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?

This is the card in particular: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150655


I'd really be disappointed if the card was at fault. We specifically bought this for my computer. I don't think I'll be able to ask for another upgrade. But still, I didn't have this many problems in the beginning... I'm not saying the card isn't at fault but I don't think it could be completely.

Would overclocking my GPU help?

edit: ok so it looks like from some research that overclocking this specific card wouldn't do much. I did more monitoring of my CPU and RAM performance while working on my project. I had the task manager on the side while working. It seems literally every time I click something in the program, my CPU jumps up to 50-100%.. often times 100%. Like clicking on anything. Even just a new spot on the time line. Or a new clip. Anything I click on and the CPU skyrockets. This is without video even playing. Just anything I try to click on in the program. This sure as hell seems like the programs fault to me. Right now I've got 6 things open while I'm typing this, and my CPU usage is sitting between 0-2%. If I go to YT and find some HD videos the highest it'll jump is 25% right when the screen loads, but during playback the usage is small. It just doesn't make sense to me that performing any action whatsoever in PD12 will cause the CPU to max out, but I can't reproduce this anywhere else.

Yours is the model with DDR3 so it's got 12Gb/s bandwidth.

I know you've done this a million times already but before you get into panic mode:

1. Double triple check you haven't got any malware. Run malware bytes checker, it's free and very good.

2. Clean out your registry with something like CCleaner, you can also set it to get rid of temporary files from PD renders but you have to set this up manually once.

3. Defrag again.

4. Make sure *you're not* rendering to your Toshiba USB3 drive.

5. Disable all automatic updates.

6. Disconnect from the internet.

Once you've checked all this run this test:

First: Downsample (reduce) a 1 minute AVHCD video to an "Uncompressed AVI" using NTSC* SD quality, if it's 16:9 widescreen, you want these presets (if you live in the USA it's NTSC, otherwise use PAL):

For video:
-DV NTSC @ 29.97fps
-720 x 480 (pixel size 1.2121 for 16:9 wide screen)
-Progressive

For audio:
48kHz (48000) 16 bit audio


Next (and keep an eye on PD's performance when you do this):
1. Start a fresh project using the NTSC settings as before.
2. Re-import the Uncompressed AVI back to PD, adjust its width/height to accomodate frame if needed. (Should import fine by itself).
3. Run a voice over on it like you do for your projects.
4. Save.
5. Render it out like an H.264 using these settings:

NTSC 640x360 Progressive 29.97fps widescreen 16:9
Maximum bitrate should be 600.

When you're done get back to me and tell me how it went, and what the output is like.

NB: What you've done is reduce quality of things to test if your machine can handle the edits and there's a faint possibility you might run out of disk space.

edit: Overclocking only makes the motor and wheels spin faster. It doesn't widen the pipe where there could be bottle necks. With video editing there are two major common bottlenecks: how data travels between CPU and GPU, and how fast data travels between CPU and Hard Disk. Just bear in mind that AVHCD video is gargantuan in size. It packs so much data for the hi-definition, frame rate and frame sizes involved compared to old standard SD video. Using H.264 compression for output helps retain most of the quality even though you've downsampled the video.

Also, just some other thoughts, can you explain a bit about your office setup. Is this computer networked to a server, for example, does it have Microsoft Office installed and running some kind of 'synchronizing files' gimmick each time you shutdown/log-off/restart?

Quote: Yours is the model with DDR3 so it's got 12Gb/s bandwidth.

I know you've done this a million times already but before you get into panic mode:

1. Double triple check you haven't got any malware. Run malware bytes checker, it's free and very good.

2. Clean out your registry with something like CCleaner, you can also set it to get rid of temporary files from PD renders but you have to set this up manually once.

3. Defrag again.

4. Make sure *you're not* rendering to your Toshiba USB3 drive.

5. Disable all automatic updates.

6. Disconnect from the internet.

Once you've checked all this run this test:

First: Downsample (reduce) a 1 minute AVHCD video to an "Uncompressed AVI" using NTSC* SD quality, if it's 16:9 widescreen, you want these presets (if you live in the USA it's NTSC, otherwise use PAL):

For video:
-DV NTSC @ 29.97fps
-720 x 480 (pixel size 1.2121 for 16:9 wide screen)
-Progressive

For audio:
48kHz (48000) 16 bit audio


Next (and keep an eye on PD's performance when you do this):
1. Start a fresh project using the NTSC settings as before.
2. Re-import the Uncompressed AVI back to PD, adjust its width/height to accomodate frame if needed. (Should import fine by itself).
3. Run a voice over on it like you do for your projects.
4. Save.
5. Render it out like an H.264 using these settings:

NTSC 640x360 Progressive 29.97fps widescreen 16:9
Maximum bitrate should be 600.

When you're done get back to me and tell me how it went, and what the output is like.

NB: What you've done is reduce quality of things to test if your machine can handle the edits and there's a faint possibility you might run out of disk space.

edit: Overclocking only makes the motor and wheels spin faster. It doesn't widen the pipe where there could be bottle necks. With video editing there are two major common bottlenecks: how data travels between CPU and GPU, and how fast data travels between CPU and Hard Disk. Just bear in mind that AVHCD video is gargantuan in size. It packs so much data for the hi-definition, frame rate and frame sizes involved compared to old standard SD video. Using H.264 compression for output helps retain most of the quality even though you've downsampled the video.

Also, just some other thoughts, can you explain a bit about your office setup. Is this computer networked to a server, for example, does it have Microsoft Office installed and running some kind of 'synchronizing files' gimmick each time you shutdown/log-off/restart?

Ok.. so I've gone through all of that. As for your test.. everything runs perfect on single clips. It's only during transitions that the video freezes.

For my setup, I'm not sure what you mean by networked to a server.. I'm mapped to a few network drives. I don't have MS office on here.

One thing I've been paying attention to. It seems playback is dead smooth even on full HD preview with my track volumes muted. Once I add in audio it can't keep up. Currently I'm using my GPU obviously for video and then my onboard for audio. Is there anything that is maybe causing this? Or is it simply the fact that audio also takes up a lot of resources and slows things down?

Hi CJC,

Quote: Ok.. so I've gone through all of that. As for your test.. everything runs perfect on single clips. It's only during transitions that the video freezes.

When you say 'freezing' do you mean in PD's preview window? If so, lower the preview quality to a lower setting.
If it's freezing while playing back through Windows Media Player, the DVD player, etc. then it looks like your bit rates are still too high and you need to tweak them down even more. Otherwise, there's still a bottleneck with your GPU (read on, Intel Quick Sync).

I've been doing some research while you were gone. Some Intel based systems have something called 'Intel Quick Sync Video' nowadays which is built in. It might not be turned on with yours. If you have that on your computer, try it instead of your graphics card. Check the back of your computer to see if you have a free monitor port and check your BIOS to see if the option is switched on. My setup is old and doesn't have it, but according to some forum users here, PD shows it as an Intel logo on the effects and works well. That might help your video and effects rendering. If it does, you can retire your GPU.

Quote: For my setup, I'm not sure what you mean by networked to a server.. I'm mapped to a few network drives. I don't have MS office on here.

No problem. Sounds good. It sounds like you don't have any Office interference. Some places I've been to have a widget running in the background that kicks in each time the user logs off/shuts down and puts a lot of drag on the system while running just because it wants to copy files across from machine to machine. This can create 'freezes' like you described.

Quote:
One thing I've been paying attention to. It seems playback is dead smooth even on full HD preview with my track volumes muted. Once I add in audio it can't keep up. Currently I'm using my GPU obviously for video and then my onboard for audio. Is there anything that is maybe causing this? Or is it simply the fact that audio also takes up a lot of resources and slows things down?

Let me know if the Intel Quick Sync Video made a difference. Your GPU is separate from the rest of the components. So think of it as a motorway/pipe which travels to your GPU and a separate motorway/pipe which travels to your sound card. Yes, you could have a bottle neck with audio as well (read on).

When you say 'it can't keep up' do you mean the video and audio are mismatched/out of sync (objects move but the sound is late/early) or is it choppy/stuttering?

If this is during playback, outside of PD, then it could be your sound/audio driver needs updating.
Video playback is much easier for a PC to handle than to make it, which is what you're trying to do.
Making video is more hardware intensive than playback because all the hard work has already been done.

If this is in PD, then check you're not using Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound (or similar) at a huge sample rate which your machine might be struggling with, in which case, yes the audio could be taking up the resources. First thing: check and update your audio drivers.

When you first record the original bit of speech, recording quality should be at the maximum setting you can afford.
When you then bring that same audio to a video you're making, many many times you will have to tweak it down for it to work alongside the video. So first try a lower sample rate from that audio recording you made...

WAV audio is the most reliable for video work on a PC. If your recording is just a 'speaking' voice and it's fairly clear/clean speech you don't need anything higher than 8bit audio. You also don't need a sample rate any higher than 96bits (per second / bps). You could even get away with 64bps for speech (especially male voices as they have more bass). These settings affect files sizes and sound quality. Anything higher than 128bps (more into music as it holds more range) is overkill and adds stress to the system. You want your production work flow to be as smooth as silk - no crashes, bangs or wallops. So keep things light. 99% of the time, you probably just need stereo, not Dolby 5.1.

In the end it all depends on the quality of your setup, how quiet the surrounding environment is, how close the microphone is to the mouth.

Ultimately, and this might sound obvious, listen to the audio sample before putting it in the video and check it for quality. Compare it to the original. If it's rubbish, sample it again. Find your sweet spot and eventually you'll get the hang of it. Things also tend to get better as you train your ear.

Once this is working smoothly, start increasing quality settings slowly (audio and video).
Make a note of each setting you change before applying a whole load in one go.
Build up from there and you will get to the point you want to be.

Let us know how you get on.

When you say 'freezing' do you mean in PD's preview window? If so, lower the preview quality to a lower setting.
If it's freezing while playing back through Windows Media Player, the DVD player, etc. then it looks like your bit rates are still too high and you need to tweak them down even more. Otherwise, there's still a bottleneck with your GPU (read on, Intel Quick Sync).

It's not just the preview window. It's the entire program freezes up. The timeline scrubber, the buttons. The whole program. I have never had a freeze during playback in any other program. Even if I put the playback quality on low, it plays exactly the same as if it's on full HD.

I've been doing some research while you were gone. Some Intel based systems have something called 'Intel Quick Sync Video' nowadays which is built in. It might not be turned on with yours. If you have that on your computer, try it instead of your graphics card. Check the back of your computer to see if you have a free monitor port and check your BIOS to see if the option is switched on. My setup is old and doesn't have it, but according to some forum users here, PD shows it as an Intel logo on the effects and works well. That might help your video and effects rendering. If it does, you can retire your GPU.

Unfortunately my CPU doesn't have this.

When you say 'it can't keep up' do you mean the video and audio are mismatched/out of sync (objects move but the sound is late/early) or is it choppy/stuttering?

If this is during playback, outside of PD, then it could be your sound/audio driver needs updating.
Video playback is much easier for a PC to handle than to make it, which is what you're trying to do.
Making video is more hardware intensive than playback because all the hard work has already been done.

If this is in PD, then check you're not using Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound (or similar) at a huge sample rate which your machine might be struggling with, in which case, yes the audio could be taking up the resources. First thing: check and update your audio drivers.

I mean audio will play 100% smooth while the rest of the program freezes as described before. Timeline scrubber will stop moving, video playback will stop, while audio plays normal. Then after a few seconds scrubber will jump and video will resume in sync momentarily before freezing again. Again, this is only in PD. I double checked and I'm using simple Stereo. Audio drivers were just updated as well.

When you first record the original bit of speech, recording quality should be at the maximum setting you can afford.
....

As for voiceover I'm not even concerned with this anymore. It's working fairly efficiently. Not great but compared to my other issues I haven't even noticed. I did notice I had the quality up a bit higher than necessary, so I'll still keep an eye to see if the lowered rate helps.

Ok trying to drill this down further.

With all audio muted, playback with full HD setting is very smooth.

With the audio enabled on the video track, on LOW preview resolution, the playback stutters on every clip transition (when i say transition i mean clip to clip.. no transition effects).

With separate music track added, but video track's audio disabled, on full HD playback, again, playback is smooth.

What's more odd, is that the music track is at 48kHz 320kbps, and the audio for the video tracks are actually lower at 256Kbps.

So for some reason I'm having my main issues when my video's audio is enabled, but not if I have a separate audio track playing.

And even more info.. today I was working on a bit more complex project. Constant constant program freezes. Nothing to do with playback. Simply trying to navigate menus and features within PD. brought up the cpu monitor while doing so and system idle hardly ever went below 90% cpu usage. My CPU isn't even beginning to NEAR stress point, yet PD continues to lock up and freeze. Eventually it locked up for about 5 minutes and then force closed. SO SICK OF THIS PROGRAM. I love it, it just refuses to run well! I would do a reinstall but I'm worried I'll lose all my custom titles, settings, etc.

have you opened Task Manager and see what programs or processes are using the high CPU? It may not be PD12 but some other program that is grabbing all of your CPU... (fingers crossed)

Quote: have you opened Task Manager and see what programs or processes are using the high CPU? It may not be PD12 but some other program that is grabbing all of your CPU... (fingers crossed)

I wish. In the post right above yours, I mention that. I've been watching the task manager like a hawk. There isn't a single thing using a single percent of my processing power other than system idle and PD12. Even PD12 is only using about 10% on average, yet it is ungodly slow. It takes about 1-5 seconds to perform any function at times. I just don't understand. And again I'm talking about non-playback functions even here. So if it isn't my video card, and it isn't my processor, then what the heck?

looking at your specs ( if I'm reading them correctly) you have 43gb left on your hard drive and using an external hard drive for storage? can you install another hard drive internally? When I am editing I have the video files on one HD and the audio on another and that does help...
I actually have 3 HD's: one for the OS, one for video and one for audio... with lots of room on all of them... just a thought...
It's pretty easy to install a HD internally. if you need help I can walk you through it...

Hi CJC, back again!

Quote: Ok trying to drill this down further.

With all audio muted, playback with full HD setting is very smooth.

With the audio enabled on the video track, on LOW preview resolution, the playback stutters on every clip transition (when i say transition i mean clip to clip.. no transition effects).

With separate music track added, but video track's audio disabled, on full HD playback, again, playback is smooth.

What's more odd, is that the music track is at 48kHz 320kbps, and the audio for the video tracks are actually lower at 256Kbps.

So for some reason I'm having my main issues when my video's audio is enabled, but not if I have a separate audio track playing.

This is interesting.
Have you tried extracting the audio from your clips and re-lay them on the time line?
Does it affect PD in the same way?

I've got some links to free HD footage here and here.
If you could test something from them and say if you still get the freezing that would be great.
This might be going off track but you might have stumbled on something to do with a setting for your recordings, only guessing.
Can you upload something of your own we could test to see if PD behaves the same way?

I'm not sure how to upload a raw file of my own.. but I tried to get a screen capture of some of my issues. The screen capture was a bit slow I guess so not perfect. But you can see my two different issues.. the freezing of the program, and the playback issues.

You can notice the program freezing when the buttons light up or don't light up when I try to click.
Then you can see how I tried the playback with and without the audio track enabled. At the end I did a short playback in movie mode with the audio disabled and you can notice the smooth playback.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M73uNPptrk&feature=youtu.be

YESSSS.

Believe the issue is indeed my hard drive. I had our IT guy install a second drive on my computer. It's only an 80Gb, so I didn't transfer anything to it, we just formatted it. I went through my one project that was running horribly. Packed the project files to the new drive, and re-opened that project. Runs ten times better with actual project playback, as well as program navigation and functionality. I'm switching back and forth between the same project on my old drive, and on the new drive, and it's like night and day. This is a HUGE relief.

Now my next question is how do I go about actually solving my problem. This new drive isn't all that great still (ten year old drive) and is only 80Gb. I can see the same thing happening. I can probably afford to get a new drive, but what should I do? Would I be better off getting a high quality (maybe SSD?) but smaller capacity drive, and using it solely for my project materials (and then transferring the project elsewhere when done)? Or should I just get a new high capacity drive?

get a large drive that runs at 7200 rpm. hopefully your computer utilizes sata and if so the drive will work just fine for your video editing. just start all projects on the new drive while the PD12 program is on your original drive. that way one drive isn't trying to run the program AND try to play video and audio files at the same time.

Quote: get a large drive that runs at 7200 rpm. hopefully your computer utilizes sata and if so the drive will work just fine for your video editing. just start all projects on the new drive while the PD12 program is on your original drive. that way one drive isn't trying to run the program AND try to play video and audio files at the same time.

I suppose that's part of my question.. Is it actually optimal for my media files to be on one drive while my program runs on another? And if so, which takes up more resources? The program itself, or the media files?

And if it is ideal for 2 drives, wouldn't it be better to get a small, say ~50 Gb SSD? I've already got a 1Tb external. I don't need the storage space. I just need something that can be quick as possible.

Quote:

Quote: get a large drive that runs at 7200 rpm. hopefully your computer utilizes sata and if so the drive will work just fine for your video editing. just start all projects on the new drive while the PD12 program is on your original drive. that way one drive isn't trying to run the program AND try to play video and audio files at the same time.

I suppose that's part of my question.. Is it actually optimal for my media files to be on one drive while my program runs on another? And if so, which takes up more resources? The program itself, or the media files?

And if it is ideal for 2 drives, wouldn't it be better to get a small, say ~50 Gb SSD? I've already got a 1Tb external. I don't need the storage space. I just need something that can be quick as possible.

For Powerdirector to work effectively you need to have a internal spinning Hard Drive for the video and audio files to reside.
And for a Working edit folder.

This tutorial outlines very good practices.
Project Management 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAOnn8g0C_o

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 Carl. I actually have always done that. I have 2 drives. 1 is my C drive, the other is my external drive. I have all my materials on my External drive. When I want to do a project, I copy whatever I need to a temporary folder on my C drive and then work from there.

So I'm unsure what you mean by a 'spinning drive'. Are you saying that PD does not support SSDs?

Basically I've already found there's some type of issue with my C drive. I don't know if there's a problem with the drive itself, or if the problem is that all my working files are on that same C drive. Based on the fact that I got way better performance out of 2 old drives running separately, I'd imagine this is a good way to go, and I'm leaning towards getting a small internal SSD for my temporary project files, while the program stays on my C drive.

Thoughts?

Would work but You could easily run out of space easily if too small. As Marty pointed out, you may need to clean up your Drive C:. 43GB free isn't very much for Windows and apps. I try to keep at least 100GB or more free on the boot drive. Intel i7 4770k, 16GB, GTX1060 3GB, Two 240GB SSD, 4TB HD, Sony HDR-TD20V 3D camcorder, Sony SLT-A65VK for still images, Windows 10 Pro, 64bit
Gary Russell -- TN USA

Quote: Thanks Carl. I actually have always done that. I have 2 drives. 1 is my C drive, the other is my external drive. I have all my materials on my External drive. When I want to do a project, I copy whatever I need to a temporary folder on my C drive and then work from there.

So I'm unsure what you mean by a 'spinning drive'. Are you saying that PD does not support SSDs?

Thoughts?

Spinning Drive is an ordinary HDD 7200 RPM drive. It has a spinning platter, A Solid State Drive has no spinning platter. A SSD has no moving parts.

Powerdirector does support SSD drives for the OS, but that drive needs at least 60 GB of free space for Powerdirector's Temporary files while rendering HD video and BluRay Disks.

256 GB SSD drives work great. There is usually enough free space left after installing the OS and Programs.
Prices of SSD drives have down a lot in the last year or two.
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.

That's a relief.
If you find SSD's a tad expensive, check the prices for some of these Western Digital "Black" hard drives in your country (all 7200rpm with high transfer rates):
WD Black ( WD1003FZEX) 1Tb
WD Black ( WD2003FZEX) 2Tb

or any of these Western Digital 10,000rpm ones: link.