WILHELM G HANSEN,

You may be new to Powerdirector 8 and do not know the basics of using the program.
One of the first things you need to learn is how to get to the Preferences, Preferences are important, You can set your Import and Export folder, as well as other important things.

To open Preferences, the Keyboard short cut while in the Edit room is (ALT+C) press both keys at the same time.
Set your Import and Export folders to where you want to edit your video. Import and Export can be the same folder.
Preference is Director's chair > Edit > preferences.

In PD8, you see the director's chair in the upper left corner.
Click on that image, with the left button of your mouse. You get the standard Main Menu, File, Edit, etc.

To save your project file and be able to recall it,
Directors Chair > File > Save Project file As. Navigate to location you want to save your project, (This default location is the Export folder in preferences) give the project an appropriate name.

See pictures.





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.

To recall a project, You open the PDS file.

Your videos that you edit must be on your hard drive and not on removeable storage. If the videos are not available, you get black place holders.

The Project file saves the location where the videos and images are located. The Project file records all of the actions you do to edit the video.

So when you open the project file all that you did previous will be present when the PDS file is loaded.

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.

Thanks very much for this reply. It's extremely helpful, and I appreciate the inclusion of screen shots.

I've been able to save and recall projects now. Apparently I can't save videos to disc once they've been produced. They save all right, but they always save as .psd files, not WMV or whatever format I rendered them in.

Until this afternoon I was only trying to burn very short video clips, and that worked, up to a point. I can play myDVDs if they're produced in AVI, MPEG-2, or WMV. No surprise there. But video stops playing after the first minute of play. I don't think it's a buffer underrun problem; the computer should be plenty powerful enough to play simple 2 minutes videos ( 6 GB RAM, 1 GB V-RAM, Intel i& processor, 2.33 mHz). Shutting down the computer and restarting doesn't help. Any suggestions on this problem?

Thanks again for your reply to my earlier question.

Bill Bill Hansen

I've been able to save and recall projects now. Apparently I can't save videos to disc once they've been produced. They save all right, but they always save as .psd files, not WMV or whatever format I rendered them in.

To have completed Videos (Save the edits), you Produce, Button is next to the Edit button.

You can select whatever format you want your final video in. The HD formats are HD MPEG2, HD WMV, MP4 and the AVCHD profiles.

PSD files are just the set of instructions, not the actual videos.

To create DVDs, your must use the Create Disk module, again a button at the top of the interface.
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.

Tutorial on getting started with Powerdirector, the Basics in two parts.

Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXG2jDTHyKw

Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccSNU_Z7BRc

Good tutorials.
http://www.youtube.com/user/pdtoots

Cyberlink channel.
http://www.youtube.com/user/cyberlinkchannel 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 must have annoyed you with my second question. There's no need to be condescending. *Of course* I can see the buttons at the top of the PD 8 screen, and of course I am intelligent enough to know what they mean. Yes, of course it is those buttons I used when I attempted to produce and burn my practice videos.

I Know you're busy, so you haven't had time to recall that in my earlier notes to the group, I wrote that I have been through the tutorials you mentioned, as well as the PD8 FAQs. They are all very helpful - really they are - but they don't address the problems I've been having now.

My most recent try at burning a practice video clip was a three minute video, all one clip, no transitions or editing. It played perfectly in the PD preview player (the one which scales up to full screen size, not the smaller preview panel). It appeared to burn normally, but final file size was 125 kb and only the first minute would play in Windows Media Viewer, which plays much longer videos without trouble. I cut the burn speed from 18X to 8X, thinking that there could be a buffer under run problem, but a repeat burn at 8X was no better.

I know you and others in the group must get questions from people who will not expend any effort to solve their own problems, or who are hopelessly new to the whole idea of imaging. I don't think I'm in either of those groups. I've been an advanced still photographer for well over 50 years and I have over 10 years' experience with digital photography and editing, restoring, and printing digital images. I am capable of learning video too. If I have problems, I do try to find answers before I ask my online groups. I'm new to video editing, so some of my questions will seem silly to some PD forum members - but that doesn't mean I can't learn the program.

Bill Hansen Bill Hansen

I am sorry if you think I am not listening to you. I am. I do not mind if a less experienced video editor does not understand the Powerdirector program.

We all had to ask the "stupid" questions at one time. No question is "stupid" to be asked. Answers to questions in this forum are mostly 'best guess' based on the information we receive.

I do not mean to be condescending in my answer, sometimes newbies do not see all of the parts of a new program.

I well remember my first encounter with PD7, it was a big mystery until I watched a bunch of the Tutorials on Cyberlinkchannel and Pdtools.

My most recent try at burning a practice video clip was a three minute video, all one clip, no transitions or editing. It played perfectly in the PD preview player (the one which scales up to full screen size, not the smaller preview panel). It appeared to burn normally, but final file size was 125 kb and only the first minute would play in Windows Media Viewer, which plays much longer videos without trouble. I cut the burn speed from 18X to 8X, thinking that there could be a buffer under run problem, but a repeat burn at 8X was no better.

I have created the sample videos in Powerdirector 9 and a DVD and as a BluRay Disk. There are stored on my computer in disk folders created by Powerdirector 9.

The Sample DVD is 70.2 MB and plays entirely. I am using a different software player than Windows Media player.
The sample DVD plays for 40 Seconds.

If you give a step by step bullet point description of how you are creating your Video to play.

Are you making a Video to play on the computer or in a media player or you making a DVD to play in a standard DVD player.

From your statement above, you seem to be creating a DVD to play in a stand alone player.

From your description of your computer, you should not have problems running PD8 on that computer.
PD 8 is a 32 bit program so most of the resources of your computer are not used.

There is one spec you have not stated and is very important to PD8 function, how much free space do you have on C drive?
If you are using a SSD drive, that is a problem for Powerdirector, not enough free space for PD's Temp files while creating disk or rendering video.

If you post the Information in the following:
Part A and Part B.
http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/7958.page

We can have a good look at your Powerdirector environment.
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.

Carl -

Thanks again for your reply. I'm glad that you posted the file size of your video. It's much more in line with that I'd expect from a video file (granted, yours was a longer vid, but the file size per minute of play seems more appropriate.)

As I re-read it, I see that this present reply to you has already gotten pretty long.You asked for a step-by-step description of how I've tried to produce and burn videos. I'll send that in a separate reply to you. I don't have time this morning to make screen shots this morning, but if after reading that step-by-step, you feel screen shots would be helpful, let me know and I'll get them done within the next couple of days.

The page you referenced in your note, http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/7958.page is locked at present. Although I am signed in to the forums, I am not able to post to that page (at the moment). I'll include my replies in this present note.

The following are my answers to your questions:

"Are you making a Video to play on the computer or in a media player or you making a DVD to play in a standard DVD player. " I've been able to burn a minute's worth of video to disc and get the short video clips to play on the computer, using Windows Media Player ("WMP" - a software program, not a stand-alone video playing machine). The video discs I made will also play normally on the flat screen TV. At present I don't have another effective media playing software package, aside from WMP. But Windows Media Player works just fine, for my present purposes. I'll probably download and install WMP v 12 and add the codecs so it can play MPEG-4 and AVCHD, but I'll wait until I resolve my present problems.

"From your statement above, you seem to be creating a DVD to play in a stand alone player." That's true for playback through the TV, which is connected to a media playback machine. For playback on the computer's calibrated LCD mintor, I've only used the WMP (see above) software player. Both computer and TV player will play video DVD discs of much greater length which were commercially made.

" how much free space do you have on C drive? " The D: drive has 931 GB (not MB) of free space. I have a couple of 1 TB drives connected to it, making daily backups of image files, so I have plenty of free space on the primary drive now, and the potential of very ample storage space for future use.

If you would like any further info on the setup of this computer, I'll be glad to supply it.

Meanwhile - a thought came to me during the night, that perhaps my copy of PD 8 has been corrupted. Unfortunately I bought it in late 2010 via download (if it's desireable, I can supply the key code to prove it's legitimate and is registered to me) and I don't trust the .exe file I have. I'm going to download and install the trial version of PD 10 and see if that helps.

I'll get my step-by-step description to you ASAP. Thanks for staying with me on this.

Bill Bill Hansen

I can save unedited clips, but once I do even a single edit (combine two clips, etc) the project can't be saved - at least not in a form from which I can retrieve it. The project usually (not always) appears to save, and in Windows Explorer I can navigate to the location to which I saved it. I can "see" the director's chair icon there, with a filename. But when I try to import the folder or file back into PD 8, I get the error message "no items match your search". I hope there's a setting in PD 8 which I'm not aware of - because as it is, PD 8 is a wonderful program, but its use is compromised if I can't save projects as I work.

Bill,

If I am reading your steps in the above quote correctly, we may be looking at a workflow issue. From your quote I get the impression that you are trying to import a project. I do have to ask a very basic question here (no offence is intended).

When you try to import the project file, are you using the 'import media files or media folders' icon?

I will not go any further here until I see your answer. I do have a theory, but it is only a guess until I see your answer.

Hal
OS - Win11 Pro, Alienware R13, CPU - Intel Core I7-12700KF 12 CPUs), 16g DDR5 4400 RAM, Video - Geeforce RTX 3080ti 12g, PD11 & PD365
My YouTube

Carl -

Here is my step by step description of the way I've tried to create practice videos, produce them, and burn them to disc. I'll leave out the import steps. After your good direction, import/captuer hasn't been a problem. I apologize for the length of this description. I want to be as complete and precise as I can.

(1) imported file(s) moved to time line

(2) edits applied - and in some cases, no edits were done

(3) click on Produce

(4) choose either AVI, MPEG-2, or WMV formats, since I know those will play with my setup (Windows Media Player won't play MPEG-4 or AVCHD until I upgrade to version 12 and add the necessary codecs to it). For this morning's attempt, I chose AVI - but it makes no difference which of the three formats I choose, the results are the same.

(5) Click "Start" at the bottom of the PD 8 Produce screen. The video renders. The 3 minute practice clip takes about 7-8 minutes to render - about the right amount of time, I think.

(6) When the message "rendering complete" (those may not be the exact words) appears, click the "Creat Disc" button at top of PD 8 screen.

(7) In PD 8, click on Director's chair, then File/Save As/ navigate to the folder where I want to store my rendered video. Name the rendered video - in this case name is "long video rendered" so I don't confuse it with previous unrendered versions of this clip.

(7) On the computer, Insert blank DVD dsic into drive bay

( When the disc icon appears in Windows Explorer (not Internet Explorer) check to be sure it's really an empty disc, and be certain of the drive letter (either D: or E: in my case)

(9) Back in PD8, when "checking menu settings" has finished, click Preview in PD8. Play the clip through the PD8 preview player (the full screen one, not the small one in the PD 8 screen). The clip plays all the way through - all 3 minutes.

(10) Back to Windows Explorer, click on the drive containing the disc I just burned. Choose to Play DVD.

(11) watch as video plays in Windows Media Viewer (software program, displays on computer's monitor). It plays only 1 minutes 7 seconds of the clip, in this case, even though it played all the way through in the PD 8 Preview player. No matter how long I wait, it won't play further.

(12) Back to Windows Explorer, navigate to the place I saved my video. Check file size of the rendered video. In this case, the 3 minute rendered video has file size 124 kb - not 124 MB. Way too small.

(13) Check the "completed" disc which I thought I had just burned. Properties of that disc shows it has "NO" space used!

Conclusion - the disc appears to burn, but it doe not burn to disc.

I'll hold off uninstalling PD 8 until I hear more from you. If I've missed some vital step in producing or burning, I'll be quite happy about that. I'd rather not uninstall PD 8, but I'm beginning to wonder if the program has gotten corrupted, and if that's the case, I can't trust the .exe file I downloaded when I bought the program. I will install trial version of PD 10 and see if that will work. But first I'm hoping you'll tell me I've left out some step, or have done something incorrectly.

Bill Hansen
Ithaca NY USA Bill Hansen

Carl -

You asked "When you try to import the project file, are you using the 'import media files or media folders' icon? "

That's correct, and the appropriate file(s) are imported into the PD "library". From there I drag them down into the timeline, make my edit(s), and then play the whole thing through either in the small viewer on the PD8 screen or in the PD 8 full-screen Preview viewer.

Then, making sure all clips are selected (for this particular practice video I used only one clip, as you know), I click on Produce, then Start, wait for it to render, etc.

By now you may have read my long description of my workflow and my comment at the end of it. Originally I thought maybe the project was rendering, but not burning correctly. Thinking again about the file size of the rendered video on my HD (only 125kb) I now wonder if it isn't rendering completely, despite the 7-8 minute rendering time for a 3 min video clip. I thought the rendering time might be in the correct ball park, but the file size seems way too small.

Maybe when you go over my workflow in my earlier long note, you'll see something I've omitted in the Produce/rendering part of it.

Bill Bill Hansen

Bill,

This is Hal, not Carl, by the way

I will try to work through your workflow by steps.

Steps 1 - 6 are fine. One note though, there is no need to produce before going to the 'Create Disc' module. Many of us do for various reasons but it is not a necessary step in Disc Creation.

Step 7 is where there might be some confusion.

(7) In PD 8, click on Director's chair, then File/Save As/ navigate to the folder where I want to store my rendered video. Name the rendered video - in this case name is "long video rendered" so I don't confuse it with previous unrendered versions of this clip.

When you save a project using the 'save or save as' command you are not saving the rendered files. All you are saving is the project file. The project file actually contains no media. It contains only the locations of the media and the instructions necessary to carry out the edits that you applied to the media. It is a text file that PD uses to reassemble your project when you re-open it. The rendered files are saved to your export folder, automatically, when the produce is finished. (See step 6)

Also, I do not see where you burned your project to disc in your steps above.

I do not want to get one post too long so I will continue in another post.

Hal OS - Win11 Pro, Alienware R13, CPU - Intel Core I7-12700KF 12 CPUs), 16g DDR5 4400 RAM, Video - Geeforce RTX 3080ti 12g, PD11 & PD365
My YouTube

Carl -

Thanks again for your reply. I'm glad that you posted the file size of your video. It's much more in line with that I'd expect from a video file (granted, yours was a longer vid, but the file size per minute of play seems more appropriate.)

That file size is of the DVD folder, it is the total size of the sample video which plays for about 40 seconds. I can make it much longer by repeating the sample files on the timeline.

As I re-read it, I see that this present reply to you has already gotten pretty long.You asked for a step-by-step description of how I've tried to produce and burn videos. I'll send that in a separate reply to you. I don't have time this morning to make screen shots this morning, but if after reading that step-by-step, you feel screen shots would be helpful, let me know and I'll get them done within the next couple of days.

Just a step by step description of your steps. No screen shots at this time. If I want to see a screen shot, I will ask later.

The page you referenced in your note, http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/7958.page is locked at present. Although I am signed in to the forums, I am not able to post to that page (at the moment). I'll include my replies in this present note.

Just read the instructions. All I am asking for is what version and build is your Powerdirector and Make and post a Dxdiag.txt file of your computer. The instruction of how to do that is in Part B of the above page. You post in the same pages you have been posting in all this time, You attach the Dxdiag.txt files to your post.
Use the Post Reply button, not the Quick Reply button. Post Reply button provides a Blue Attachments button.

"From your statement above, you seem to be creating a DVD to play in a stand alone player." That's true for playback through the TV, which is connected to a media playback machine. For playback on the computer's calibrated LCD mintor, I've only used the WMP (see above) software player. Both computer and TV player will play video DVD discs of much greater length which were commercially made.

I understand that you have a hardware Media player similar to:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136997

" how much free space do you have on C drive? " The D: drive has 931 GB (not MB) of free space. I have a couple of 1 TB drives connected to it, making daily backups of image files, so I have plenty of free space on the primary drive now, and the potential of very ample storage space for future use.

What is the free space on the same drive your OS is on? Normally that is C, the question is important because Powerdirector always uses the OS drive for all of its temp files for rendering and burning a Video Disk.

Meanwhile - a thought came to me during the night, that perhaps my copy of PD 8 has been corrupted. Unfortunately I bought it in late 2010 via download (if it's desireable, I can supply the key code to prove it's legitimate and is registered to me) and I don't trust the .exe file I have. I'm going to download and install the trial version of PD 10 and see if that helps.

I do not need the key code, the possibility of your copy being corrupted is very high.

When you install the PD 10 trial, all of this discussion will be meanless.
I think the PD 10 Trial will remove your current Powerdirector.

You should be able to use your PD8 PDS file in PD 10, but not the other way, PD 8 is unable of open a later version Project file.

I'll get my step-by-step description to you ASAP. Thanks for staying with me on this.

Bill

If you install the PD 10 trial I think all of your problems will go away.
Have to wait and see what happens.
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.

Hal -

By now you may have read the step by step workflow I wrote out. It appears a few posts above this one, in the same thread. Answering your later question about where the OS is, it's in the C: drive, the one with 391 GB of free space.

However - the work flow was not the problem. Since that last note of yours, I've manually uninstalled PD 8 and installed the trial version of PD 10. It works just as it should. My practice video, 3 minutes, plays all the way through. I think the suspicion we both had, that my copy of PD 8 had become corrupted, is correct.

I'm all set with PD now. I wish I had thought about moving up to v 10 earlier. I thought it must be my ignorance - and it part it was, you helped me with that - but the big problem with production/burning was a corrupt copy of the v 8 program.

Bill Hansen
Ithaca NY USA
Bill Hansen