PowerDirector 15 ... really not working for me here....

steveshq

Newbie Joined: Jul 10, 2017 16:17 Messages: 3 Offline

Solved by

Jul 10, 2017 16:51

As a user of PowerDirector since version 11, you can say I am quite familiar with the programme and its abilities. I have always 'forced' an older Windows XP computer to edit and burn to Blu-Ray disk (yes, it can be done on a Windows XP machine!).

I now have a freshly purchased latest all singing version 15 of the application installed on my rapid Windows 7 computer that leaves my older computer standing when it comes to speed etch.

I have now spent the best part of 3 days laying out my daughters Wedding video and included all the usual transitions / fades / wipes and titles - all as per usual layouts I have done -(actually this layout was much less busy compared to some in the past).

Get to it (I hear you say)... I added at the end of all the video footage (the end of the moving video parts) the photographs and used the slideshow feature of version 15 that makes a little rendered video of all images together - all as per read and tutorialed on the website. Saves of my project were being done on auto every 10 minutes and I clicked the floppy icon several times to manually save at points after a hard bit of work I did not want to re-do.

Then I had just literally laid out the last line of rendered slideshow montage of 280 images and then clicked save..... screen goes greyed out with a ghost image of the editing window still visible through it, cursor indicating please wait, then with no warning at all the programme closes showing me my computer desktop?

I tried 3 times to restart the programme with no joy so I realise their must be a bug somewhere so I restarted the computer, and although the programme had been checked (in settings options) to load my last saved project - NOTHING! I click 'Open Project' and where the project always lives NOTHING! I look frantically in all my documents and folders NOTHING! In a last resort I use the Windows search to look for ANY .pds files ... it found some older cached versions (with a 13 number at the end of their file names) that had the layout up to a save early in the morning, but the original .pds file (the one that opens the project on starting the programme - IT'S TOTALLY VANISHED INTO THIN AIR - NO RECYCLE BIN / NO SECONDARY LOCATION AND NO WARNING!!! TO say that I am a bit pi***d at all this is an understatement! How can I work on a crapped out Windows XP computer for years forcing it to work with PowerDirector with success, the after shelling out for the latest version have almost 3 days totally wasted by this .pds file loss? I am not happy and naturally dont relish the idea of sitting in front of my computer doing it all again for 3 days - only to have it all happen again. I do nothing else at the same time on the computer - just pure editing and simple editing at that. If ANYONE has heard of this or has ideas what the hell is going on here please. FOOTNOTE TO CYBERLINK DEVELOPERS - I shall be seeking a full refund based on this total time-wasting file deletion - it should not happen in 2017 - this is so stupid it hurts!

steveshq

Newbie Joined: Jul 10, 2017 16:17 Messages: 3 Offline

Jul 22, 2017 05:43

Quote As a user of PowerDirector since version 11, you can say I am quite familiar with the programme and its abilities. I have always 'forced' an older Windows XP computer to edit and burn to Blu-Ray disk (yes, it can be done on a Windows XP machine!).

I now have a freshly purchased latest all singing version 15 of the application installed on my rapid Windows 7 computer that leaves my older computer standing when it comes to speed etch.

I have now spent the best part of 3 days laying out my daughters Wedding video and included all the usual transitions / fades / wipes and titles - all as per usual layouts I have done -(actually this layout was much less busy compared to some in the past).

Get to it (I hear you say)... I added at the end of all the video footage (the end of the moving video parts) the photographs and used the slideshow feature of version 15 that makes a little rendered video of all images together - all as per read and tutorialed on the website. Saves of my project were being done on auto every 10 minutes and I clicked the floppy icon several times to manually save at points after a hard bit of work I did not want to re-do.

Then I had just literally laid out the last line of rendered slideshow montage of 280 images and then clicked save..... screen goes greyed out with a ghost image of the editing window still visible through it, cursor indicating please wait, then with no warning at all the programme closes showing me my computer desktop?

I tried 3 times to restart the programme with no joy so I realise their must be a bug somewhere so I restarted the computer, and although the programme had been checked (in settings options) to load my last saved project - NOTHING! I click 'Open Project' and where the project always lives NOTHING! I look frantically in all my documents and folders NOTHING! In a last resort I use the Windows search to look for ANY .pds files ... it found some older cached versions (with a 13 number at the end of their file names) that had the layout up to a save early in the morning, but the original .pds file (the one that opens the project on starting the programme - IT'S TOTALLY VANISHED INTO THIN AIR - NO RECYCLE BIN / NO SECONDARY LOCATION AND NO WARNING!!! TO say that I am a bit pi***d at all this is an understatement! How can I work on a crapped out Windows XP computer for years forcing it to work with PowerDirector with success, the after shelling out for the latest version have almost 3 days totally wasted by this .pds file loss? I am not happy and naturally dont relish the idea of sitting in front of my computer doing it all again for 3 days - only to have it all happen again. I do nothing else at the same time on the computer - just pure editing and simple editing at that. If ANYONE has heard of this or has ideas what the hell is going on here please. FOOTNOTE TO CYBERLINK DEVELOPERS - I shall be seeking a full refund based on this total time-wasting file deletion - it should not happen in 2017 - this is so stupid it hurts!

This post has been up here a while now... has anyone else running version 15 had similar issues and maybe a workaround? I really do want to carry on using the software as I know it so well, but this loss of project and 'un-announced' closing of the programe was just too silly! Any ideas please? cheers.

BarryTheCrab

Senior Contributor Location: USA Joined: Nov 06, 2008 22:18 Messages: 6240 Offline

Jul 22, 2017 06:39

In your preferences you will find a setting for AUTOSAVE. Change that to it's lowest time frame, 2 minutes.

Under that same Preferences is a window box with a computer location address in it, that locale is where your autosaved files are kept. Copy that address and go to it and you will find your saved project backups. A more recent vintage of your project is probably in there, but you really should lower that number to 2 minutes. It also helps to sometimes resave working projects with a suffix, 1,2,3,4 or A,B,C,D etc to keep projects a little more safe from the dreaded crash. HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
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steveshq

Newbie Joined: Jul 10, 2017 16:17 Messages: 3 Offline

Jul 23, 2017 08:07

Thanks for that info Barry ... I was aware of the autosave thingy but not the location etch.

I think I realise that the problems that I am having is due to the small 4GB of ram I am trying to push a bit! I have just put a faster motherboard and processor (4.8Ghz) into another case with a couple of SSHD (250Gb) and all stuff being USB3 compatible. A healthy 16GB of DDR3 ram should hopefully see off any glithches regarding sole use of PD15 and its rendering.

Sorry to trouble you with this one lastly... But, if I am now going to do it all on another different computer, I need to copy all the files required that will hopefully stop me having to re-lay out the entire timeline again, so is it all files in the 'My Documents' 'Cyberlink' folder as well as the locations of all my images and video? I need to copy all over to the newly installed PD15 on the faster computer so assume this is the way to do it?

Lastly, should you change anything regarding 'Using a Shadow File'?

Thanks again Barry.

GGRussell

Senior Contributor Joined: Jan 08, 2012 11:38 Messages: 709 Offline

Jul 23, 2017 08:46

On the old machine, load PD15 and your project

Go to File / Pack Project Material and remember where you saved the file

Transfer file to new computer and open in PD15

Your new computer sounds fast enough to turn Shadow Files off unless the project is 4K.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Jul 23. 2017 08:49

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