Quick questions
1) You have a new video driver. Did you update the program to the latest version?
2) How often do you get rid of junk and temporary files. Defrag. the storage hard drive; do not defrag your solod stated drive. You don;t need to, (go to cnet.com and get free programs for those fixes).
3) What antivrus do you run. If you are not connected to the internet, you can turn it off or set it not to scan and files already on your hard drive.
4) You have 40 plus g of free space on your system drive, can you move some of the files onto your had drive?

Please answer while we look at your computer's other information. .
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BoilerPlate: To posters who ask for help -- it is nice to thank the volunteers who try to answer your questions !
Anything I post unless stated with a reference is my personal opinion.

Quote: Quick questions
1) You have a new video driver. Did you update the program to the latest version?
2) How often do you get rid of junk and temporary files. Defrag. the storage hard drive; do not defrag your solod stated drive. You don;t need to, (go to cnet.com and get free programs for those fixes).
3) What antivrus do you run. If you are not connected to the internet, you can turn it off or set it not to scan and files already on your hard drive.
4) You have 40 plus g of free space on your system drive, can you move some of the files onto your had drive?

Please answer while we look at your computer's other information.

Hi, and thanks.

I am running the newest 2420 build.

I just cleared out my temp files last week. I do not regularly do this as I'm unsure if it's safe or not, but I did just do it.

I defragged about 2 weeks ago. I do not have a solid state drive.

I run MS security essentials. This does not run during my work hours.

As for space.. any project I'm working on is on my system drive. My external hard drive I only use to transfer projects to after they're complete. Sorry if that appeared confusing having it plugged in!

Hi CJC,
Just a few suggestions (you may or not be aware of)...

Make sure you're not setup to render/output to your external (usb) drives.
These haven't got the bandwidth to handle the data stream required for the job but you probably knew this already.

You don't mention what size video you're working on. Is this a 1hr 720x480 PAL/NTSC source or is it some flavour of HD?
What's the running time and what camera/equipment did your source come from? (certain AVHCD formats are glitchy - early versions especially, from early/mid 2000).

In Win7 you have a 'resource monitor'.
Load it up, click on the 'memory' tab, fire up PowerDirector and start a fresh temporary project with the same video source.
Run a voice over test on it without any filters/effects and see if you run into the same problem.
Watch the 'Physical Memory' in the Resource Monitor (up/down arrow on grey band to reveal) and keep an eye on your RAM.
If you're maxing out your RAM that could be why you're stuttering.

Quote: Hi CJC,
Just a few suggestions (you may or not be aware of)...

Make sure you're not setup to render/output to your external (usb) drives.
These haven't got the bandwidth to handle the data stream required for the job but you probably knew this already.

You don't mention what size video you're working on. Is this a 1hr 720x480 PAL/NTSC source or is it some flavour of HD?
What's the running time and what camera/equipment did your source come from? (certain AVHCD formats are glitchy - early versions especially, from early/mid 2000).

In Win7 you have a 'resource monitor'.
Load it up, click on the 'memory' tab, fire up PowerDirector and start a fresh temporary project with the same video source.
Run a voice over test on it without any filters/effects and see if you run into the same problem.
Watch the 'Physical Memory' in the Resource Monitor (up/down arrow on grey band to reveal) and keep an eye on your RAM.
If you're maxing out your RAM that could be why you're stuttering.

All of my videos are about 2-5 minutes in total length. The clips I use to comprise the finished productions are usually 10 seconds to 1 minute long and I chop these up. They are 1920x1080. AVCHD. I've used this same camera and file type for every video since the beginning. I've had less issues with choppy playback though. My issue is more so with program lag itself.

Also, I constantly monitor my RAM and it never goes about about 4-5 out of 8GB.

New systems are not immune to problems. You may be a power user so forgive me if the following sounds elementary, but here are a few other things to consider:

1. A flakey stick of memory.
2. A hard drive problem.
3. A power supply problem.
And these problems can be intermittent.

You can try reinstalling PowerDirector, and running CHKDSK.

And if it is software, it may not be PowerDirector. It's possible the same problems may occur with other applications, but this is unknown since you do not exercise the system intensively with other applications.

Personally I would re-double triple check that you don't have anything running unnecessarily like Windows updates, Java update, Radeon update, Quicktime update, etc etc etc showing in your system tray by the clock.

I would go through MSCONFIG and disable anything and everything under the roof not related to PD or Win7 including printer control popups, branded whiz bangs, alert boxes, etc etc etc. Keep a written list so you can always go back and switch things on again if needed.

Finally, I would switch off Microsoft's 'Azure' interface rubbish (I think it's what it's called. The glossy candy style START button look and blingy skin on Win 7). Switch it off and you get back to good old XP look without any interference. Having it running has affected certain programs in the past plus it saves you some RAM and cpu cycles and generally speeds things up a little which is always a bonus.

You can get to these through the control panel apart from MSCONFIG which has to be run from the Start > Run menu.

If I uninstalled, would I lose custom items such as titles, PiP's, and other stuff? Or are all created files stored and just the application itself is uninstalled? I have too many custom things I've created that I use in each project.

As for flakey memory.. I believe I have 4 sticks of 2Gb, so that's unlikely. I'm not sure how I'd be able to tell if it was the HD or power supply.

I made sure to disable all of those background services on startup. I've been meaning to do that.

Also it's called Aero I've always used it and never experienced an issue, or just never noticed it! Next time I start having issues, I'll switch it off and try to compare.

Quote: As for flakey memory.. I believe I have 4 sticks of 2Gb, so that's unlikely.

Why is it unlikely? If you have four sticks then you have four chances of having flakey memory. If one stick is marginal, then system problems will occur depending on memory access roulette. There are programs that exercise memory and stress it.

Quote: I'm not sure how I'd be able to tell if it was the HD or power supply.

The hard drive manufacturer often has free diagnostic programs. At the very least, look at the SMART hard drive data and see if any of your data bump up against the limits. And did you run CHKDSK? Did it detect any problems?

Power supply problems can be tricky and the easiest way to test is to swap out the unit with a known working unit.

Admittedly, you can go on a wild goose chase tracking down all the things that can go wrong. I just wanted to bring your attention to your hardware, rather than assuming it was PowerDirector. It could be software or hardware.

I would second the recommendation to disable anything unnecessary. Some software may have a memory leak, which builds up and then creates problems during a session. If this is suspected, it is a good idea to reboot the system every now and then.

RAM chips can be dusty, badly seated or just dodgy.

Try running a memory test with memtest. Link here.

Can take a while so leave it running while you're out and about or over night.

1Gb is 10,000,000,000 bytes.
There's a lot that could go wrong if even just 1byte is duff on a 2Gb stick.

have you opened Task Manager while working on PD12? Open it and see what programs and what processes are running and how much CPU they are using. that might let you know if something is hogging CPU. then you could shut down whatever process is using all the CPU and also see if you can get rid of that program.

Have you fixed this yet CJC?

Reason I ask is because I just spotted that your Radeon is sharing RAM (4gb) with the system. Try disabling that so your PC has the full 8Gb to itself.

AVCHD video needs RAM.

Hi, if you´re using win7 try this memory check

start
control panel
system and security
adminstration tools
windows memory diagnostics

and follow instructions

Hope this will rule out memory problems!

/Peter

1 GB is = One Billion Bytes = 1 x 10 exponent 9 or 1,000,000,000.

If you are talking Intel Bytes 1 GB = 1,073,741,824 Bytes.

Intel calls 1 KB =1024 Bytes.
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: Have you fixed this yet CJC?

Reason I ask is because I just spotted that your Radeon is sharing RAM (4gb) with the system. Try disabling that so your PC has the full 8Gb to itself.

AVCHD video needs RAM.

I have not fixed it yet. Maybe a few improvements. I kind of stopped trying as I needed to get back to working. I ran a memory test and that came back good. How do I disable the sharing?

Found something that seemed to help a good bit. I packed my project files to the folder where my project was saved. Everything seemed to transition from clip to clip much more smooth. I wonder if my HD is just slow, and this packed the files next to each other rather than more scattered?

Quote: Found something that seemed to help a good bit. I packed my project files to the folder where my project was saved. Everything seemed to transition from clip to clip much more smooth. I wonder if my HD is just slow, and this packed the files next to each other rather than more scattered?

It is possible that your hard disk is fragmented. If it is you can defrag using Windows built in Defrag.

Right click on the drive in My Computer or Windows Explorer and chose properties. The Defrag is on the Tools Tab.

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.

More than likely it will be a setting on your Radeon's Catalyst widget next to the clock. If you can't see it find the Catalyst control panel through your Start button or control panel and dig it up there.

Catalyst is part of the software that came bundled with your graphics card and works like a control panel.

Good luck.

I also noticed in my Catalyst control center that under video options, edge enhancement, denoise, dynamic contrast, and deinterlacing are all checked. Are these universal enhancements.. as in might they be affecting my PD video playback?

Anything is possible. Each new Radeon card that comes out has 'enhancements' of some kind or other. Faster chips, more ram, different architecture, better bandwidth, new features in the software (Catalyst), etc.

The features you mention sound like they affect the PC as a whole unless it's saved as a profile for a game or a particular software application.

I would switch off each feature one at a time, check its effect against your user experience (in PD in particular), then decide if you need it or not.

Things like edge enhancement are more to do with font rendering, icons on the desktop and image quality in games. Any feature you disable means you're freeing up graphics card cpu time for your videos.

Just make sure to keep a check list of what you disable so you can always go back.

Disabling video sharing alone should give you an almost instant improvement.

---

I don't want to send you on a wild goose chase but how old is your card?

Also, can you double triple check your graphics card really is a Radeon HD 5450?

If it is, I have what might come up as some bad news for you... I don't think it's up to scratch for editing AVCHD video.

Looking at this Radeon HD 5450 link your GPU has a memory bandwidth of 6Gb/s, maybe 12Gb/s (look at Speeds and Feeds down at the bottom) depending on the model. According to some websites it was released some time in 2010.

Just for comparison, my GPU is from 2009 (and I'm not saying go out and buy one because they don't make it anymore) Nvidia GTS250 and has a much wider bandwidth of 70Gb/s. It's the pipe that any video/rendering/game has to travel through to get any work done. It makes a huge difference. I'd say some kind of stuttering during editing/rendering could really be to do with a bottleneck at this point.

Any chance you could borrow a different/higher spec card just to test?