Hi IreneJ
Inserting produced and not produced project, in a disk menu should not be a problem. As was pointed out, the disk creating process will take longer because PD likely has to do some additional work because of the features you may have used in the timeline.
Your reaction about the missing files messages indicates that we have found your problem of the missing pieces in a reloaded project. PowerDirector stores the place of the files used rather than the files themselves.
The recommendation is:
1) make sure that the files you will be using for a project are in the folder where you (finally) want them.
2) then insert them, edit them with PD etc.
3) save the project
4) do not move the files around anymore.
5) loading projects and/or using projects in the disk menu should go fine as PD is still able to point to the files in their final place and you have not moved them around.
The packing of a project is actually PD collecting ALL the files and features used in the project and copying them all into a folder you have assigned for the package. As I understand the communication we had on this topic, the packing is doing what you expected the saving of the project to do. You may now have understood that is not the case.
So,
Saving the project is saving the status of what is in the media room and on the time line, PD points to files used in there location on disk, at the moment of saving.
Packing a project is copying all de media to a folder.
Since PD17 PD is checking the display-hardware used and its driver software. If there has been a change, like a new driver, PD recognized that and will ask you whether you allow it to select/define the most optimal usage of the display hardware. PD17 might also recognize (changes in) the magnifying software. I am not familiar with that.
Using the Windows magnification or scaling might have the same result, but I find that less obvious. Anyway, we must assume that PD handles all that well, and (as we have seen) it is not the cause of the black holes you have seen :
Unless there are any other issues, I don’t see any reason for re-installation of PD. It seems to work fine, it is only the user who needs to get the hang of the software :
In principle your method of creating a DVD disk is fine. PD should be able to handle that. The disk creation time might be reduced if you produce/create MPEG2 files and use them as the source for the DVD. However, the MPEG2 specifications of these files must match those for the DVD thus should be selected very carefully. (It can be done and as Optodata writes, PD can do that for you, you don’t need an additional video conversion program)
But If the DVD creation process works for you as it is, I would stick to that.
Take care!
Warry