a file name. By the time I enter the filename and hit enter the recording has stopped and I have 1 second of a black image on a file.
4) I have just let the preview play without hitting record in PD8 and it works just fine.
So, it would seem the connections and hookups for the external camera's are set up properly. I'm just doing a basic capture so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong in PD8????
Anyone seen this before?
Thanks in advance.
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Forgot to ask - Express 5/4 cards with solid state storage, is anyone playing around with these yet? Is this somthing that is available now or is a year or two away from being mainstream? I'm wondering what impact it would have on rendering if a person had a 128Gig SSD for the video files?
If there is already a separate post on this, I apologize.
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Bummer. I got similar feedback from a local retailer (although it was a young kid looking it up on google). I wasn't aware of a hub. Hmmm.
I'm not a technical guy so I really want to balance simplicity as well.
Based on your feedback, I'm leaning toward using my 1T eSata drive for my main backup of my laptop drive.
I have an older USB 2.0 1T drive I can free up from another computer to backup the eSata drive. I don't mind if it takes all night for this backup because it will be infrequent and I can plan it. I have experimented with backing up the eSata with the USB drive and it seems to work fine, any concerns?
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Guys - I've been using a 1T 7200rpm external eSata drive for backup. Very reliable, fast and small. I highly recommend it. My next toy - find a second eSata with the capability to daisy chain so I can plug the first eSata into the back of the new one. Fast easy backup so I can take a backup off site.
Toy number 2 - man I want a 250Gig Express Card 54 Solid State Drive to give me a second drive on my laptop which should mean faster rendering, correct?
Boys and their toys......
PS - I returned the HP DV7 and moved to a Dell Studio with only one 500gig drive.
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Hi guys - I've appreciated all the info you provide here. I'm a new windows 7/pd8 user having recently moved over from imovie. When I import my DV tapes in pd8 I get 1 big file (over 10 gig). In the imovie world files over 5 gig wreaked havoc. Also imovie automatically created a new file for new time stamps. In PD8 I can detect scenes but still one big file. Am I doing somthing wrong or is this normal?
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Gentlemen - first let me say, as a newbie, this forum is outstanding. Quite the oppositte of Cyberlinks support 
I'm just switching over to Wintel/Power Director from Mac. I need to make some investment in external storage - probably 2 - 2T drives or 2 - 1T drives (loading 20 years of video). Deciding between eSata, NAS or waiting for USB 6.0 and would like your thoughts.
I am using an HP Pavillion DV7 laptop with 2 internal .5T drives, i7 Inel, Nvidia (sp?) graphics, 8gig ram. I have an eSata port, an expansion slot and a USB 2.0 port as well as an HDMI port.
I want to keep on complete copy off site. And I want a local copy to backup the HP. I think I will endup with more than 1T in data if I follow the sugestion of copying all necessary material into a separate folder (which I like by the way).
So - my question: I'm loving eSata compared to firewire 400 that I was using on Mac. I'm finding it averaging 5X the speed on big transfers. Before I go out and buy two big eSata boxes, do you think I should wait for USB 3.0 (assuming I can get an expansion card)?
I have done some research on setting up a wired LAN (I'm wireless today but wouldn't be a big deal to run a lan wire) and setting up some Networked Attached Storage. Its not clear to me that this is any faster than eSata. For me the simplicity of having it all backed up automatically is offset by the technology complexity of setting up a NAS. Also, I like being able to move around - if I want work in another room, outside or at the cottage, I can just grab my external drive and bring it along (assuming it has source footage that I don't have on my internal drives). I see that folks are setting up things like WD TV devices to play their media on HD TV, but I don't have that issue since my laptop has an HDMI out port.
I could do some work arounds in the interim using storage I have and by not having an offsite solution for now.
Thoughts?
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