PD7 - I want to love this program too!

plucky

Newbie Joined: Sep 06, 2008 21:50 Messages: 2 Offline

Solved by

Sep 07, 2008 10:13

Hi kids! . . Plucky here. : )

I pilfered Dan's title as my thread/topic relates closely to his (PD7 - Oh how I want to love this program!) in several areas - i.e. this program could be ideal, but I have hang/freeze issues and Cyberlink support is. . . what it is*.

First thing I'd like to say is, thanks to the guys doing the heavy lifting here and good luck Dan! Secondly, I've scoured the internet for info and searched this forum fairly thoroughly. Here I am.

My issue: System hangs upon opening PR7. I get the initializing center screen logo (happy guy w/cam) and the blue circular arrow just spins. ONCE, I got through to the PD7 user interface window. Liked what I saw, but my glee was short lived.

I purchased the 1915 build [download] a couple days ago. Installed it on a clean, healthy work machine** maintained free of junk appz & software, not even anti-virus program on it. No other video editing software has ever been installed. (Nero 7 Essentials for CD & DVD drives functionality is installed)

I can tell you one core of my AMD Athlon 4000+ dual core is pegged at 100% and the other core is flat. Can't say I've seen an imbalance like that before.

I would like to give PD7 a chance before I move on to other editing software, as I don't wish to go down the "install/uninstall, install/uninstall . . " road on this box. I'd buy/build a dedicated PC before boogering this one up.

Does my PD7 start-up hang sound familiar to the guru's here?

. . . . - p -

* I had some issues uncompressing the install package, and received Cyberlink support's "you are a valued customer; lengthly uninstall details; here is a new copy . . ." message twice, BEFORE I even installed PD7.

btw: the FIX I chased down for "The contents of this file cannot be unpacked. The executable you are attempting to run has been corrupted . . " and "Error 1335. The cabinet file 'Data1.cab' required for this installation is corrupt and cannot be used. . . . " errors on large files THAT ARE NOT CORRUPT is an interesting, alas, another story - which I sent along to Cyberlink tech support. I will share this info upon request.

** WinXP Pro (32bit), AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ AM2 dual core, MSI K9N4 SLI-F Main Board, 4GB OCZ Titanium XTC DDR2, Geforce 7900 GS PCI Express Vid Card 256MB GDDR3 Vram and HD storage for miles.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Sep 07. 2008 11:14

Bif

Member Location: San Angelo TX Joined: Aug 14, 2008 01:48 Messages: 147 Offline

Sep 08, 2008 22:13

I'm going to guess your AMD 64x2 dual core 4000+ may be part of the problem.

With AMD dual core 5000+ considered the minimum for AVCHD editing in PD7 (and I know you can't even get to the editing interface right now), and mine (AMD 64x2 dual core 5000+) was extremely sluggish to the point I wouldn't even attempt a project with it, you might want to look at something with more processing horsepower.

I'm running PD7 Ultra on a machine with Intel Q6600 2.4Ghz quad core processor and to get it work right I had to change out graphics cards from an ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB to GeForce 8800GT with 512MB (it appears that in my machine the 256MB on the graphics card was likely a serious constraint).

I don't know, it's tough to suggest someone may have to get a new machine to use a certain program but I can tell you that what is coming down the road in the way of hi def improvements will pretty much require it.

Good luck to you.

plucky

Newbie Joined: Sep 06, 2008 21:50 Messages: 2 Offline

Sep 09, 2008 10:22

Hello Bif,

Thank you so much for your response. Your post is most enlightening. I have been a PC jockey for almost 10 years - started out in web applications development, now run my own corporate publishing biz. My IT history also includes a stint as a system builder/networking/PC repair tech.

As I am just ramping up to the video world (again - been a few years), your input was a timely and well balanced over-view. Just what I needed, as I haven't committed to heavy gear purchases yet. - still doing research on the end result desired.

I am currently focused on producing small, upper-mid quality (3~5MB), 60 second clips for net distribution rather than HiDef/DVD work. I plan on integrating images, flash animation(s), some blue/green screen video narration and audio tracks for a client's new product line.

I do understand *proper* tools. For example, I recently did a series of still images for a client products that were a smashing success. I did it w/ a $200 10MP Nikon personal pocket camera and hours (actually days) of image editing. My secret => I spent more on studio lighting equipment than I did for the camera.

FWIW, I got a response from Cyberlink support this morning on this issue. They asked me to kill several system processes, uninstall a list of software I didn't have installed, delete some folders, increase Virtual memory, do the registry hacks, run msicuu2.exe., etc. . . and offered a 4th copy of the program. <sigh . . .> I did that (less deleting Nero) with the same results.

For my humble needs, I've already ordered a competitors software. If that fails, then I will consider a new high powered box. This machine is my main development workhorse and must remain stable. There are 4 internal hard drives (NOT RAIDed - they clone themselves on a schedule instead and I physically remove one of the drives). I won't be buggering it up with beta releases/cutting edge non-critical software goodies.

Thanks again for your time and insight, Bif. I may have to rethink my position on Texans. 8^)