Check your audio files - could be one of them has an encryption preventing copying/use. Remove them from the project to check.

Duplicate the project's pds file a number of times and thenreduce the size of your project to about a third in each pds. Then try and produce. I'm suggesting to try and isolate the cause of the problem.

You also need to clear you cache, temp and defrag. Shut down anything you have running in the background and not use your laptop during the render process.

I'm assuming you have the vob files on your hard drive in a directory such as "My Works" and you are writing the data to a location such as "My Works" and neither are buried in an address on your laptop that's as long as your arm!

Dafydd

Thank you for the response and suggestions. Here's what I've found:

1. I removed the audio files (3 partial songs) from the pds and got the same result (stalled at 25%)
2. I then split the pds into two separate projects. The first pds is from 00:00:00 to 13:00:00. I chose the 13th minute as this was approximately where the encoding process had been locking up. I was able to successfully encode this section.
3. While encoding the second section, the process locked up at approximately the 34th minute. I further split the second section into two other projects and was able to successfully encode these two as well.

So basically, its not the audio files causing the problem. And there's nothing at all special about the two places in the video where the application locks up during encoding (no audio, subtitles, effects, etc.) It appears to have something to do with the lenght and/or size of the video in that my PC's CPU/GPU can't keep up with the encoding process.

The problem again is that if this is the problem, I'm working with a laptop and therefore am unable to upgrade the graphics card.

Any other advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Matt,

I (and others) often choose to work in smaller sub-projects (particularly in HD) as I have found it makes for less frustrating, quicker and more efficient editing/producing, and then compile the final video at the end from the resulting sub project videos.

Althjough it seems like a multistage process, it does seem to be more relaxing!

It may be that you might have to consider this as well, if you continue to have this sort of problem and can't upgrade or sort it out, whatever.

There is a guide on
http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/3523.page

Project Designing
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3qdVoKfGTk

Good luck
Cheers
Adrian
Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.

I had a similar problem in that I could not get to the Create Disk section. PD7 locked up at 30% every time.

I had read that there are some problems with MPEG codec conflicts, so I installed Windows XP Pro and PD7 to an unused partition on my very large hard drive.

After that, I could easily get to the Create Disk section, but I could not see my video in the Edit section (apparently missing the MPEG codec), so I have to edit my project on one boot partition, then boot into another partition to wrestle with the DVD Menu and final burning (which will be the subject of another post).

There is absolutely no help to be found telling me which application or codec is causing the compatibility problem with PD7 and I am not inclined to gut my existing, and otherwise-fine, installation trying to get every section of PowerDirector to work in the same boot session.

I would prefer that CyberLink fix this obvious bug.

Adrian,

Thank you for the advice!
CyberLink actually sent me the latest upgrade 700.2277c yet I still have the issue. As you suggested, I broke my project into 3 sub-projects, encoded them, then compiled them into one and I was actually able to finish my project!

I appreciate that you took the time to help.