I had the same problem and seem to have cured it by trial and error after all the suggestions on this page failed to work. for me. When you click the "Create Disk" icon, click preferences icon in bottom left and change audio type from dolby digital (default) to MPEG. Not being techie, I assume that the default is for HD ready camcorders and the others for standard digital ones. I have also e-mailed cyberlink with my problem and will wait to see if they recommemd the same thing as I have done. If I am wrong, let me know!

*COMES running, breathless out of turbulent ocean and stumbles happily onto the shore of camcorderinfo*

I thought I was the ONLY one with these problems!!! Thank god, I was ready to take a baseball bat to my computer, thinking it was just me! All of the above: PDR Has an error, Dummy Mixer, projects not opening, ALL have happened to me. Also tech support was no help either. Its such a great program, why havent they been able to stabilize it? Ive been with them since V 3.0.

I agree. My story is similar to everybody else's except I can't get a refund because I bought the software online through Herman St.

Originally I trialled Pinnacle, Ulead and Adobe before deciding that PD5 was the most intuitive and quicker than the other 3. Now after many crashes and loss of data even though I have the the fastest, biggest processor necessary with heaps of RAM, I'm just about ready to throw a brick at the computer. I've been forced to save every few minutes under a different name just to be sure that at least one of the projects will open. It seems to me that PiP and some of the more complicated transitions are to blame but I'm not sure which. I downloaded the patch today but now it's worse - I can't open projects which I opened before. Is there any way I can unistall the patch?

Tech support is useless with their stock answer to everything. They were not even able to answer my question about changing the duration of menu background music and just suggested that the software needed to be installed again! What rubbish. I worked it out in the end and in case anybody wants to know, this is how to do it:
* In "Create disc" mode
* Click on Preference icon at bottom left of screen.
* Select the "Menu" tab
* Change "User-defined motion menu duration" to whatever you want, eg 40 seconds (default is 10 secs). This alters the duration of the background music played while the menu page is screened. Very simple when you know how! I just wish the Help section had included some reference to this procedure........... would have saved me much time and money.

Here below the reply from Cyberlink's support (but I have yet to find time to test it). The new patch given makes the "multi trim" to hang very often and the only solution now is to kill the PDR.exe and restart it!.

=========FROM SUPPORT=============
vcmitesh Reply 2006/03/06 15:22
Dear Zakhir,

Thank you for contacting Cyberlink Online Customer Support.

In regard to your issue, we would suggest you to uninstall and reinstall the PowerDirector 5.0 in following ways:

Uninstall PowerDirector software:

a.) Start--> Programs -->Cyberlink PowerDirector --> Uninstall PowerDirector
b.) Start --> Run --> type "regedit" --> click "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE" --> click
"Software" --> click "Cyberlink" -->Delete "Cyberlink" this folder
c.) Start --> Run --> type "regedit"--> click "Hkey_Current_user" --> click
"Software" --> click "Cyberlink" -->Delete "Cyberlink" this folder.
d.) Delete C:\Programs Files\Cyberlink
And reboot your PC.

Reinstall PowerDirector.

Now download and install the below mentioned patch for PowerDirector 5.0:

dl_patch_302_4_ENU.html

Now below is the attached AM1229.Zip file. please extract the attached 'Am1229.zip'. This zip file contains two dll, "PDAuthorGVD.dll" and "PDAuthorBAT.dll". Please copy these two files to C:\Programs\Cyberlink\PowerDirector and replace the original files.

Now, try to burn a DVD.

Please feel free to contact us back for any further clarification in this issue or for any assistance related to Cyberlink Products.

Thank you and best regards

Attachment : AM1229.zip (227917)
=======END FROM SUPPORT============

Regards,
Zakhir Ali

Zakhir- did it work? If so, please feel free to send me those patches. I had a realllly good projct going, now it wont open...

Hi,

Yes finnaly I got it working by closing all the unused applications including the virus detection software(McAfee), spy remover(Adware) & the cookie blocker(ofcourse disconnect your pc from network since you have to stop the antivirus application) whenever I start working with Cyberlink Power Director 5.

Regards,
Zakhir Ali Majeed.

I too purchased PD5 based on my success with the trial version and a write-up showing it as the best software on the market! The problem I'm having is when I try to load an MPEG 2 file the program crashes! Has anyone else experienced this? I've loaded the program on two different machines and the same thing happened. I have an inquiry into Cyberlink support and hope they can help. However, I've always had more luck with resolving issues in forums. Any suggestions will greatly be appreciated.

CB3

Somebody in Cyberlink should be shot for using old DLLs. I saw 2 old DLLs in the program directory, comctl32.dll and msvcp60.dll. Try copying these 2 dlls from your Windows (system32) directory and paste them into the PowerDirector directory. After I pasted these 2 DLLs, the program could at least load nicely for me. Don't know about crashes at other places.

Hope this advice helps.

My experience with PowerDirector 5 has been much the same as what others on this forum have stated; e.g., buggy, buggy, buggy; crash, crash, crash! I purchased PD5 nearly a year ago, on Oct 5, 2005, and wrestled with trying to get it to perform as advertised. Over time (some 4, or 5 months), I came to the conclusion that the underlying causes of PD5 problems were as follows: 1. SmartSound conflicts with other software (Pinnacle Studio) using SmartSound; 2. shared file conflicts with other, onboard video editing programs; and 3. NTSC frame-rate implimented in PD (30 fps) vs. the actual 29.97 fps rate of NTSC video.

Having come to the conclusion that "something's got to give ...", I decided to remove PD5 from my computer, rather than to discard any of the other video editing programs that I rely upon, i.e. Pinnacle Studio, Magix MovieEdit Pro 11, Canopus Let's Edit2. For the past 7 or 8 months, PD5 remained on the shelf.

About a month ago, I purchased a Notebook computer. I then bought an EVERIO HDD Camcorder (JVC GZ-MG77U) and noticed that a watered-down version of PD5 was included with this MPEG-2-based camcorder. While looking around for other MPEG-2 video editing solutions, it occurred to me, "Why not install my Retail version of PD5 on the Notebook ... and see what happens?"

Keep in mind that I had no other video editing software installed on the Notebook. Installation of PD5 retail version ensued without a glitch. I then crossed my fingers and imported about 15 minutes of MOD file footage from the EVERIO HDD Camcorder. The import went fine. I then commenced to assemble a project from the MOD-file import, and .... that too, went fine!

After 3 hours of splitting, cutting, text-titling, transitioning, adding an overlay here and there, dropping music content on the timeline, etc., the project was completed--- just fine! To make a long story short, I made use of just about every PD5 function in the final project. I then hit "Produce", and observed the rather quick rendering of my project, to MPEG-2 output.

No crashes; the MPEG-2 output file is beautiful! The Dolby digital audio contained in the MPEG-2 file is superb! Effects included in the edited project display smoothly.

PD5 is back from the dead, and surviving just fine ... on my Notebook, Windows Media Center computer.

Conclusion: PD5 Retail is about as good as it gets, when installed in a world of its own! Well, ... I can go one step further with this statement and say that I've since installed MAGIX MovieEdit PRO 11 on the same Notebook computer, and both video editing programs appear to be co-existing ... just fine!

VM

I have read the messages here and have tried all of the cyberlink standard email replies. Since then I have had my computer rebuilt from ground zero - and added 300MB hard drive. This is what I sent to cyberlink and the latest reply is that I will get an answer in the next patch! Has anyone else had the same problem of powerdirector just hanging when burning to DVD or a folder?

I. I have tried everything you have
suggested in all 3 answers that I have
received from you and certain files
still will not burn to the DVD folder.

II. My system has 1GB of RAM and my
working hard drive for videos is 300 GB.
I have an AMD Althon XP 2500.

III. When trying to burn to DVD folder
in PowerDirector 5.0, I am using
projects that were only created using
PowerDirector 5.0.

IV. I am not capturing my video files
directly from my camera. I have the JVC
Everio GZ-MG20U camera which I download
my videos to a folder on my hard drive
and then in PowerDirector 5.0 I am
doing File-->Import-->Media Files.

V. I have tried burning to DVD folder
the following scenarios...
(1)JVC Everio .mod files that DID burn
to DVD folder successfully
i. 1 .mod file of 212MB.
ii. 1 .mod file of 711MB.
iii. 1 .mod file of 1820MB.
iv. 2 .mod files of 424MB.
v. 4 .mod files of 525MB
(2)JVC Everio .mod files that DID NOT
burn to DVD folder.
i. 2 .mod files of 611MB - Just stops at
88% and sits there
ii. 5 .mod files of 681MB. - Just stops
at 73% and sits there
iii. A collection of .mod files of
4000MB - Just stops at 13% and sits there.
(3).wmv files that DID burn to DVD
folder successfully
i. 1 .wmv file of 711MB
ii. 2 .wmv files of 1423MB
(4).mpg files that DID burn to DVD
folder successfully
i. 1 .mpg file of 1792MB
ii. 3 .mpg files of 710MB

VI. I am seeing a pattern here for the
JVC .mod files. I can burn any single
file of any size to the DVD folder, and
I can burn more than one .mod file of
which the total size is less than 600MB
to the DVD folder, but I CANNOT burn to
the DVD folder 2 or more .mod files of
which the total size is greater than
600MB. Please let me know if this
information can help you or if I need to
do something else.

Just as a side note - I do have an
earlier version of PowerDirector that
has worked just fine. It just doesn't
have all of the whistles and bells that
version 5.0 has. I am not trying to
load projects from the earlier version
into version 5.0 either.

Thank you!

This was my reply from them...

Thank you for contacting Cyberlink Online Support.

Regarding your issue we are looking into the matter and will comment soon.

However, please let us know if the files, which you are unable to burn, are specific files or any file. I mean have you tried different combinations ofdifferent files and still could not burn two file together.

Your feedback will help us analyse the situation in a better light.

PS: Please try to burn sets of new files as well.

And this is how I answered...

I have tried combining .mod files, .wmv
files, and .mpg files. The software is
only failing on the combined .mod files.

I have also tried combining different
.mod files of new sets and they fail as
well.

1) Yes I have done different
combinations of different .mod files.

2) I just did another test with a
grouping of more than 2 .mod files of
which the total size is 554MB and it
burned to DVD folder.

3) However another test of another
grouping of more than 2 .mod files with
a total size of 586MB stopped at 87% and
just sits there.

4)So somewhere between 554MB and 586MB
of 2 or more .mod files trying to be
burned to the DVD folder is failing for
whatever reason.

5)Please understand that the program is
only failing on .mod files of 2 or more
with a combined total size of more than
554MB.

5) Please let me know if I can be of any
further assistance.

After not hearing from them for a couple of weeks I asked if anything had been found and this is the last reply I have from them...

Thank you for contacting Cyberlink Online Support.

We apologize for the inconvenience you faced due to the software.

The issue is now with the Research deapartment and we expect this concern to be addressed in the next build of Power Director software. We will provide you with the update as soon as we release the new update patch. Please bear with us for the time being.