Questions about menu creation before buying PowerDirector 13

brymerr921

Newbie Joined: Apr 28, 2015 01:25 Messages: 7 Offline

Solved by

Apr 28, 2015 12:46

Hi everyone,

I am looking to purchase PowerDirector 13 and downloaded the trial to see if it fits my needs. I have never used it before and I have a few remaining questions I wasn't able to find the answers to in the forums and tutorials.

I am running Windows 8.1 64 bit, I have a brand new 1 TB SSD (Samsung 850 Evo), 16 GB RAM, i7-4800MQ processor, and an Nvidia 730M graphics card. I am trying to make a blu-ray disc compiled of lots of different home video clips. Each video clip has its own scene, and there are about 30 scenes in the project.

At least in the trial version, under the "Create Disc" option, when I create or modify a menu in Menu Designer and then save it, the saving process is incredibly slow. It takes at least 2 minutes just to save. During this time it says the program is "Not Responding" and the program window greys or blacks out a bunch but if I am patient it eventually saves correctly. Is this typical among other users using the purchased version?

In the menu I have designed, I have four menu buttons on each of the title/chapter menu pages with thumbnails and text being displayed. In the upper right hand corner of these buttons, each is numbered 1-4. However, even though I have 8 pages, the videos are still numbered 1-4 on each page. Can I number the scenes in the menu 1 through 30 instead? If so, how do I do that?

Using the single thumbnail menu option, does it alwyas only display the thumbnail for the first scene on the page? Is that customizable?Some of my scene names are very long.

In the template, can I wrap the text of a scene name to a lower line, or is that something I can only do on each page of the actual menu (not in the template)?

Thanks. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

stevek

Senior Contributor Location: Houston, Texas USA Joined: Jan 25, 2011 12:18 Messages: 4663 Offline

Apr 28, 2015 13:01

Here is a tutorial for menu designer: http://directorzone.cyberlink.com/tutorial/pdr/

Let us know if that answers most of the questions you have. .
.
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Anything I post unless stated with a reference is my personal opinion.

brymerr921

Newbie Joined: Apr 28, 2015 01:25 Messages: 7 Offline

May 02, 2015 00:22

Unfortunately, the tutorial didn't answer any of my questions.

optodata

Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline

May 02, 2015 01:43

Hi brymerr921

I can answer some of your questions, and hopefully people with more experience with the menu designer can fill in the rest.

For #1, your computer certainly seems powerful enough to provide a decent editing experience, so the long delay you've mentioned is an issue. I know there are some limitations in the trial version, so maybe try setting the 2D Disc type to DVD rather than BR and see if it still takes a long time to modify a menu.

Also, please review these *steps* and post your DxDiag here. That should help in determining if there are any issues with your computer.

For #2, you can name the chapters anything you like in the Chapter Room of the Edit window (see below). Right-click on the chapter name and choose Rename, then you can start each chapter name with a number

As for #3, you would set the thumbnail for each chapter back in the Edit window, Chapter Room using this tool:

brymerr921

Newbie Joined: Apr 28, 2015 01:25 Messages: 7 Offline

May 02, 2015 01:50

My DxDiag file is very large.... should I just paste it in a reply or is there a better way to send it?

optodata

Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline

May 02, 2015 01:53

brymerr921

Newbie Joined: Apr 28, 2015 01:25 Messages: 7 Offline

May 02, 2015 01:55

Ah. I feel silly that I missed that. Thanks for your help.

Filename	DxDiag.txt	Download
Description
Filesize	82 Kbytes
Downloaded:	645 time(s)

optodata

Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline

May 02, 2015 02:08

No worries!

Your results show that your Intel graphics driver (for the built-in GPU) is up to date but your nVidia driver for your 730M is a year old! Please visit the nVidia website the download and install the latest 64-bit driver, which is 350.12. In my experience, it's best to do a Custom Install and uncheck everything except for the graphics driver, audio driver and PhysX options - basically don't install the 3D or Miracast drivers unless you definitely know that you use them.

That will probably improve the lagging issue with the Create Menu function.

The end of the results also show many serious failures, mostly with Windows Update and something called visualElements. There are several threads on the forum that can talk you through some troubleshooting if you want to take care of that. Many times, problems like that end up making Windows unstable when you try to do demanding projects like video editing, so search the forum for "sfc /scannow" and you can follow the steps to get Windows repaired.

You can also ask here, but maybe we should stick with the primary issue of making sure that the disc menu will work so you know if you want to buy PD or not

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at May 02. 2015 02:09

ynotfish

Senior Contributor Location: N.S.W. Australia Joined: May 08, 2009 02:06 Messages: 9977 Offline

May 02, 2015 02:10

Hi brymerr921 -

Those tutorials aren't really designed to explain the kind of "nitty gritty" things you're asking - more like an overview. As senior contributor Cranston says, "Tourtorials"

But to your questions:

1. Typically, after clicking Save or Save As in Menu Designer, there is a delay while PDR writes the details of the menu to a template folder. This may vary depending on menu complexity... and yes - there's a bit of intermittent screen black out. Here, on a *weaker PC, it typically takes about 15-20 seconds to return to the main Create Disc page. i.e. *weaker CPU & half the RAM of your laptop

You cannot change those index numbers, but you can turn them off. In Menu Preferences (bottom left corner) just uncheck "Show Thumbnail Index"

If you're using a single thumbnail menu, it will display a thumbnail from the first chapter or title on that page - the portion of video can be changed in the chapter room or in menu preview.

The text boxes don't have text wrap (as we know it). You can use Enter to manually push text to the next line once you applied a menu to your project. So - the answer to your last question is "Yes"

Cheers - Tony
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tomasc

Senior Contributor Joined: Aug 25, 2011 12:33 Messages: 6464 Offline

May 02, 2015 13:06

I have never been able to move text to another line like in item 4 above. Enter simply accepts what you already typed. Alt +0013 or 0010 doesn't work for me. I have seen screenshots where it is successful in PD11. I offset the thumbnails on my menus for that reason. Maybe a different code is needed for PD13...

optodata

Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline

May 02, 2015 13:22

tomasc - that's really strange! I've never had a problem with just pressing the Enter key when editing any of the text boxes in Menu Designer. Here's what I mean:

tomasc

Senior Contributor Joined: Aug 25, 2011 12:33 Messages: 6464 Offline

May 02, 2015 15:58

optodata - Thanks for informative video. It works. Never see this in any UG. Never tried typing directly on the menu in PD13. Have always typed in chapter names in the Edit/Chapters module or for titles go to the Create/Contents page to do it there. Some special characters can be typed in there and they do work but not all of them.

What you show also work for long chapter and long title names already created previously to break them up to lower lines on the menu. That is great.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at May 02. 2015 16:02

optodata

Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline

May 02, 2015 16:07

Awesome!

brymerr921

Newbie Joined: Apr 28, 2015 01:25 Messages: 7 Offline

May 27, 2015 01:23

Thanks for your help everyone. I've never seen such an overwhelming response to help someone who hasn't even purchased the product yet. I think my questions about the menus have been answered. Sorry for not getting back to the thread for a while, but the responses were very helpful. My 30 day trial has now expired so I won't be able to tell whether updating my graphics card makes any difference. I did read somehwere that hardware acceleration was not available if the Nvidia drivers were newer than 337.88 without some workarounds. Has that issue since been resolved?

http://www.cyberlink.com/products/powerdirector-ultra/spec_en_US.html?&r=1

http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/40521.page

Thanks!

optodata

Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline

May 27, 2015 13:06