Anyone using powerdirector 14?

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I was fed up with premiere crashing on my laptop so switched to powerdirector 14. I do like it, especially its color grading suite. I did notice one weird thing and was wondering if anyone has a workaround for it. Im working with 4k files and it seems no matter what output resolution I choose rendering times are more or less the same. A 2 minute clip renders to 1080p/24fps/16mbps at about 90 minutes. I have a new hp elite notebook, i5, 6gb ram, Intel 5500 graphics. When trying other, much lower resolutions - even 320x240 at 2mbps the rendering times are similar. Feels like the limiting factor is the rendering (color grading, sharpening) takes place at each 4k frame and only then saved to a lower resolution. With premiere this was not the case at all - same source 4k files, low resolution output rendered much much much quicker. Any suggestions?
 
I use PD14 Ultra. On my machine, it typically takes about twice as long as the video to convert a 4k clip, i.e. a 2:30 video will take about 5 minutes to produce but I don't use a lot of color corrections. But that's on an 8 core AMD desktop. How many cores on your i5? PD14 knows how to use all cores so the number of cores is the driving factor on speed.

Mike
 
I have an I5 desktop. It has 4 cores at 3.2ghz. I also use PD14. Rendering speed varies a lot on what one is doing.
Changing colors seems to take longest. To edit, add sound track and output to high bit rate mp4 takes about twice as long as the video length.

PD14 has been working well. Never a crash. Also I find it imports large files at a decent speed. I have tried other software and waiting for import to finish takes forever.
 
Do you guys shoot mov or mp4 files? I suspect the fault is with the conversion to mp4. Trackman - seems we have a similar setup. Double the movie length? For me it takes about 10x. What graphics card do you use?
 
Well I know what's going on now. Color director is the culprit. A 3min 1080p clip renders to high bit rate 1080p in just about 2 min. Same clip but with color, Clarity, contrast etc tweaked via color director rendered at about 75min. Same clip color tweaked via settings inside PD cut the rendering time to 30min. Interesting.
 
I was fed up with premiere crashing on my laptop so switched to powerdirector 14. Any suggestions?

Wow... That's slow! I run PD12 and it renders a 2min movie in maybe 3 minutes in AVC 4K 4096 x 2160p (50Mbps) and that's with a quad core
Asus laptop with 8gigs of ram. I bought this laptop because after running power director for so many years, buying a pc with 8gig's minimum gives you everything you need for maxing out the process. PD14 is no different, the more cores and more ram, the faster the processing goes. But... if you're also running Mcafee or one of the other really crappy over bearing antivirus programs that give you a choice on running in gaming mode, then try that first. On my last pc, which had a dual core/ 4gig's, I would shut off my wifi and av program before producing if I was in a hurry. Basically, some antivirus programs I refuse to use because they are known to bog systems until they can't even crawl... I run Kaspersky av now and everything renders in just a few minutes.
 
Wow... That's slow! I run PD12 and it renders a 2min movie in maybe 3 minutes in AVC 4K 4096 x 2160p (50Mbps) and that's with a quad core
Asus laptop with 8gigs of ram. I bought this laptop because after running power director for so many years, buying a pc with 8gig's minimum gives you everything you need for maxing out the process. PD14 is no different, the more cores and more ram, the faster the processing goes. But... if you're also running Mcafee or one of the other really crappy over bearing antivirus programs that give you a choice on running in gaming mode, then try that first. On my last pc, which had a dual core/ 4gig's, I would shut off my wifi and av program before producing if I was in a hurry. Basically, some antivirus programs I refuse to use because they are known to bog systems until they can't even crawl... I run Kaspersky av now and everything renders in just a few minutes.
Hey, see my last comment. Any experience rendering with heavy color director input?
 
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Well I know what's going on now. Color director is the culprit. A 3min 1080p clip renders to high bit rate 1080p in just about 2 min. Same clip but with color, Clarity, contrast etc tweaked via color director rendered at about 75min. Same clip color tweaked via settings inside PD cut the rendering time to 30min. Interesting.


What you say here sounds like mine. I have never timed it. If it is going to be fast I wait. But for long jobs I don't watch.
My video card is nothing special. But it is a dedicated card. Not on Mainboard and doesn't share ram.

I thought Cyberlink PD would be a joke. So I tried several of the other big names first but ended up with Cyberlink PD14.
 
Agree about PD. Been using premiere for some time now but don't see any reason to get back to it. Crashes every time I try to import a video with gpu decoding enabled. It's Intel guys, not some rare strange processor.
 
Hey, see my last comment. Any experience rendering with heavy color director input?
That makes a huge difference.

MP4 vs Mov make zero difference. The encoder is .h264.
 
With this thread in mind, what criteria should I look for when selecting a new computer. Don't care if it's desk top or Lap.
 
Yea I change colors, make 1000x slow mo's, dual screen's, 100x speed up's, and have been since PD5. Some options slow it more than others but the right pc maxes out the speeds. I buy my pc's for making movies with power director and I know that I need a quad with 8gig's minimum to retain the speeds on Power Director, but unlike the Premier people, I don't pay for it by the month. For what I do, the one time purchase lasts me a few years. PD12 was a $69 one time purchase and that makes way more sense then $19.99 a month... lol.
 
With this thread in mind, what criteria should I look for when selecting a new computer. Don't care if it's desk top or Lap.

Minimum - quad core/ 8gig's of ram. I spent $800 at Fry's on my new Laptops and I only buy Laptops because I can edit in Hotel's or in our trailer and run an HDMI cable to any tv. Then I use a wifi keyboard and mouse, so that I can use any tv as a large monitor.
 
Minimum - quad core/ 8gig's of ram. I spent $800 at Fry's on my new Laptops and I only buy Laptops because I can edit in Hotel's or in our trailer and run an HDMI cable to any tv. Then I use a wifi keyboard and mouse, so that I can use any tv as a large monitor.
Thanks Reed. So would the same computer in a desk top be cheaper?
 
Thanks Reed. So would the same computer in a desk top be cheaper?
I used to build my desktop's and max them out, but was a few years ago and I haven't even looked at desktops since. You could build a better pc for the same amount of money for sure, but I bought a 15" screen laptop that does it all, goes anywhere and runs on batteries when needed. Then at home I have a 55" Samsung and that's my main monitor. I've never owned a store bought desktop.
 
I've been thinking towards building my own. Sounds like fun. Get everything you want and no bloatware.
 
I've just started using a Lenovo Y50-70 for editing. It's i7, 16GB with Nvidia 860GTX. Premiere Pro runs really well. Just waiting for a SSD to go in it. They're pretty cheap now second hand. I think the i7 maxes out at 3.6MHz


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I'll just throw my 2 cents in. First, I've never done color correction so you may want to skip right by this post.

Yoga 3 with i7, 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSD. Only real draw back is the video card but don't think this is much of a draw back on rendering.

I mainly render for Youtube and have not rendered to file often enough to judge the difference. I find rendering a 4k video takes about twice as long (if not slightly longer) then a 1080 video. On a side note... it _seriously_ cranks up the fan as well. So rendering 4k is just a MF'er. I'd say a 3 minute video takes about 30 minutes to render. I just rendered a 1080p video that was 15 minutes and it took about 2 hours.

Okay... on a side not. The only real issue I have with PD14 is when changing the speed of a video. If I do this and then try to add other thinks like transitions things tend to get jabberwonky. Only other think is rendering 4k. It could very well be my laptop, as it does bog it down, but I find that PD sometimes stops (really just a delay) responding when I make major changes to the video as it takes a little while for it to crunch all of that data. While this could be because of my laptop, it's not a cheap laptop and I think it might partially be because PD is could be better optimized.

BTW - I think that was like 4 cents worth.
 
I am considering moving to pd from premiere anyone know if it can handle dual processors? Running a dual Xeon 8 core machine with 64 gb ram. Renders 4K in almost realtime ;)


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I am considering moving to pd from premiere anyone know if it can handle dual processors? Running a dual Xeon 8 core machine with 64 gb ram. Renders 4K in almost realtime ;)


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app
Not sure about dual processors but in general I've found PD to be a very good alternative to premiere. Definitely lighter on the system and with an excellent color grading suite, esp with your computing power.
 

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