Hi Wayne,

It appears that you computer is more than ample. If it were me and I was having your problems I would create smaller sections of your project (maybe cut it down to 30 minute sections) and produce them to a High Quality Video file. Then join these in a Final Production of your project. Just a thought.

Regarding saving your project...Power Director, by default, will save your project every 10 minutes into the Auto Save Folder. I have attached a picture showing where you can change the settings, to either increase or decrease the time intervals. But I agree with what you are doing...Saving Often is a good video editing practice!

Someone else will probably chime in to add information and possible solutions to your problems. The technical aspects of hardware is not my expertise....

Kevin
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Well said Cap'n!

Producing in more manageable chunks often resolves such issues, though - I agree - a PC with that sort of grunt shouldn't be crashing & losing files.

Wayne -

It's been said a kazillion times before, but make sure you do a complete uninstall of PD & PhotoNow, before reinstalling any new version. Best to start with a thoroughly clean slate.

Cheers - Tony
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I agree with all the above. I would not even consider working with such a large file. You are asking for trouble regardless of your computer specifications. Do as was suggested and work in small pieces. Maybe you can make each piece a separate chapter. I would render each piece in the desired format and combine them all together at the end.

I would also defragment your hard disk often during this project. Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

I work with that large of file all the time. I think what PD appears to not like is managing many HD files, many crashes and very slow if you do this. I run my playlist of multiple mts files from the camera through a different utility that sews them all together into one large file. I always edit that large file in PD, I've done up to about 45GB in a single file.

Jeff

Jeff, thanks for the information. Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

Quote: My Computer: i7 920, ATI 5850 GPU and 6 gig of ram. Windows 7.

My Project: A HUGE HD movie of Kayaking the Colorodo Though the Grand Canyon.

HOW HUGE: Perhaps 1000 video clips and expected length of 3-4 hrs.
VIDEO FILES: AVCHD (.MTS)

So the PC should not be a problem with power. As I increase the number of clips to the library and pull them into the timeline it seems to be getting more unstable. By unstable I mean that I have adjusted the length of the clip, postition of clips and caused crashes where everything shuts down AND I LOSE MY PDS file. So saving often has turned into save often and dont run on a PDS file that isn't backed up. So each 5-10 minutes I do a save as project 1.0 and immediately "save as" project 1.01. This saves my progress but I've lost some good work even still.

So now I'm thinking about creating 17 movies for each day of the 17 days of our trip


Am I missing something? I am downloading a new PD8 2508 build now (but I don't have much hope for this particular issue.

I've also been in the title room and just had it crash too.

Hi,

Is it your first video project? - Just a question (no need for answer), as your posting reminds me strongly of MY first video project (though it was PDv5 at THAT time....)
And just these days/weeks/months I'm again working through a video project comparable to yours - about 1000 single clips stretched over a 18-day-journey.
My solution(s) for ME is(are) the following:
- Create as many small PDS projects as possible/feasible!
I have one PDS for the video trailer (or titles), one containing journey preparations and one PDS for each day of the trip.
Though the problems with PD8 haven't brought me beyond day 5 of our journey yet, I could finish a 1-hour-'part 1' DVD just yesterday (Our trip had 3 distinct destinations, each taking about 5 days).
Each daily-PDS is not longer than 13 minutes (yet!).
- When using 'special effects' - such as PiP, image stabilizing, speed adjustments or else from the "Power Tools" or "Improvement" section, I meanwhile prefer to put these scenes into a separate PDS. So - for example - I put all the scenes I want to have in a PiP sequence into a single PDS script, produce a MPG or M2TS file from it, and insert the MPG or M2TS file into my main video sequence.
This keeps the projects 'simple'.
- To prevent loss of PDS information I've activated "auto-save" at 3 minutes interval - didn't save me a byte up to today. The safer method is to save manually REGULARLY - most important at that moments, when you think - "oh, I'll do THAT quickly just before saving!" - save BEFORE!!!!
- Before burning your film to DVD - make MPG or MT2S files from each of your PDSs! combine these compilations into a video track which you afterwards may burn to disk.
- Other 'tricks' to improve the stability of PD8 I've just posted in the thread called "PD8 build 2508 and Canon 24 mb/s AVCHD" in this forum (see post #12 in that thread).

Much luck - and: keep it up! Finally you'll succeed!
;o)
Michael.

Hi Wayne,

People, please be aware that AVCHD is memory greedy and your system will hit overload very quickly.

I do the following when I notice PD is becoming sluggish in responding (watch out for black cursor with arrows pointing in both horizontal directions), I save my project,
I close down PD.
I reopen PD and continue editing.

This appears to clear the temporary use of RAM and works fine.

I'll chat to you Wayne when you're on Skype later today.

Dafydd

I agree with all the above; great post from 'Cap'n Kevin' So true

I had the same problem, I first used PD7 to produce a 1hr 14mins video

in one go; I noticed after 17 mins PD7 became slow; you have to remember when you are video editing, you are knocking hell out of your computer, its doing so much.

I resolved this by implementing the strategy that Cap'n Kevin used and MikeSierra - Their advise is golden, so listen to what they have suggested. as it WORKS

I have now since PD7 upgraded to PD8 and now have a spanking new PC for Video (sept09) editing and graphics. It is too a

Intel i7 920, G-force 260 and 6 gig of ram. Windows 7 (impresive the way forward) I have overclocked the i7 and is stable.

I have newly added a solid state drive with read 220 and write 110 MB/sec
To speed up the system; and system caching, I do like the results

I also edit in small chunks and stitch together; works just fine!!! for me

Just need to get past some of PD8 bugs and things will be dandy..

Dafydd Bevan; yeah I agree this memory flushing is a bit of an issue; and does cause problems at times. I think a third party util might solve this!!

Have I just given myself a bit of homework?

Hi Michael,

Thanks for your supportive words, it's greatly appreciated!! Ok, so now that you have posted the specs of your new computer, I have developed a serious case of computer envy..."I need to go an upgrade my system!!"

Glad that it is working super for you!

Kevin
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