Quote: When I goto CAPTURE it tries to capture from 'an optical or external device', which it doesn't find but looks for about 30 seconds (and this happens every time I click on CAPTURE).

My question is simply - how do I make it goto 'Capture from screen' first?

Hello James, Welcome

I was going to tell you to open Power Director AND Screen Capture and make sure that " Import to Power Director" was checked in the settings but I can't get that setting to activate. Sorry, I don;t know if that is a bug or not. Anyone else able to activete it (check mark)?

You could always do the screen capture with that application and then import that file into PowerDirctor. I'm not sure which would be faster.

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BoilerPlate: To posters who ask for help -- it is nice to thank the volunteers who try to answer your questions !
Anything I post unless stated with a reference is my personal opinion.

Edit, if you are using the screen capture, once you select to stop the capture, you will get options to record more or to edit. If you select to edit, PowerDirector will open with the captured video in the library.

I sent a ticket to Cyberlink telling them that the import to Power Director in the settings to the screen capture doesn;t seem to work (for me). .
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BoilerPlate: To posters who ask for help -- it is nice to thank the volunteers who try to answer your questions !
Anything I post unless stated with a reference is my personal opinion.

Thanks for the reply but I think I haven't explained the problem properly.

When I click on the CAPTURE button from another screen (in the EDIT section for example) it takes me to the capture screen and then tries to capture from an optical device - which it can't find and wastes precious time.
I want the program to default to the screen capture section when I hit capture.

Hope I explained it better this time

My IMPORT button appears live, not sure what that means to Steve's issue.
PD is always going to take a few moments to fully open the CAPTURE module and seek a source, it's just the way it works. I suspect the more sources you have connected, the longer it will take for the CAPTURE module to find them all. HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
Nvidia GTX 960(4GB)/16GB DDR3/
Canon Vixia HV30/HF-M40/HF-M41/HF-G20/Olympus E-PL5.
Tape capture using 6 VCR, TBC-1000, Elite BVP4+, Sony D8 camcorder with TBC.
https://www.facebook.com/BarryAFTT

Quote: My IMPORT button appears live, not sure what that means to Steve's issue.
PD is always going to take a few moments to fully open the CAPTURE module and seek a source, it's just the way it works. I suspect the more sources you have connected, the longer it will take for the CAPTURE module to find them all.

If I am in the edit mode and click capture, it takes the program 2 seconds to find the connected devices - web cam/micropone/screen.

How many and what other devices do you have connected? I'll try later to add a couple to see how much that slows down the program. .
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BoilerPlate: To posters who ask for help -- it is nice to thank the volunteers who try to answer your questions !
Anything I post unless stated with a reference is my personal opinion.

From clicking CAPTURE it took 8 seconds to fully finish. I have analog and digital TV, so that's 2 items, webcam, mic, external device is active, and the screen capture. Six total. HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
Nvidia GTX 960(4GB)/16GB DDR3/
Canon Vixia HV30/HF-M40/HF-M41/HF-G20/Olympus E-PL5.
Tape capture using 6 VCR, TBC-1000, Elite BVP4+, Sony D8 camcorder with TBC.
https://www.facebook.com/BarryAFTT