ColorDirector clips in slow motion

MarkatStormfront

Newbie Location: Australia Joined: Jan 07, 2016 23:24 Messages: 3 Offline

Solved by

Jan 07, 2016 23:40

Although we're experienced pro audio engineers (Pro Tools 12) we're beginning to experiment with and learn about video work via PowerDirector 14 which we've just installed.

Version is PD 14.0.2302.0 - VDE151023-03

In early operation we can't work out what we're doing wrong (given our PC - diags attached - is powerful) here:

When we open a clip from PD14 in ColorDirector (directly opened from PD14), apply a Preset, then use "BACK" to import back to PD14 this treated clip plays back in very slow motion?

The treated clip appears with the applied treatment from CD, but moves in very slowed motion - as a guide to what's happening each actual Second on the clock takes about 5 Seconds to play.

When playing back in PD14 the clips around the treated clip continue to playback normally - it's just the CD-treated clip that goes into very slow motion whilst the untreated ones each side of it playback normally?

The clip being treated is about 18 seconds long, and shot/edited at HD 1080 60fps - we've also had to set preview quality to this as every other lower resolution setting plays back all clips very poorly (unuseably).

The experimental Project this is in just has 2 clips - the treated one and a 5 second untreated one, and we've put a title intro and a subtitle on the treated clip (removing the subtitle makes no difference to the slow playback).

UPDATE: We've now ascertained that this problem occurs regardless of which clip we try to treat in ColorDirector, and we've tried starting a new Project, and also removing all other clips (i.e.just using the one treated clip) with the problem continuing unaffected.

We've also ensured both PD and our graphics card drivers (a NVIDIA GeForce GTX-970) up-to-date, and upon suggestion from Cyberlinks Customer Support have enabled Shadow Files and Hardware Acceleration.

Cyberlink Customer Support have asked us to upload a Project Pack by FTP but their server wouldn't accept the upload so now waiting on them to respond to fix this issue.

We're surely missing something obvious/making a newbie error here aren't we?

Filename	STORMFRONTDXDIAG.TXT	Download
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Filename	STORMFRONT64BITDXDIAG.TXT	Download
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This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at Jan 09. 2016 17:47

Carl312

Senior Contributor Location: Texas, USA Joined: Mar 16, 2010 20:11 Messages: 9090 Offline

Jan 09, 2016 20:02

I have one question, did you produce the project after returning the ColorDirector edited clip?

The Preview sometimes lags, because Powerdirector is having to process the video on the timeline in real time so it cannot keep up.

The only true test is to produce the video/project and play in an external player.

That condition is often seen when you use a lot of Video Speed on a clip, the preview just cannot keep up. The produced video is fine. 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.

MarkatStormfront

Newbie Location: Australia Joined: Jan 07, 2016 23:24 Messages: 3 Offline

Jan 09, 2016 21:43

Carl,

Thanks so much for your reply - we've seen that you offer a lot of help on this Forum which is very much appreciated.

NO - we haven't bothered to Produce the finished product but would presume it's likely to do so OK.

YES - we assume like you it's some sort of processing lag, though (being newbies to video work) are we wrong in thinking our system which is 8-core i7 with 32GB RAM and NVIDIA GeForce GTX-970 card should be struggling with this?

Only if you have time to ponder and advise.....

Do you think (as we do) we'd be much better off treating the required clips "Standalone" in ColorDirector BEFORE we worry about editing, then Export the finished treated clips, which can then be imported to PowerDirector for editing?

Do you think we're setting up wrong in order to best utilise our system which has (in addition to the System drive) a dedicated highspeed drive for Video (which we're using here for this project) plus a highspeed Sample drive?

Carl312

Senior Contributor Location: Texas, USA Joined: Mar 16, 2010 20:11 Messages: 9090 Offline

Jan 09, 2016 22:32

Quote: Carl,

Thanks so much for your reply - we've seen that you offer a lot of help on this Forum which is very much appreciated.

NO - we haven't bothered to Produce the finished product but would presume it's likely to do so OK.

I recommend you try to produce before you try anything else.

YES - we assume like you it's some sort of processing lag, though (being newbies to video work) are we wrong in thinking our system which is 8-core i7 with 32GB RAM and NVIDIA GeForce GTX-970 card should be struggling with this?

Only if you have time to ponder and advise.....

Do you think (as we do) we'd be much better off treating the required clips "Standalone" in ColorDirector BEFORE we worry about editing, then Export the finished treated clips, which can then be imported to PowerDirector for editing?

You can sure try "Standalone" to see what the result is. The bottle neck is PD having to apply all of the real time edits in the preview. Video editing is the most demanding task a computer can do, the more edits, effects, enhancements you do, the slower the preview is.

Do you think we're setting up wrong in order to best utilise our system which has (in addition to the System drive) a dedicated highspeed drive for Video (which we're using here for this project) plus a highspeed Sample drive?

You have SSD drives, they are the fastest drives available at this time. Hard Drive speed is not the determining factor. CPU speed, Video card speed and RAM has more to do with processing video than Hard drive transfer speed.

It sure does not hurt to have a High Speed Drive for Video editing. The only thing I would worry about is the constant writing to a SSD drive. 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.

MarkatStormfront

Newbie Location: Australia Joined: Jan 07, 2016 23:24 Messages: 3 Offline

Jan 10, 2016 18:04

Carl,

Thanks so much for your help - we'll look at PDR again at a later date with your advice in-hand but are "clocking off" this topic for now.

We discovered and installed (free) DaVinci Resolve 12 last night and already it seems easy to use, familiar to our existing graphic art (Adobe Photoshop) and audio (Avid Pro Tools 12) workpaths, and (so far) seemingly working perfectly through all effects and colour corrections using the same HD clips PDR has failed with.

Anonymous

Jan 10, 2016 20:11

Hello Mark!

I'm in agreement with Carl312 in this issue. You've brought a clip into Power Director 14(Ultimate, Ultra...? Which version?, out of interest), before you've done anything with it in PD, you've taken it across to Colour Director, and "tinkered" with it, then brought that version back to PD14 and it runs at 1-5th speed! Okay. Use that 1-5th speed for the moment only to verify that the image is as you've made it in Colour Director, when you're satisfied in that respect, produce(render) the video in PD14 to whichever file type you want. MPEG2, MP4 are fairly quick to produce but AVCHD can take up to an hour on a short 5-minute clip, longer still if the clip runs any longer. It's for that reason alone that I avoid AVCHD. Tried it once... no, thanks!

Once your clip has been "produced" it will then run at normal speed, and if you hadn't already done so, you can now use that produced clip for editing purposes.

Cheers!

Neil.

By the way, where in Australia are you? Just the region will suffice as your answer, as you can see, I'm in Port Stephens, not too far north of Newcastle.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Jan 10. 2016 20:13