I posted this question a week ago, but cannot locate it on the board...and found myself needing to re-register on Cyberlink, something I had already accomplished when purchasing Power Director 7 Ultra...anyway-

My operating system is Windows XP, on an HP Pavillion laptop with Intel Centrino Duo and graphics by Nvidia. Added another 1 Gig to memory, so now have 2.

Because I am new to this, and not super technologically advnaced, I may not even have the right product for what my purpose. Please have patience with my questions. Thanks!

We travel quite a bit. I really enjoy the camcorder (Sony DCR-DVD 108 Handycam). Started in Europe last year and took 15 DVDs!!! I know it's a lot, but it was my first time. I still have the DVD's and have been wanting to create a movie, but am overwhelmed and scared by the amount of DVD's. Took some smaller trips, with only a few DVDs and have been "practicing" with them. Small projects which is maybe a 15-minute movie from one or two DVDs turned out fine and I had fun and learned about the process. Realized I needed more memory, so bought another Gig.

One trip this year, I took 5 DVDs. I imported each disc to the Power Director 7-Ultra and began editing. When I was finished with each disc, I would import another, etc. until it was all done. I ended up with about a 25-minute movie from 4-hours of DVDs, when it was finished.

I used some of the Smartsound music and imported a couple of songs, downloaded from a CD or iTunes. It worked out nicely.

What was frustrating was:

1) Before too long, the video was out-of-sync with the audio...I found myself having to mute a lot of the clips, and add music because it was really off.

2) When I would play it back (before producing or burning the disc) often the movie would "snag" or "hang up". It was like it would get hung up and once it got going again (in a second or so) the particular clip would go in really fast motion, as if to catch up with the audio? I found myself needing to trim those clips (again) to get rid of whatever was making it funky. That in-turn was screw up the audio, so I would have to take the audio back out, and put it back in again...

3) A co-worker who has Power Director 6 told me that the more special effects I add (Magic Fix, Transitions, PIP, Titles, etc.), the more the movie will hang up. Is this true? What is the purpose of having these cool effects if I can't use very many?

4) When I import the first DVD, and create the storyboard, do my edits, etc. and am ready to import the second DVD, I import it to the same project I started. Should I be doing this, or should I import it to a new, second project, and do this for each DVD I import...until ready to merge them all together?

5) Am I using the right program? I am leary of starting my work on the 15-discs from Europe. I only want to make a 30-minute movie, but if PD 7 Ultra cannot handle this, then should I be looking at another video editing program? Should I look at another Cyberlink program? I don't want to make 4-minute movies. I want to capture special events, trips and such...sometimes combining a few on one DVD.

I am very sorry for the length of this post. I just need some help and clarification. I don't know too many other folks who do video editing, and this is becoming my favorite hobby.

Thank you for your time and help.

Happy Holidays!

Gary