I just ran into this same issue myself. I've never had any substantial issues with PowerDirector, but I tried my first project on a new computer, and ran into the same problem you are experiencing.

What I found was that the point in the video where the produce function was hanging was at an edit point (the third clip, specifically). On all the clips I had applied stabilization and color correction. I can't really say why it chose to hiccup, but my workaround was to pre-edit the clips, applying the stabiliztion and color correction, then rendering the cleaned-up files and pulling them back into the final project.

I'd like to figure out why the problem occured in the first place when I have more time, but my workaround is a good workflow practice anyways.

I'm curious if your hangups are also at edit points, and what effects (if any) were being applied to them. PowerDirector 10 Ultra
Dell XPS Studio - i7 3.4 GHz / 8 GB RAM / Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

In the Produce Module, Check Enable preview during production. Note where the rendering stops.

Then find that spot and delete from the timeline, try the render again, does the video render now?

Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

I'm glad it's not just me and that someone else is experiencing the same difficulties that I'm having.

I have loads of Video Enhancements all throughout my project, and at first it would get to around 66%, then 54% and finally around 20% however this is nothing I haven't previously used in the past or on my other videos.

I have tried enabling preview during production, but not really come to a conclusion because of it.

Wow, It's good to read recent posts about people having the same issues I'm having. I've had PD10 for a little over a week and have been trying, and trying, and trying and trying, etc, etc, etc, to get editted video to render. Every attempt has failed. Some finish, but those all have frozen frames at different points. Others simply stop rendering, the time increases, and the processor returns to idle.

I've spend hours with tech suport to no avail. They have no solution for me except for me to send them project info so they can excalate up to their dev team.

I feel like a beta tester that had to pay for the software. They sure advertise this software as being great, but I feel that it's thrown together and full of rendering bugs.

I'm going to try the suggestions of Skully and try to edit the individual clips and then reinsert them into a master project. Perhaps that will work. But how terrible is it that you have to massage a program because it can't perform as it was marketed.

For Carl's suggestions, who appears to be a senior contributor, what a terrible idea. Find the spot in your video where you made edits, where you spent your time using the software for the exact reason you purchased it, and delete that section! What? Maybe people actually want that section in their video. Perhaps that's a key section of the video. Or perhaps for a billion other reasons cetain sections of the video should not or cannot be removed. Brilliant idea Carl!

Let me point out that this software is maketed and sold as a full-featured video editting utility can--amongst many other things--take multiple video clips, apply transitions and effects, and render high def output. For every one person that will take the time to post on this message board, there are a thousand who won't; and, double that number are people who are not computer literate who just want to produce a family video and simply think the problems must be on their end. This sound like predatory business practices to me. Cyberlink needs to get their act together and either produce a quality product or properly identify the precise computer(s) you must own to use their software. Their current direction is extremely disingenuous.

You get around you problems of too much enhancement, by doing only one or two enhancements only, then producing that section of video to it final output format.

You can then bring the enhanced video back to the timeline and continue editing.

It is good practice to break your project up into smaller pieces and work on one piece at a time.

Edit: Corrected wrong word.
Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

Quote: You get around you problems of too much enchantment, by doing only one or two enhancements only, then producing that section of video to it final output format.

You can then bring the enhanced video back to the timeline and continue editing.

It is good practice to break your project up into smaller pieces and work on one piece at a time.

this is just a total waste of time. If they just fixed their crappy software so it actually worked, we wouldn't have to make workarounds. This problem is not new to version 10. I am running version 9 with the same problem.there is definitely something wrong with the software if if can't render it's own transitions.
What's even sadder, you contact customer support and they are worthless......

Quote:
I feel like a beta tester

Well there weren't any beta testers (apparently) for PD10 so you have pretty well summed up things

Quote: .... who appears to be a senior contributor, .....

Senior contributor status is based on post count not on content. All the contributors are volunteer enthusiasts who have managed to work around many of the inadequacies of PD over the years. Sometimes the advice is good, sometimes the advice is so far off the mark it is laughable but they are all trying to help out fellow editors get the best from their systems.

Carl's method works just fine. All he was asking to do was to render the video with the preview on so that you could see where it stopped. Then you will have a better clue of where to look in your project and then remove the clip and then if it renders without a hitch you focus on correcting what is wrong in that portion of your project. Most likely, but no guarantees, it is a faulty video clip

This is an effective way to troubleshoot the problem. I have done this myself to locate a problem video clip, made adjustments to the duration and/or end or start point and problem solved. I think the particular video clip had some problems. 

Another frequent cause of hanging during rendering for some..... The project is created and within the project are video clips that are of a non standard structure. Meaning that the resolution of the video clips resolution dimensions are in conflict with other parts of its structure. Maybe the clip was captured and/or downloaded and imports into the project ok, but causes the render to fail. So....take a close look at all the clips you are using and answer some questions to yourself. What are the video dimensions?  Are they standard resolutions? What are the audio characteristics?  The same? Stereo or 5.1,7.1? How were they encoded?  Pd can render all of its transitions, I have rendered all of them to see if it does. But PD might have trouble transitioning from one nonstandard video clip to another without a hiccup.  Are the frame rates the same for all the video clips?etc etc etc. 

Carl's method will assist you to identify a problem clip and help you ask questions about the area where it hangs, because you can see where it stops. If you then remove the clip and it then renders then you will have to correct the faulty clip in some way such as processing it in some way to allow it to be utilized in the project. 

PD, has little and bigger bugs here and there, but it renders very consistently on my setup. I attribute that to only using video from a trusted video source, my video camera. 

The whole point of this is.... If something isn't working then look at what you are using for source video,audio and graphic files. 

These are just questions to think about. You may be importing a consistent video format from a single source and then you would have to look for another solution.

This is why information is asked so the problem can be troubleshot more effectively. And even providing all information doesn't help because your hard drive is failing or a RAM card isn't plugged in all the way and is causing a problem or this or that software or anti virus program is causing the problem.

Best,

Kevin

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I am trying to edit together multiple video clips rendered by PD. So if there is an error it was created by PD.

Obviously there must be a software problem since this same problem is happening many different people. Your theory might hold true if the rendering stops at the same point every time, but it seems to pick a different spot each time. I have noticed it seems to stop when trying to render transitions between clips

I can honestly say this is probably the worst piece of software I have ever used in the 17+ years I have owned a PC

Quote: I'm going to try the suggestions of Skully and try to edit the individual clips and then reinsert them into a master project. Perhaps that will work. But how terrible is it that you have to massage a program because it can't perform as it was marketed.

For Carl's suggestions, who appears to be a senior contributor, what a terrible idea. Find the spot in your video where you made edits, where you spent your time using the software for the exact reason you purchased it, and delete that section! What? Maybe people actually want that section in their video. Perhaps that's a key section of the video. Or perhaps for a billion other reasons cetain sections of the video should not or cannot be removed. Brilliant idea Carl!

When I originally had that problem, I was able to pinpoint the exact clip that was causing the problem by noting the time the produce stage hung up on, and matching it to my timeline. Rather than trying to fiddle with the settings on the clip, pre-rendering it seemed the simplest solution, and as I mentioned, a good workflow practice anyways. I could have taken more time to diagnose the actual root of the problem, but this seemed the quicker and easier solution.

Carl's suggestion was only as a diagnostic method to determine the cause of your problem. Carl is very methodical in his approach to solving these issues, and a great resource on this forum, and I doubt he would suggest that you avoid using the effects that the software was intended to be used for. I know you're frustrated, but I have no doubt that his suggestion was only intended to help you isolate the problem.

I should also note that since my original reply I have produced quite a few videos, and have not experienced a similar problem. That just reinforces my belief that the issue was a specific set of circumstances on that specific clip, not a general shortcoming of the software. All software likes to claim to be everything to everyone, but the reality is that there are far too many variables between hardware & software configurations, and source materials, for PD - or any editor software - to handle everything perfectly everytime. PD is a good program. Any little issues I've run across I have always found an easy enough workaround for that are at worst minor inconveniences compared to what I can get out of the software.

If your goal is to correct your current problems then you need to do a few things.

You need to navigate to the power director 10 forum home page and click on the topics at the top of the page about information that is requested. Without information about your project and a example of the footage you're using, a screenshot of your entire work space and specifics about your current PC set up no one can do a thing. That's like calling your car mechanic on the phone and sayin my car is making a noise can you fix it? Any good car mechanic would ask a lot of questions and since we can't see the car or hear the car you need to help us by providing the information. But we are not technical support we are just users of the software that volunteer our time to try to help people work through some problem.

If your goal is to just complain about the software then you need to contact customer service. The forum is made up of just video editors that use the software. Personally I wouldn't bother using software to edit video if it didn't work well enough for my purposes. So from experience I would say that you have a specific problem that probably can be corrected. And I totally understand how frustrating it might be when something doesn't work. I feel your pain!!

Best,

Kevin
Check out PDtoots. PowerDirector Tutorials and more! Over 5,000 Subscribers.

Quote:

If your goal is to just complain about the software then you need to contact customer service. The forum is made up of just video editors that use the software. Personally I wouldn't bother using software to edit video if it didn't work well enough for my purposes. So from experience I would say that you have a specific problem that probably can be corrected. And I totally understand how frustrating it might be when something doesn't work. I feel your pain!!

Best,

Kevin

The sad part here is I have already gone round and round with customer support. Unless they are spitting out their prepackaged script answers they are no help at all. you comment about using software the didn't work well enough is no help. I paid for this software. I should expect it to work as advertised. I would be more than happy to move on to something else if the refunded my money.

They, customer support, probably are giving you scripted answers.

You said my comments about the software not working wasn't helpful. Did you miss the part where I asked you to provide some specific information so that we could help? I have seen topics like this before where information is asked for again and again and again and it is never given, so a resolution is unlikely. I don't know what else to say, I'm sorry you're not happy.


Best,

Kevin


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Hi. I would just like to reiterate what Carl and Cap'n Kevin have already mentioned about finding the offending portion or clip that is causing rendering problems. Many folks, myself included, have been using PD versions with great success. Yes, there are bugs, but workarounds can be found most times.

I had occasion to work on some horrible converted VHS footage last week, originally recorded in EP (6-hour) mode. There was a lot of video noise and PD10 was not happy with that. It would hang - always on the occasional fade transition. Remove transition, and the rendering would continue to the end or until it found another fade transition it didn't like. On one DVD, I had to remove about six different fade transitions to render the entire project, but it was happy with the other 30 or so transitions, some fade, some cross, and some others.

I have encountered similar problems with other DVDs I was producing and it was always resolved by dealing with the offending portion of the timeline. It was clear to me that PD was having problems with poor quality or otherwise deficient clips. In my experience, PD10 does work as advertised.

There are many other possibilities that could explain the problem you are encountering, but, as stated, you need to help us, help you, by supplying the requested information. None of us work for Cyberlink - we are just editors like you. We do want to help, so please help us, help you.

Have a great day.

Regards,
-Phil Windows 10 Pro x64
Dell XPS 8930
Intel CoreT i7 (4.6 GHz)
32 GB DDR4-2666 RAM
1 TB PCIe -x4 SSD
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060
PD14 Ultimate x64, 4207
CD4 Ultra and AD6 Ultra
Bleeping Computer Malware Response Instructor

In all honesty, I cannot be bothered to read all that above!

Long story short, I have since found the solution to my rendering problems. As mentioned before, I did use a lot of Video Enhancements to increase the quality. By simply taking that off, it renders absolutely fine. Although frustrating because it's nice to have better quality, I guess the bottom line is that it works!

I can't believe I just read this.

In all honesty, I cannot be bothered to read all that above!

In all honesty I took the time to read all of everyone's responses to your issue because I was interested in getting your issue resolved.

In all honesty I thought that the response from garioch7 was a very thoughtful and considerate response to your issue.

Just wanted to note the time that he took out of his day to try to help you....Resolve your issue.

I am not trying to be rude to you, but you should also acknowledge the time spent in writing very thoughtful responses to your issue.

If you want people to "bother" trying to help next time.

Best,

Kevin


Check out PDtoots. PowerDirector Tutorials and more! Over 5,000 Subscribers.

I read it up to a certain point, to which it got a bit carried away with how people are just being unhelpful to which I then couldn't be bothered to continue reading.

I appreciate the advise don't get me wrong, but in all fairness it wasn't really relevant to me and then when other people start commenting on experiencing similar but slightly different problem, I didn't really find it applicable. Besides, I fixed the solution anyway hence why I didn't continue reading past a certain point.

Well after much trial and error I finally figured out what the solution is. I had to experiment with all the enhancements until I finally found the answer I was looking for.

Kevin
Check out PDtoots. PowerDirector Tutorials and more! Over 5,000 Subscribers.

Hi Isaac Cox,
Thank you for posting a followup and that you localised and found your own solution.

This thread had been side tracked and taken over by editors complaining of what they perceived as similar issues. This was your thread and your issue and should have remained focused on that. Editors with issues should have started their own New Topic and followed the guide/read me.

Guide: http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/13638.page

I would not want you to be put off from asking for assistance on this forum again.

Forum Moderator