Quote I have recently installed the upgrade from PD16 to PD18 and am now getting into omy latest project (196 video clips and 170 jpegs) am finding PD18 is getting really hard to work with.

I found the performance of PD16 acceptable, but PD18 is really really slow, and shows signs of catching up and screen pauses that are simply disruptive to any sort of workflow.

I have cleared out all the old cache and temporary files as I know they can over time cause problems.

It seems to me that CL have added all sorts of extra bells and whistles (some I admit are really nice touches) but my PC that used to make a acceptable job of running PD16 is really showing its age (if this is where the problem lies) and struggling with PD18.

My system is CoreI7 based with 16G of memory, SSD for drive C and Terrabytes of dedicated HD for video storage, exactly the same hardware that ran PD16.

Working with any sort of fluency is nigh on impossible, to the extent that I am now trialing a different editor, that seriously provides a very fluent environment, and so far has no disadvantages that make a change challenging.

Thoughts from other members???

Alan.

You'd need to post your full computer specs in order for the techies here to assist you. I have an i7 CPU and a GTX 1060 GPU and PD18 runs very smoothly on my projects. That said, I work with HD not 4K, and my projects are pretty straight forward.

Quote


You'd need to post your full computer specs in order for the techies here to assist you. I have an i7 CPU and a GTX 1060 GPU and PD18 runs very smoothly on my projects. That said, I work with HD not 4K, and my projects are pretty straight forward.

I agree with what you say - maybe my system is not the latest spec, but it handled PD16 adequately. PD18 in contrast to PD16 is so much slower I can no longer achieve any sort of "flow", I'm constantly waiting for it to catch up, and playback is jerky too much of the time. I have cleared out all cache files I can find as I know these can clog things up.

I feel PD has become bloatware with all the bells and whistles that have been added over the few years I have known it. And when I critically look at it - most are unused. Yes, PD18 has lots more tweaks and features (and some are very nice additions) but to render (no pun intended) the software almost unuseable is a sad development.

Someone once said on this forum, have a serious look at some professional videos and you will be surprised if you see anything more fancy than cuts and fades, yet PD18 has an enormous collection of transitions which most professionals will never use. Content is way more valuable than fancy features that serve only to distract from the content.

I like PD and have used it successfully for many years in a non commercial environment, but my continued use of PD is now seriously in doubt, not by choice but by sheer lack of useability. Which is a shame.

I am not so much seeking a solution to these issues, as I am sure there are things that could be updated (at cost), but just recording my disappointment that PD18 has reached this disappoiinting position.

For the moment though - there are some interesting alternatives available, that quite impressively provide the useability I desire on my existing hardware.

I will probably keep PD18 installed for the smaller pieces I do, but I have little appetite to struggle, when I don't have to.

I understand the points you're making. I was a television director for 16 years, having been a technical director for 7 years before that, and content was always more important than the bells and whistles. I went from editing with 2 inch videotape, to 1 inch video tape, to digi beta, to Avid, and video fx were not often a significant part of the editing process. For a domestic product, Power Director is very impressive, but in my opinion there are better options out there if you are a professional videographer/Editor.

Interesting that this is also noticed by other users ... I bought a NEW PD 18 Ultimate 2 months ago (I switched from Magix Video Delux because there were often freezes) and was negatively surprised that the preview in HD was so bad jerked when you move the marker in the timeline to position yourself in the video.
I was told that the PD always accesses the original file stored on the hard drive and that if the data rate were not high enough, it would just stutter.
Then I bought an M.2 NVRAM PCIe SSD and only use it for the Windows swap files, TEMP files and all VIDEO files. In fact, I noticed a significant acceleration! However, there were still very strong stutters up to complete dropouts with some videos being edited (e.g. video speed changed) ...
I then continued to update to PD 365 - because of the additional packages and access to music, etc. - all of a sudden the processing is much smoother! I was told that this could be because there were various "interim updates" for PD 365 that are not available for the Ultimate Version ...
NOW (with PD365) working is fun - I mostly work with 4K60fps files - but also mixed (rarely but up to a total of 7 video tracks) with 4k30FPS, 2k7 60FPS, FullHD 50FPS.
Often there are "only" 2 video tracks in 4k60 which are played synchronously. Liebe Grüße / Regards
Oliver

Quote Interesting that this is also noticed by other users ... I bought a NEW PD 18 Ultimate 2 months ago (I switched from Magix Video Delux because there were often freezes) and was negatively surprised that the preview in HD was so bad jerked when you move the marker in the timeline to position yourself in the video.
I was told that the PD always accesses the original file stored on the hard drive and that if the data rate were not high enough, it would just stutter.
Then I bought an M.2 NVRAM PCIe SSD and only use it for the Windows swap files, TEMP files and all VIDEO files. In fact, I noticed a significant acceleration! However, there were still very strong stutters up to complete dropouts with some videos being edited (e.g. video speed changed) ...
I then continued to update to PD 365 - because of the additional packages and access to music, etc. - all of a sudden the processing is much smoother! I was told that this could be because there were various "interim updates" for PD 365 that are not available for the Ultimate Version ...
NOW (with PD365) working is fun - I mostly work with 4K60fps files - but also mixed (rarely but up to a total of 7 video tracks) with 4k30FPS, 2k7 60FPS, FullHD 50FPS.
Often there are "only" 2 video tracks in 4k60 which are played synchronously.

I've been around for a few years - some say I'm a bit cynical at times - but why do I think CL have sort of left PD18 in the slow lane while they focus most of their energies on promoting and developing 365 as the trendy way forward?? I cannot recall just how many times I have seen "Exclusive to 365"!!!

I used to rent my TV in the old days - great should the device prove unlreliable (which many did) - but nowdays the way forward is to own and I still firmly believe this to be the case. At least if I fell on hard times I can still continue to watch TV, live rent free, and use software to my hearts content whatever my financial position. Maybe for business use renting is more attractive, but my business days are long gone.

As I said earlier I will keep PD18 installed, and watch for any useful "interim updates" CL may care to release, but for now I am trialing what looks to be a far better (maybe less well endowed with fancy bells) video editor that provides a very fluid interface, is free (for non-commercial work), and well established.

A "rental model" is always more lucrative for the landlord because there is continuous income and the price is regularly adjusted ...
As for the video editor - are you talking about DaVinci? Unfortunately, I have a problem with my graphics card and constantly presents GPU errors. Liebe Grüße / Regards
Oliver

Quote A "rental model" is always more lucrative for the landlord because there is continuous income and the price is regularly adjusted ...
As for the video editor - are you talking about DaVinci? Unfortunately, I have a problem with my graphics card and constantly presents GPU errors.

Yes I totally agree with you, ever seen a poor landlord?

Funny you should mention DaVinci, I tried Resolve a couple of years ago and was especially impressed by the smooth dragging on the timeline, something Movavi (my first NLE) and PD were never succesful at.

My trial of Davinci Resolve never progressed too well as I began to find many features that did not work as expected. Chatting on their forum quickly identified why, its written for Windows 10!! My trial ceased at that point as I run Windows 7. Maybe your GPU errors (I assume thrown up when running Davinci?) may be for the same reason, if you are not running W10?

My current trial is with NCH VideoPad. Its smooth, does nearly everything I need, and free. It misses a few PD favs like colour matching, video in reverse is very slow, and of course its not PD so a learning curve has to be overcome, but hey, it works smoothly which makes for a very pleasant workflow. I don't mind many processes (like rendering and chache file building) taking longer, as these are not workflow regulars, and I just go off and do something else while these infrequent functions compute.

Sadly PD18 does not provide a smooth workflow at all. I could upgrade hardware and software on my PC and this would no doubt improve workability as others have said, but video processing is juist a hobby, and at this moment in time its looks as though I can achieve a pleasant workflow by means other than spending money and time.

Hello! I am currently using the latest version of Windows 10. All of my drivers are up-to-date and are constantly being updated.
The error in DaVinci is known in principle ... apparently there is no solution for some graphics cards.
Thanks for the name of your editor software, I'll have a look too. Liebe Grüße / Regards
Oliver

Hi Guys,

Just a reminder that the forum is hosted by CyberLink, so let's not allow the focus of the topic to become about competitors' software and merits etc. and thus fall foul of any guidelines.

PM's are useful if more info is required about anything discussed, rather than a wider discussion of specific competing software.

Thanks,
PowerDirector Moderator

For customer support related issues, please contact:
- Customer service: https://membership.cyberlink.com/support/customer-services.do
- Technical support: https://membership.cyberlink.com/support/service/technical-support.do

Quote Hi Guys,

Just a reminder that the forum is hosted by CyberLink, so let's not allow the focus of the topic to become about competitors' software and merits etc. and thus fall foul of any guidelines.

PM's are useful if more info is required about anything discussed, rather than a wider discussion of specific competing software.

Thanks,
PowerDirector Moderator

Point taken.

The discussion has mentioned others, but there seems no point in further words, other than by PM if even necessary.

Your post not entirely unexpected, but hey, we all know there's competitors in almost every field.

Enough said.

You don't have to mention third-party software (funny that this is okay as long as you talk badly about it ...) if there weren't any problems with PD
But so that Cyberlink is reassured - I also tried the software mentioned right away and will not use it, since 4K cannot be used at all (loads forever and then cannot be played).
I continue to use PD 365 - so far the best SW at a reasonable price for me (although there is still plenty of room for improvement). Liebe Grüße / Regards
Oliver

Thank you.
PoweDirector Moderator

For customer support related issues, please contact:
- Customer service: https://membership.cyberlink.com/support/customer-services.do
- Technical support: https://membership.cyberlink.com/support/service/technical-support.do

I too recently installed PD18 ult - but I came from using a competitor on win7. Now I'm using w10.
I don't find PD18 slow, but I'm not using 4K files either. I have used a number of FHD clips with proxy set.

And editing 4K files - even with a fast cpu (clockrate over 3ghz) lots of RAM and an SSD for the OS - will seem slow, maybe jerky, if you are editing FHD files, let alone 4K.

To overcome this you need to enable the usage of "shadow files" (aka proxy files in both PD and other editors) in the settings general tab. Choose the resolution you wnat for th shadow to be created: list box, choice of 3. I have mine set for 720x480 - not quite SD (720x576) in a PAL system, but the only option near that. What setting this means is that

• a shadow or proxy file is created for every clip imported to the timeline with a resolution higher than the threshold you set. So, an FHD (1920x1080) clip would be proxied in my settings. So would a 4k clip.


• it takes a little while for the proxy to be created, but when it is you'll seer a small green film icon in the bottom left of the clip in the media library.


• at that point any editing is done with the proxy file, and because it's a lower resolution, PD responds a lot faster


• when you decide it's done and want to produce it, the edits you have applied to the proxy file are applied to the original FHD'4k clip in processing.

Why do this? see the attached power point slide which shows the degree of resolution required for various formats (SD/DVD, FHD, 4K) per frame and consider that the processor has to compute this sort of resolution 50 times a second for PAL and 60 per second for NTSC in every clip (each frame shown twice) and you'll see that the cpu can easily be very slow producing any result. What proxy does is avoid that sort of delay until you really want a final result, and the production time is no longer an issue; start it going and get a coffee while it does it's thing.

All of that is the problem!
A CPU with 12 cores and 3.3 GHz, 16GB Ram, and an M.2 NVRAM PCIe SSD with 1TB, only for video editing (system also on an SSD) and despite everything it is necessary to have shadow files created in a LOW resolution so that the preview and editing doesn't become a test of patience ...
I hope that with the next update there will be a significant improvement! Liebe Grüße / Regards
Oliver

Despite having multiple cpu cores available in hardware for years, using them to improve performance is not something many software vendors have done.
The gamers certainly have. But more mundane programs? Many users are amazed that the vendors have generally NOT done it.
As an example, it took mozilla a special effort to apply multi-threading using cpu cores (variable across a processor range for both Intel and AmD and on which the software may run) to the firefox browser. But when it was finally released, a speed improvement of x2 was claimed; it certainly felt faster.

The editor I 'left' hadn't done that; and there were similar comments about performance in it's user forum. I've not seen anything which says that Cyberlink has applied those multiple cores and threads to improving the response of power director. So spending big on multiple cores in the cpu for a PC isn't necessarily a good investment if your main interest is video editing; souped up hardware matters little if the software doesn't use it. A bit like a race car with a ploddy driver.

Better ways to improve performance are to reduce system lags in the things you can control - assuming you are serious enough to spend money on it by using:

• an SSD for the C drive where the most used item lives: the OS; when I changed my C to an SSD, the PC security scan time halved.


• a really fast clock speed for the cpu (mostly applies to desktops - laptops seem still stuck around 2.4ghz whereas I've seen speeds well over 4Ghz for a desktop motherboard (and that probably reflects a heat issue - fast cpu's need good cooling design)


• lots of RAM (16gb or more)


• a reduction in data access latency by putting the video data on a physiaclly separate drive: HDD is good, SSD is much better. those 4-5ms access times build up when you are doing a huge number of them, as for example, during rendering. See also example cited for the C drive above. Again, most effective in a desktop. The option of a separate drive really isn't available in laptops, and trying this with external drives runs into the limits of the interface: usb3 doesn't fix it, usb-C might, but you still need a drive which matches that.

As already written - I have all of that. PD also uses all cores when rendering.
The problem is the preview! Since PD always reads directly from the hard disk, its speed is decisive. My data including all PD files are all on the PCIe SSD (there is nothing faster! RW continuously ~ 1.4GB / s - a normal SSD can only manage 500MB ...). Nevertheless, it is necessary to work with shadow files in low resolution so that the preview works smoothly .... You could also "pre-render" for this, which increases the processing time quite a bit and I therefore only use it very rarely.
The render (producing the finished video) works very quickly in PD! A 15 minute video in 4k60fps with 4 4k source videos, various effects, changing the video speed, 4 sound tracks takes about 1.5 hours.
A similar video with an almost identical starting situation takes almost 9 hours in Magix Video Delux! But the preview is more smooth ...
PD can use the HW acceleration of the graphics card - Magix (although indicated) unfortunately not.
It is interesting, however, that PD18Ultimate jerks more (or better just jerks - it is difficult to work properly with it) when previewing - especially when moving the timeline marker to position yourself in the video - PD365 runs much more smoothly with the same settings!
Since PD365 allegedly received various intermediate updates that PD18Ulitmate did not receive, I very much hope that the problem will be resolved with the 19 version at the latest.
Although, I have now updated from 18Ultimate to 365 anyway - so I no longer have the problem anyway