Absolutely, Totally, Utterly , Completely had a gutfull of Powerdirector Crashing all the time

Phillvictor lamonde

Newbie Joined: Mar 05, 2019 06:07 Messages: 4 Offline

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Feb 28, 2021 01:21

Ever since PD 10 I have liked the editing and ease of use of Powerdirector. However I have not been a great fan of its instability, incosistency of operation and bugs that just keep carrying over from one upgrade to the next.

I currently have standalone PD 18 and it just constantly crashes 1/2 way through a project ( a 3 minute music clip) It is driving me absolutey insane. It will crash just a few seconds after trying any sort of operation in the timeline. It crashes 100% of the time when trying to save or save as the project it freezes at 60%. I have an AMD ryzen PC with an nvidea Geforce 270 graphics card. I have installed the latest patch, I have the latest video drivers. PD still crashes. It seems to be worse with some projects than others, but there is no ryhyme or reason as to why that is so. It can crash on a simple 1 track project or work fine on one with 30. It is so random and unpredictable.

Is there anyone who can help? This has been an ongoing issue for lots of PD users going back to the earlier versions and there does not seem to be any will or incentive for cyberlink to to anything about it apart from continually blaming the users and their systems. I can run Davinci Resolve perfectly in 4K on this PC yet Powerdirector struggles to preview a low blocky resolution video and loses the audio sync. I know what the apolgists are going to say.. You can't compare one program to another, but the point is DR is a true professional application that is on a par with Adobe, and it runs fine with a minimum of fuss apart from being extremely hard to learn. Powerdirector on the other hand is easy to use but is an absolute dog of a program that no professional in their right mind would use even though cyberlink market it as a pro application. Spending big $$ on a system to run a top level app is justified . Spending the same to try and make a mid level editor like cyberlink run without constantly faffing up is just wrong.

then theres all the other "features" that make PD such an efficient pleasure to use. Like the opacity handles that keep on disappearing on a timeline clip when you insert them. Having to play all the way to the end of a clip in the PIP editor after making a change to something like positioning because the left hand control panel has its commands grayed out and wont come back until the clip has been played.. Same with the crop and resize window. You can only make changes at the start of the clip. not anywhere else.

Now I'm trying to render 3 minutes of 4K video. after 1 hour and 45 min 25% is done and theres 5 hours 15 min to go... What the ? This is beyond a joke . We need to start a class action against cyberlink. Are there any lawyers here?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Feb 28. 2021 02:45

TDK1044

Member Joined: Apr 11, 2019 12:27 Messages: 130 Offline

Feb 28, 2021 08:35

The problem is within your environment, not with PD. I've owned 4 verions of PD, I currently own PD18 Ultimate, and I've yet to see a single crash of the software. I've produced dozens of videos with no issues. You should start by posting your full system specs, and also give people here a good sense of the kind of videos that you're trying to produce, including the codecs for the source clips that form your video. You may be using one or more files with a codec that's inconpatible with PD.

Davidk101

Senior Member Location: Brisbane Australia Joined: Jun 24, 2020 02:38 Messages: 172 Offline

Mar 01, 2021 01:55

An interesting topic . . and as one who fled a different editor for PD, because of that editors consistent crash/fails/malfunctions, let me tell you that my PD Ultimate so far hasn't broken after 9 months. I found and reported several issues or glitches, but there were perfectly working alternatives. No crash.

But the discourse here has focussed on codecs . . the video formats for analog were simple - 2 or 3 at most. Whereas for digital, there are literally hundreds: each one needs a codec. And codecs tend to be optimised by manufacturers for specific conditions. Camera makers choose to support those codecs that make their devices look good/sell well. My camcorder for example records in 2 common FHD formats. Not all codecs available are supported by an editor - indeed the range of codec support in various editors has similarities but none of them are exactly the same - whose scope necessarily is a lot larger/wider.

Things that crash an editor are not solely format related, however. The frame rate of the clip when recorded really has a lot to do with it. Particulalry clips that come from mobile phones - have lower frame rates when recording in a low light condition: what the device does is open the asperture up and slow the shutter speed/frame rate down so that more light is admitted to the store of a frame. And the result may be something that has a frame rate varying from say 15fps all the way up to 30fps. That degree of variance is common in clips from mobiles: some editors can handle them and a lot cannot.

So if you can isolate a problem to a specific video clip, eg, the clip at the particular percentage of the project where it fails, try running that clip thru a converter - something free like handbrake - to produce the clip in a format that is acceptable to PD - if in a PAL country, a frame rate of 25 or 50fps, in an NTSC country 29.97 or 2x that - say 30 and 60fps. Substitute that new clip into the project and see if the same error/crash repeats.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Mar 01. 2021 01:56