Jeff -

What amazing investigation! You get the PowerDetective award! You've gone to enormous lengths to bring this information to us & it will be widely appreciated.



Me? I have always taken it to be factual, because it's repeated so often... but you've blown it out of the water.

Cheers - Tony
Visit PDtoots. PowerDirector Tutorials, tips, free resources & more. Subscribe!
Full linked Tutorial Catalog PDtoots happily supports fellow PowerDirector users!

I have never had 100gig free on my C drive, but then again I also have never burnt a blu-ray, plenty of DVD's but no Blu-rays. My youtube channel====> http://www.youtube.com/user/relate2?feature=mhsn

Hi Jeff

Great work

I do burn to Blu-Ray and found the more cluttered my hard drive was, the slower the producing and create disc times were.

My 'old' Dell laptop (specs on signature) would slow down quite a bit. Deleting 200GB of 'stuff' would speed it up

Whether this is due to the 100GB free space 'rule' I have no idea - just an observation Happing editing

Best Regards

Neil
CubbyHouseFilms
My Youtube Channel
My Vimeo Channel
PD3.5, 5, 6 & 7. Computer: Dell Dimension 5150, Intel Pen. 2.80 GHz, 2GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT 256MB, Windows XP Pro!!
PD8 Ultra v3022. Computer: Dell Studio 1747, Intel, i7 Q740 1.73 GHz, 8GB RAM, ATI Mob. Radeon HD 560v 1GB, Windows 7 Ult. 64
PD10 Ultra v2023. Computer: HP Pavilion dv7, Intel, i7 2630 2.00 GHz, 8GB RAM, ATI Mob. Radeon HD 6770 2GB, Windows 7 Pre. 64
PD12 Ultra v2930. Computer: HP Pavilion dv7, Intel, i7 2630 2.00 GHz, 8GB RAM, ATI Mob. Radeon HD 6770 2GB, Windows 7 Pre. 64
PD13 Ultim v3516. Computer: HP Pavilion dv7, Intel, i7 2630 2.00 GHz, 8GB RAM, ATI Mob. Radeon HD 6770 2GB, Windows 7 Pre. 64
PD16 Live v2101 Computer: HP Pavilion dv7, Intel, i7 2630 2.00 GHz, 16GB RAM, ATI Mob.Radeon HD 6770 2GB, Windows 7 Pre. 64
Director Suite 6: PowerDirector 16 Live, PhotoDirector 9, ColorDirector 6, AudioDirector 8

Cameras: Sony(s) HXR-NX5P, HXR-NX70P, NEX-VG10E, a6300 4k, HDR TG5E, GoPro 4 Black, Canon 6D DSLR

Visit PDtoots. PowerDirector Tutorials, tips, free resources & more. Subscribe!
Full linked Tutorial Catalog - PDtoots happily supports fellow PowerDirector users!

Tony: Thanks for the award, I feel so honored. How did you find my photo?

Robert2 S: Nothing new here for you. DVD creation in PD appears a little different behind the scenes vs Blu-ray that I can see but again nothing that would require space on C:\ as you again have demonstrated.

Quote:
I do burn to Blu-Ray and found the more cluttered my hard drive was, the slower the producing and create disc times were.

My 'old' Dell laptop (specs on signature) would slow down quite a bit. Deleting 200GB of 'stuff' would speed it up

Whether this is due to the 100GB free space 'rule' I have no idea - just an observation

CubbyHouseFilms: Not surprising, fragmentation on a hard drive and performance degradation is nothing new for the NTFS file system which windows uses but not really pertinent to the space available for PD10 working directory, just a PC thing and I don't want to have the post locked for PC talk. I tried to keep the discussion centered around any loss in functionality of PD10 on on a low space C:\ as many comments and observations could be said about how to "speed it up" as you say. Incidentally, as part of the study, I had repeated the same full suite of tests on the same PC hardware with 280GB free on C:\ to contrast, compare and learn about PD10 "Produce" and "Create Disc" characteristics.

Jeff

Thank you so much for your investigation. I spent a morning with Minitools Partition Wizard Home Edition (free partition editing software) migrating 80 GB from my H:\ drive devoted to video to my C:\ drive to bring it up to the minimum 100 GB that was claimed as being absolutely necessary. Increasing the free space on C:\ made no apparent difference in how PD10 works on my computer, which is satisfactorily. All my work is with m2ts files that I use to make either AVCHD DVDs or Blu-Ray discs. It's a pleasure to see someone actually testing the 100 GB claim and even more gratifying to find that it is indeed false.

I am guilty of spreading the fairy-tale of the 100GB Monstah.
Hahd to believe it swam 'bout the forum for so long with naught a nib-let of truth. HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
Nvidia GTX 960(4GB)/16GB DDR3/
Canon Vixia HV30/HF-M40/HF-M41/HF-G20/Olympus E-PL5.
Tape capture using 6 VCR, TBC-1000, Elite BVP4+, Sony D8 camcorder with TBC.
https://www.facebook.com/BarryAFTT

I surely did not intend for any fairy-tail confessions, I simply thought the info might help some PD users who are maybe contemplating a significant change to there system to be compliant.

While working on the little study I gathered and reviewed some 300+ threads in the CL forum concerning 100GB on C:\, I also found in my PD5 2007 vintage manual

Quote: Hard Disk Space:
• 5 GB required (400MB for SmartSound Quicktrack Library)
• 10 GB (15 GB recommended) required for DVD production
• 100 GB (7200 rpm) recommended for HD content editing

My PD4 manual was void of the above so it's been around a long time. Earliest thread I found in the forums concerning the need to have 100GB on C:\, mid year 2009.

Jeff

I am wondering why would Blu-Ray need that much free space at C:\ ?

Quote: I am wondering why would Blu-Ray need that much free space at C:\ ?

Bluray go up to 50GB for dual layer (higher for triple & quadruple). Assume you have 50 GB of video on your time line then PD needs to make 50 GB of temporary files in BD structure before burning to disc. Panasonic SD9, Panasonic TM700, Panasonic SD600, GoPro HD Hero.

Quote: I am wondering why would Blu-Ray need that much free space at C:\ ?

As I indicated in the original thread,

Quote: Yes, it makes sense one would need a 100GB free to make a Blu-ray when the current PD10 process is a two part approach which first creates a hidden folder on a hard disk through the authoring stage and then burns the folder to disc. In fact, with the new BDXL disc capability at PD9, that 100GB recommendation should probably go to at least 128GB. However, there is no mention that it be located on C:\.

My point from the testing was, it does not appear that it needs to be on C:\, it could be on another internal hard drive. The hidden folder for large BD creation can be generated where the user has set preference for export directory.

Jeff

FACT OR FICTION!? Not the issue I fear...this may be a case of the "WORKS FOR ME" defense. That has always been a pitfall for troubleshooting tech-issues and the bane of those who must fix issues.. One person says it ("but, it works for ME!!"), and everyone forgets the YEARS of work done, isolating a problem and stabilizing system functions..and they adopt the NEW WAYS, pointing to the person who proudly said "it works for me!!" (always citing some "testing" they found or did to confirm it (no offense meant Jeff)).

Since I love/hate Cyberlink so little/much, I won't escalate this discussion too much (I stopped in to see if any bug fixes were released this month). Cyberlink obviously gives little care, whether the users get the information or not, so why should I? Why, because I hate dis-information!! I am surprised this "obviously not a Cyberlink Issue" has survived this long.

But, precisely for that reason. I present a list of cautions for those of you who might review Jeff's "findings" and start running on laptops and machines with limited capabilities. By "present", I mean, I am not going to "DISCUSS" these items "ad nauseum"..I just suggest that you do some homework for the areas that interest, or may relate to, you without blindly accepting either view.

1. SSD drives are not designed to handle large files and caching efficiently. It DEGRADES them and shortens their life.

2. Many APIs, Codecs, supplemental programs and processes inside of Commercial products, expect (and only use) space on C: for their cached files and temp files. I don't care WHAT you set in your Windows setup, this C: use is hard coded in these tools. (I.E. SYSTEM VARIABLES like - %SystemDrive%, %SystemRoot%, %SystemDirectory%, %ComSpec%, etc.). You can change the location of your "My Documents" folder and temporary files but not all subprograms UPDATE themselves correctly (Shell scripts and batch files use DOS level environment variables to communicate data and preferences to child processes).

3. Legacy code within all versions of the Windows OS is hard-coded to sort, cache, swap, compile and transcode data ON C:!! That is part of the reason the Windows cache/swap/pagefile/virtual memory setup changes (and becomes more restrictive) with each new OS release. There are many supplemental program issues that are aggravated by changing the cache location, and may not show up until you press <ctrl><alt><2><fred> (or some equally unknown combination of items like transitions, fonts, effects and filetype/size).

4. Depending on the process, as much as 4 TIMES THE ACTUAL FILESIZE is required for processing in Windows. This changing file/transitional operation information is NOT ALWAYS shown on your internal drive monitoring programs or benchmarkers. Remember, they report what the OS tells them. (don't poke me, talk to MS engineering, please).

ALL installations of Windows programs are quieter and run more efficiently with large amounts of free space on a fast, large C DRIVE. All installations of Powerdirector function better with fast CPU/GPU and large amounts of memory to go with them. I am sure all of this will change in years to come as 64BIT becomes more prevalent (and the background process code is updated), but it is not there yet.

Bottom line....For new users and those who aren't "tweakers" or Geeks.... Do whatever you want, but I suggest that you err on the side of caution before following this thread discussion and using or cramming in a little SSD as your OS/BOOT drive for systems that run the NLE Powerdirector!!.

Hi,

I will not even dream of jumping in to a discussion in this thread,
I have merely a couple of questions/thoughts. Regard me as a (extended) user of
a pc and not a (even very interested) tech person.

Before having my newest desktop built, I contacted three companies/”workshops”
in person. I wanted to have their opinions regarding HD, sizes and partitions (and of
course on other matters as well). All these 3 had the opinion that having C:\ running on a 1TB
disk would result in a slower performance. My sweet English neighbour, who builds systems
and is responsible for all computerstuff at the school he is working said: “Rubbish! You
will not be able to notice!”

As always, I was googling quite a lot on the matter. I found people swearing to having C:\
75-150GB and leave the rest to storage, and yes, also people agreeing with my neighbour.
My pc was built with 2 x 1,5 TB internal HD. Now it was up to me. What to do?
Because in other words; computer-techs, being “professionals” or “hobbyists” seem to
prescribe different/opposite solutions. I would have to go by my dad’s words (now dead
since 40 years): Listen to peoples advice, but make your own decisions.

Keeping C:\ as clean as possible just seem sensible, using ones common sense.
(My personal common sense (and experience), by the way, gives me gut-signals not to keep uninstalling/re-installing/ cleaning/uninstalling/re-installing ……over and over again, as chances are the HD will end up in a knot
and you’ll have to clean out the lot).

I ended up partitioning C:\ to be 300GB; a middle way. I store as little as possible there.
Working on projects, I bring the stuff in to C:\ and when finished I clear it out.
I now have several large programs (much larger than PD) running flawlessly.
Not one freeze. I can even have 2-3 of them running at the same time without problems.
There are no codec issues, no burning issues, no render issues, no “not using all threads” issues,
no “100% use of 1 thread” warning issue.
To have my desktop running this smoothly, I took PD out of the system and installed it on
my laptop (also 64bit).

My other area of thoughts:
How common is it to have 30, 40, 50 GB of video on a PD timeline? In one piece?
What does this kind of video size consist of? Is it edited in some other way than
linking clips together? Because if it is, will that not take a very, very powerful system
to do? And if you have such a very, very powerful (expensive) system, is PD really then the
choice of NLE ?

Nina



Just something.
https://www.petitpoisvideo.com

Quote: FACT OR FICTION!? Not the issue I fear...this may be a case of the "WORKS FOR ME" defense. That has always been a pitfall for troubleshooting tech-issues and the bane of those who must fix issues.. One person says it ("but, it works for ME!!"), and everyone forgets the YEARS of work done, isolating a problem and stabilizing system functions..and they adopt the NEW WAYS, pointing to the person who proudly said "it works for me!!" (always citing some "testing" they found or did to confirm it (no offense meant Jeff)).

No offense taken, everyone is entitled to their experience and/or opinion. However, the "WORKS FOR ME" is often the experience claimed for needing the 100GB on C:\ so it works both ways. Rather than stating it as a critical requirement for PD in the forums, I tried to create a small C:\ system and break it with the typical PD produce and burn functionality that so many PD users struggle with and lack of space on C:\ is presented as the solution. This little C:\ system box should have had major issues with PD if that was the case. I won't comment on many of your points as they are not PD related but I will comment on some that are.

Quote: Since I love/hate Cyberlink so little/much, I won't escalate this discussion too much (I stopped in to see if any bug fixes were released this month). Cyberlink obviously gives little care, whether the users get the information or not, so why should I? Why, because I hate dis-information!! I am surprised this "obviously not a Cyberlink Issue" has survived this long.

I think it's actually a bonus for CL. Many users may not have the space on C:\ and abandon the beauty of PD because of the stated need. I have totally kept off the PC topic and focused on whether the small size of C:\ hampered the ability to produce files or created discs in PD. That PD capability is pretty vital to all PD users.

Quote: But, precisely for that reason. I present a list of cautions for those of you who might review Jeff's "findings" and start running on laptops and machines with limited capabilities. By "present", I mean, I am not going to "DISCUSS" these items "ad nauseum"..I just suggest that you do some homework for the areas that interest, or may relate to, you without blindly accepting either view.

1. SSD drives are not designed to handle large files and caching efficiently. It DEGRADES them and shortens their life.

2. Many APIs, Codecs, supplemental programs and processes inside of Commercial products, expect (and only use) space on C: for their cached files and temp files. I don't care WHAT you set in your Windows setup, this C: use is hard coded in these tools. (I.E. SYSTEM VARIABLES like - %SystemDrive%, %SystemRoot%, %SystemDirectory%, %ComSpec%, etc.). You can change the location of your "My Documents" folder and temporary files but not all subprograms UPDATE themselves correctly (Shell scripts and batch files use DOS level environment variables to communicate data and preferences to child processes).

I did a clean install with all pertinent windows stuff on C:\ including the system variables you quote and all the rest,.. %HOMEDRIVE%, %HOMEPATH%, %APPDATA%...No tricks of moving anything system related to a different drive. I only had one drive in the box during OS install and simply followed Microsoft's guidlines for minimum disk size for installation. No after installation tricks applied, I did update windows and video drivers. Then I had my basic system that I could load PD, really just the basics of what a average PD user would do or have done for them so they could start to enjoy the editing product the purchased. After that, I added one internal hard drive that I could use for my PD video editing working location and changed PD import and export locations to work with my files there.

Quote: 3. Legacy code within all versions of the Windows OS is hard-coded to sort, cache, swap, compile and transcode data ON C:!! That is part of the reason the Windows cache/swap/pagefile/virtual memory setup changes (and becomes more restrictive) with each new OS release. There are many supplemental program issues that are aggravated by changing the cache location, and may not show up until you press <ctrl><alt><2><fred> (or some equally unknown combination of items like transitions, fonts, effects and filetype/size).

4. Depending on the process, as much as 4 TIMES THE ACTUAL FILESIZE is required for processing in Windows. This changing file/transitional operation information is NOT ALWAYS shown on your internal drive monitoring programs or benchmarkers. Remember, they report what the OS tells them. (don't poke me, talk to MS engineering, please).

ALL installations of Windows programs are quieter and run more efficiently with large amounts of free space on a fast, large C DRIVE. All installations of Powerdirector function better with fast CPU/GPU and large amounts of memory to go with them. I am sure all of this will change in years to come as 64BIT becomes more prevalent (and the background process code is updated), but it is not there yet.

Bottom line....For new users and those who aren't "tweakers" or Geeks.... Do whatever you want, but I suggest that you err on the side of caution before following this thread discussion and using or cramming in a little SSD as your OS/BOOT drive for systems that run the NLE Powerdirector!!.

If you look, I never suggest people cram in a little SSD or OS/BOOT drive. Rather I stated the opposite "Do I overall advocate that C:\ should have little to no space, surely not". Some people however are caught in this situation with their current system and often presented with the 100GB as a cure for produce or create disc issues, I tried and couldn't demonstrate that need. Having free disk space is a little easier to test and experiment with vs the many other potential issues which can occur during burn or produce problems. With the hard disk, you either have the available space or you don't, it's not like the 5GB free was anything near the 100GB on C:\ need presented in the forums.

Obviously my test was not the end all nor did I claim it to be, but I did try to produce and create disc to some formats that are much more taxing. Maybe post a set of PD instructions and files that will cause a small C:\ to not produce and/or burn a PD project.

Jeff

1Nina;

You are always seem to use the calm voice to dig out the facts!

Quote: All these 3 had the opinion that having C:\ running on a 1TB
disk would result in a slower performance.

Depending on the RPM speed, Buffer Size, and even # of platters, it is possible that the 1TB of space will be slower (slower than an SSD Drive, not generally slower than a 750GB drive). This statement is general, and will vary based on CPU (Mhz Speed, CPU cores and Manufacturer/Generation), GPU (suggest a discrete card with 1GB at least), whether you are running 32BIT or 64BIT OS, and the amount of RAM Memory on the machine.

Quote: I ended up partitioning C:\ to be 300GB; a middle way. I store as little as possible there.

Partitioning is good if you are worried about segregating files to allow backups (like splitting the drive and having a D: partition for data). I used to "partition", but with drive prices falling, I just threw in a separate drive for data (so..my OS drive is slightly less than 1TB). If you partition, if one physical drive fails, you loose BOTH drives of information

Quote: Working on projects, I bring the stuff in to C:\ and when finished I clear it out.

Projects/data files/images, etc., can be on ANY drive, as long as it is an internal physical drive, without loss of speed. As long as the RPM speed, Buffer Size, and # of platters is similar to the other drive. For example, and IDE/PATA drive and and SATA drive will NOT perform well together. I have images (still) and Videos on separate drives (just happened that way) and I never have PD10 (or 9 or problems finding the files and working together.

Quote: How common is it to have 30, 40, 50 GB of video on a PD timeline? In one piece?
What does this kind of video size consist of? Is it edited in some other way than
linking clips together?

4 times the project size statement is based on how much transcoding, rendering, etc. happens in the project. If a project is 5GB and you have transitions, wave and MP3 sounds, effects, transitions, etc. , it is possible that 3 or 4 temporary file rendering processes can be "in progress" during production (sound compilers, video compilers, effects integration and OS temporary arrays), at the SAME TIME . Add to that the overhead of creating a disk (BD or regular), if you are brave enough to let PD try to burn, EVEN MORE temporary files are created. By the OS, by PD and by the process that is preparing the files and menus (or NO menues).....all at once. Uses LOTS of space.

Yours Truly;
A Friendly Forum TROLL

Quote: If you look, I never suggest people cram in a little SSD or OS/BOOT drive.

Quote: on a system that was built with 25GB on C:\ and a mere 4GB currently available.

I thought that could be misinterpreted by those seeking a solution who HAVE a small SSD or limited space.

Quote: I did a clean install with all pertinent windows stuff on C:\ including the system variables you quote and all the rest,.. %HOMEDRIVE%, %HOMEPATH%, %APPDATA%..

I am not referring to the variables you can change, I am cautioning that some processes IGNORE what you set as a value for those variables and ASSUME C:, without asking you! If you leave all variables pointing to a small space, thrashing WILL occur while the OS tries to resolve the need for space.

Quote: I only had one drive in the box during OS install and simply followed Microsoft's guidelines for minimum disk size for installation. No after installation tricks applied, I did update windows and video drivers.

Hopefully you didn't try to save the 150MB driver files to the C:drive!!

Windows "RUNS" in 20GB, but ask MS for their space recommendations for an NLE using Windows and you will get a whole DIFFERENT number (if you can get one at all!!). ALL I am trying to state is, running a powerful 64BIT application in a minimum resource machine is NOT a good idea. The thread seems to advocate/lend credibility to, trying to use PD10 in it's lowest supported configuration. I suggest that this is NEVER a good idea...you never know when you will need to use the function "<ctrl><alt><2><fred>" and that takes AT LEAST 100MB of free space.

Quote: Hopefully you didn't try to save the 150MB driver files to the C:drive!!

Yes I did. I also let Nvidia write the drivers during install/extract to C:\NVIDIA as they do by default. I also did ~250MB of windows updates. Again, the intent was not to have this as my system, rather, does PD produce and create disc functionality really have issues for those users that have limited space on C:\. Is it a failure mode, a very pertinent PD user question.

In fact, I actually modified my default PD preferences to point to my “User” directory on C:\ and tried to "Create Disc" with burn to disc only option to see if PD would throw up a meaningful message to the user. Keep in mind, during this process, PD creates a hidden folder to author the project and then once authored burns the completed folder to BD and then removes the hidden folder. As you can see from the attached pic, PD provides the user a pretty decent message. They even comment about the burning temp folder!

Quote: ALL I am trying to state is, running a powerful 64BIT application in a minimum resource machine is NOT a good idea. The thread seems to advocate/lend credibility to, trying to use PD10 in it's lowest supported configuration. I suggest that this is NEVER a good idea...you never know when you will need to use the function "<ctrl><alt><2><fred>" and that takes AT LEAST 100MB of free space.

The thread simply discusses if 100GB on C:\ is required for PD to produce files and create discs. That was even the initial sentence. The testing I tried found no proof that it is required; again, the offer is always open to provide a pds project that will fail because of low space on C:\ and bolster the statement that 100GB free on C:\ is required for PD to perform these functions.

Jeff

Quote: The thread simply discusses if 100GB on C:\ is required for PD to produce files and create discs.

Well then, you got WAYYY!! OFF TOPIC.

Quote:

Quote: FredB wrote:Hopefully you didn't try to save the 150MB driver files to the C:drive!!

Yes I did. I also let Nvidia write the drivers during install/extract to C:\NVIDIA as they do by default. I also did ~250MB of windows updates.

So far you have tested the ability of the WINDOWS OS to write and save files successfully in a minimal environment. Heck I have crashed and burned PLENTY of Windows machines in my Career testing that!!! We just kept throwing stuff at it until it finally failed (Once with actual smoke coming out). But that did NOT test the Applications ability to do anything other than "Did it send a message correctly when it failed"!!!.

OK, I refer back to my earlier comment that this is a GEEK thread..I do not feel we are actually helping the users of PD10 feel confident or decide the correct platform they should elevate themselves to....it just highlights what they can get away with in a particular set of Circumstances (my opinion). Any further comments on my part would feel wasted. I bow out, with the OPINION that without definitive statements from Cyberlink, this testing and conjecture is just that, conjecture. I have seen enough machine failing with inadequate harddrive space to suggest caution to new users.

Enjoy the day...Cya (clicking the "Stop Watching..." button NOW!)

Jeff,

Did you do anything to redirect %TEMP% to another drive, or did you just let the chips fall where they may? I didn't quite catch that, especially since PD seems to have a perfectly good error message. Jerry Schwartz

The ongoing toing & froing of "countering" statements in this thread surely adds weight & verisimilitude to Jeff's thread title.

Not being terribly savvy about such matters, I tend to believe what's before me - especially when it's presented by CL as a requirement. To me, Jeff's testing simply showed that it's NOT a requirement. It is probably advisable. It could be reommended... but it is clearly NOT a requirement.

Conjecture, Fred? Conjecture? I didn't see any incomplete information or speculation in Jeff's objective testing or reporting of same.

In any case, I personally value all the input in this thread. I even understand some of it!!!

Cheers - Tony
Visit PDtoots. PowerDirector Tutorials, tips, free resources & more. Subscribe!
Full linked Tutorial Catalog PDtoots happily supports fellow PowerDirector users!