Is PD8 worth upgrading from PD7?

Alextzi

Newbie Joined: Mar 11, 2009 15:17 Messages: 47 Offline

Solved by

Dec 21, 2009 14:58

I have had PD7 now since March, and have gone through the growing pains of the patches, fixes, etc.

I still get PD7 to crash often (guaranteed to crash during a produce of HD content where I have used slideshow effects/transitions at 1080i, sometimes I can mitigate by going 720p, or ultimately ugh 480i), and I take the individual files it makes during produce, and hobble together a movie that I then render in Nero 9 to get my final AVCHD.

Anyway, Since PD8 upgrade is on sale 25% off, I have been waiting to see if it is worth doing. I am very disappointed in Cyberlink, instead of fixing usability, they add features.

I like the features of PD, but it is too unstable. In fact if you google PD 8, and look at reviews and comments (even in the PC Magazine review that CL advertises on their splash page), you see the comments of how unstable it is.

Given the current state of build 2220c, can any owners comment on the program's stability and quality compared to or is any better than PD7.

My system is an i7 920, 12 GB ram, running vista 64 Ultimate.
I have ffdshow, do a regular defragment, reinstall, registry clean blah blah blah all the crud that they say you should do (which you shouldnt need to do with a commercially available program), but still have these crashing issues.

When will it ever stop.

The other good? news is that other programs such as Sony Vegas, or Pinnacle studio have some similar issues with crashes.

I also have Nero 9, which is super stable (never had it crash on me), but is slow as molasses (no GPU acceleration), and its editing tools suck (but it has a superb AVCHD renderer).

It sure would be nice to even know when a new release of PD would come out.

And I would hate to buy PD8 and things get worse than they are now with PD7. Can anyone comment?

with Windows 7 and multicore processors becoming very mainstream, the winner will be the first to have superior quality on a multicore machine running a 64 bit application with decent features.

Sorry for the long winded post, its too bad no one has ever heard of regression testing in this consumer application space.

Alex

BarryTheCrab

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

Dec 21, 2009 18:17

I have found 8 to be far more stable than 7.
This on a C2D 1.6/1.6 w/ no dedicated graphics.
Few freezes, fewer crashes.
I must admit I am upgrading my hardware, and it is of some concern to me.
On the whole, for me, 8 is a big improvement in stability and features. 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

All vodi

Senior Contributor Location: Canada Joined: Aug 21, 2009 11:24 Messages: 1431 Offline

Dec 21, 2009 22:19

The answer is yes if you care to wait it out until the next formal release. I am one of several users that have identified specific rendering problems with PD8. I am informed that the major issues will be addressed in the near future in a new release. There are ways to improve PD8 to run considerably smoother on fast i7-Win7 machines - the clues can be found on other forums. I am using one of them and the improvement is considerable - it is actually a joy using PD8 with the right system tweaks - crashes have become rare. Hang around and let's see if the Cyber techs can make a go of it. Win 10, i7

CubbyHouseFilms

Senior Contributor Location: Melbourne, Australia Joined: Jul 14, 2009 04:23 Messages: 2208 Offline

Dec 21, 2009 23:34

Hi Alex

PD8 is far more stable than PD7. Not sure about your specific computer config. though.

I've been using PD since PD3.5 (which was a free software disk with my old JVC Everio camera!)

I have since purchased:

PD5 (crashed/froze all the time);

PD6 (very stable);

PD7 because of new HD video camera (crashed/froze a few times);

PD8 and have processed about 150 projects (some quite complex) and PD8 has 'crashed' twice!

What is really good about PD8 is it can auto recover the last project you were working on. Which means if there is a 'crash' you don't have to start all over again.

Summary: If your an amateur/semi pro videographer BUY IT!!

For the price, it is a 'big bang for ya bucks'. Happing editing

Best Regards

Neil
CubbyHouseFilms
My Youtube Channel
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Robert2 S

Senior Contributor Location: Australia Joined: Apr 22, 2009 05:57 Messages: 1461 Offline

Dec 22, 2009 01:12

Hi Alex,

I have a similar computer to yours as in an i7 920 cpu but less ram at only 3gig and running Vista 32bit. I believe 64 bit systems are a bit more stable than 32 bit systems due to being able to use more than 2gig of ram per program. Although I still do not know why PD8 wants to use more than 2 gig of ram to render a 45 meg video of mine.

PD7 I could not get to work properly with 1080 video, 720 was mostly OK but seeing as all my videos were 1080 that didn't help much.

I now have PD8 and I can now work with 1080 video......IF.....

1. I throttle my i7 cpu down to 2 cores instead of the default 8 cores.

2. Do not use CUDA if I want progressive video. If I use CUDA even if I choose progressive it produces interlaced video which youtube cannot handle without screwing up the audio.

3. Finally if my project is not too complicated and I follow steps 1 & 2 it is mostly fine.

I am really hanging out for the next patch to fix the problems.

Cheers

Robert

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Dec 22. 2009 01:16

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James W

Senior Contributor Location: Lakeland, FL USA Joined: Aug 18, 2008 10:36 Messages: 911 Offline

Dec 22, 2009 08:01

In my opinion it all depends on how much you actually use it. If you use is it daily or weekly then I would say go for it. If you don't use it often then I would wait until PD9. I have a Core2Quad and it works great on my system. It rarely ever crashes and I'm happy with the MPEG4 rendering with version 2220c. However, I have a Canon HG20 HD camera and SVRT does not work with my 24 Mb/s AVCHD video. I haven't tried it at 17 Mb/s yet. Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

Alextzi

Newbie Joined: Mar 11, 2009 15:17 Messages: 47 Offline

Dec 22, 2009 09:44

Thanks for the responses so far...

I would love to hear more from folks who use multi core pcs and do AVCHD rendering...

One other question:

Can I take a .pds file that was generated with PD7 and open it/edit it/produce it with PD8??

Thanks to all....

Alex

James W

Senior Contributor Location: Lakeland, FL USA Joined: Aug 18, 2008 10:36 Messages: 911 Offline

Dec 22, 2009 09:55

Yes, the pds files from version 7 are compatible with version 8. Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

AVCHD

Newbie Joined: Dec 20, 2009 12:03 Messages: 4 Offline

Dec 22, 2009 10:17

I have just starting my trial with PD8. I am only on the trial software for testing AVCHD Video. Here is so far what I have found. I will be posting my problem and maybe there is a fix.
I purchased a i7 PC with Nvida GTX 260 system so I can take advange of GPU encoding for speed. Well so far things are not going well. During a production run the encoding slows down to a crawl. Works OK up to 8% point. Never did complete even after 4 hours so I canceled. Started the process then the program stoped responding at the 8% point. I then re-started the PC. Next time it Stoped responding when I imported the video into the time line. Tried again same response. Next I did a system restore of my PC. Re-installed the trial software. All is working again, but it now Stops again at the 8% point. I next tested with GPU Encoding off. This worked to 100%. Seems the GPU encoding options doesn't work. This is why I would purcahse PD8. Ok it may be a problem with the source file so I went back to the other GPU enabled applications to test the source file. All the other applications work ok with the file. Next I install PD8 on my second older PC only a Dual Core PC with a Nvida 8600GT card. Now I have a different problem. GPU encoding vs CPU encoding is slower. Hangs / stops responding at the 12% point.

I hope there is a fix. Doesn't look good for PD8 during my trial.

I have sent a request to tech support but no response for the past 2 days.
Is support usually this slow ?

Well its Christmas soon. I hope there is a fix. I will have more projects coming soom. Hope this helps. My experience so far is very very disappointing. PD8 is a thumbs down for me so far.

James W

Senior Contributor Location: Lakeland, FL USA Joined: Aug 18, 2008 10:36 Messages: 911 Offline

Dec 22, 2009 10:34

I've used CUDA with my 9500GT and I've never had an issue. AVCHD, do you have the same problem with a different clip? I assume you have the latest drivers installed.

Alex, you may want to get the trial version and test it on your system to see what you think first hand. Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

AVCHD

Newbie Joined: Dec 20, 2009 12:03 Messages: 4 Offline

Dec 23, 2009 09:00

James:
My Nvida Drivers are the lastest on both PC's. So here is the next part of the story.
So I disabled the GPU encoding. Now producing is very slow, but it completed the same process 100%. Same response on both PC's. Seems there are some major bugs in the 1 feature I need is speed. PD8 without GPU encoding makes it no better than what I am currently using. Actually I find PD8 slower than the other apps I am using.
Other small clips did work with GPU encoding but I noticed another problem. The output file is interlaced and not progressive output. BUt good news is with GPU disabled the output is now progressive. Still no response from support. Also I noticed not many solutions can be found in this forum for crashes / hangs. Also searching google I didn't find much either, only alot of people with similar problems.
Well I think my trial is almost done I dont have much time to fix / report / debug this program for cyberlink. This is a 3x big thumbs down for me so far. I could understand a PC problem , but it happens on both PC's.
Thanks... any other suggestions ?

James W

Senior Contributor Location: Lakeland, FL USA Joined: Aug 18, 2008 10:36 Messages: 911 Offline

Dec 23, 2009 09:18

If I remember correctly from other posts your not alone in getting interlaced video using CUDA. I remember rendering a project about a year ago and noticed the same thing. I haven't done much with it since. I normally just turn on deinterlacing with my video player and it goes away. I realize I'm just covering up the real problem.

As for support I would not wait for Cyberlink. They have a history of providing canned responses which may not have anything to do with your actual problem. I've found that you'll get better help on this forum.

I've found that PD is a easy to use and affordable video editing program which offers a lot of features and has a lot of potential. However, you have to willing to accept some of the quirks that crop up. Others have reported that competing software isn't any better, is harder to use, and is often more expensive.

Good luck in whatever you choose to do. Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

AVCHD

Newbie Joined: Dec 20, 2009 12:03 Messages: 4 Offline

Dec 24, 2009 10:38

Yeah I saw those posts Thanks..... They were hard to find ?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Dec 24. 2009 10:39