PowerDirector v6: The latest in a long line of quality video editing programs from CyberLink
Written: Jun 04 '07 (Updated Jun 05 '07)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Intuitive software, easy to use, near professional quality
Cons: Still some minor limitations for DVD creation, still excellent for home use
The Bottom Line: For the price, you can't get a better package of editing and production software from any company. This program does everything from capture and import to editing and production.
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| Gr8ful's Full Review: CyberLink PowerDirector 6 |
I have been using PowerDirector since version 4 and each new version is a little better than the last. Many of the key features are the same but enhancements to the software, including the introduction of new available technologies, are ongoing in each revision. The latest release is no let down and follows suit bringing the latest available technology for home video editing to the masses. Instead of rehashing the features of PowerDirector, I will relate the new features and additions for version 6. You can read about the previous versions 4 and 5 at the following links; version 6 includes all the same features with enhancements that I will share and additions that I will also address.
PowerDirector 4
PowerDirector 5
PowerDirector 6
Unlike many new programs, PowerDirector 6 does not come over bloated with a lot of extra junk you don’t need or built-in trial ware. It comes on a single CD and does not require much disk space for the software itself, although it does require at least 10GB of free space for DVD production. PowerDirector 6 is a video editing and DVD authoring tool and a powerful one for home users. It will allow the home user to create movies and author DVDs that are very close to professional grade (assuming the video/photo content is close to professional grade) at a reasonable cost to the consumer. It not only gives the average home user the ability to make their own home movies into production DVDs but it makes it very easy to do so with very intuitive software.
PowerDirector 6 Advancements and Improvements
1) All New DVD Template Designer
The DVD menu styles have 29 options for adding color, motion menus, text and other menu components to dynamic backgrounds for videos and slideshows. The DVD menu creation has been stepped up to give the user more control over the look and function of the DVD menu. Previously with version 5, you could only choose from the provided themes and changes in the designs were limited. Version 6 allows you to change anything and even add free-form menu buttons. Text on the menu can now also be moved anywhere on the menu and you can add text anywhere as well.
Note: You will want to make use of the TV preview button when designing DVD menus so that the text and buttons on your menu are visible on a regular TV screen when you burn the project to DVD.
2) All New Slide Show Wizard
PowerDirector 6 sports a new slide show wizard to make creating photo slideshows fast and easy. The newest style is the all-cell slide show, which features a layout of photos arranged with a featured image in the main focus and secondary images bordering the main image to the side. Other styles Normal (standard portrait or landscape displays), Scrapbook (displayed as if in a photo album), Collage (overlapping photos arranged creatively) and Motion (photos are automatically transformed from one to the next with several stunning panning, scanning and zooming effects).
3) Animated PiP Designer
PowerDirector 6 has a new Picture-in-Picture designer for displaying a photo, video segment, or other object inside the main video. You can then set the degree of transparency, range and track of motion for PiP effects and you can position the PiP frame anywhere on the screen. Alpha-blended effects are supported in both the title and PiP tracks. You can select from a list of designer PiP objects to insert in your video. The PiP can be set to follow a preset path across the screen or adjusted manually for full control.
4) Video Subtitle Room
This is a new feature that allows the use to import .SRT and .TXT files to use as subtitles in your video. Subtitles can be added on the timeline display for precision placement and previewed and edited before finalizing the project. With this tool you can create professional looking subtitles that can be coded into your DVD project and can be turned on or off by the DVD player’s menu.
5) Magic Movie Wizard
This is basically a beginner’s tool used to create a movie with just a few simple steps. It is very easy to use and makes video editing extremely user friendly for beginners. You simply select a movie theme from a range of options and then select videos and photos on your computer to add to the creation. The Magic Movie Wizard then makes the movie with included transitions and effects based on the content of your videos and photos, and based on the theme you select.
6) Enhanced and Improved Magic Tools
Each version of PowerDirector has included Magic Tools to help make the video creation process as easy as can be for beginners. These tools also come in handy for advanced editors for fixing things like shaky video and blurry photos as well as balancing white calibration and correcting backlight issues. These tools include improved versions of Magic Style, Magic Fix, and Magic Clean as well as enhanced versions of Magic Motion, Magic Music and Magic Cut. For details on the function of these features please refer to my previous reviews on PowerDirector 4 and PowerDirector 5.
New in PowerDirector 6 is the White Calibration feature of Magic Clean which can restore vivid colors to otherwise washed-out or faded video and photos. This is done by selecting an area of the original video or photo that is supposed to be pure white and Magic Clean shows the original frame next to the corrected frame so you can see the calibration and the difference. The effect is astonishing as it clearly makes a marked difference in the quality of poorly lit video and photos.
7) Dialogue Balloons
New in PowerDirector 6 are dialogue balloons that can be added for special moments or funny scenes. There are several styles of dialogue balloons available and each can hold several lines of text. The text can be any font available on your computer and you can modify text with outlines and shadows as well as other effects. This is great for home videos when you want to add some comic statement to a funny scene.
8) PiP audio
PowerDirector 6 allows you to include audio in the PiP (Picture-in-Picture) video. Previously the PiP did not include audio, but now you have more control over the video creation process by using the audio from the PiP window along with or instead of the main video audio. This opens a lot of doors for creativity for fading scenes with transitions and blending the audio from the PiP with the main video. I for one am glad to see this improvement and it gives me reason to play with the PiP more than previously.
9) More output options
PowerDirector 6 enables publishing of video and slideshows to portable players like PSPs and iPods. It also supports uploading to YouTube and give you 25GB of free space on MediaMax for sharing your video projects online. The process from production to web publishing is seamless and PowerDirector helps you get it from start to finish without having to leave the program to upload your videos.
10) Improved HD Support
PowerDirector 6 allows you to write HD content back to tape. You can connect your HDV camcorder to a TV or projector and display edited HD content. You can also now capture video in 720p and 1080i MPEG-2 formats. Another new HD feature is “HDV Shadow Editing”. This feature creates low-res frames in the background to speed up the editing process. The finished video will still be HD but the editing process is much faster using this feature.
Personal Use
I have created several videos for my band (all of which are still in beta) and I am genuinely impressed by the software. The rendering time seems to be a bit faster than the previous version, especially during transitions and special effects processing. I do not have any HD devices yet so I have not had a chance to play with the HD features but when I am ready for HD, I already have the software I need to edit my videos.
Importing files is fast and the software adds them to the project automatically. Many of my video segments are very large and previously it took a while to import several video segments, but this time seems to be shorter with PowerDirector 6 as well. I especially like the addition of PiP audio because I can fade from one song in the video into another using the PiP and fade effect to cross over from one video to another without any glitch in the audio.
I use Adobe Encore 1.5 to create my DVD menus and layouts because it is about as professional grade as you can get for menu creation and DVD content layout. However, it does not support HD content and I may switch to using PowerDirector for this full time when I do switch to HD format. The DVD menu and content layout is not quite as professional as Adobe but with the addition of HD support, it is probably the best to work with HD as of right now. For home users wanting HD support, this is definitely the easiest and most complete HD package available at a reasonable price and it is geared toward home users with ease of use in mind. The full version sells for $89.99 and the upgrade version sells for $59.99.
I also like the titles and credits I can create with PowerDirector; the end result is very professional looking. I have even recorded a couple plays at our local playhouse (The Appomattox Court House Community Theatre) for the director and made DVDs for the cast; I got many compliments on the DVD layout and quality of the video. I haven’t used YouTube yet but I am planning on uploading some of our videos soon and when I do I will post the URL here for anyone interested in seeing what I do with this software.
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Supported File Formats
INPUT
* Video input: (Capture) DV-AVI, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, HD MPEG-2
* File import: DV-AVI, DAT, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, HD MPEG-2, VOB, VRO, WMV, MOV, and DivX
* Audio: MP3, WAV, WMA and CD audio
* Image: JPEG, TIFF, BMP and GIF
OUTPUT
*Video output: DV-AVI, Windows AVI, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, HD MPEG-2, WMV, WMV-HD, MOV, RM, DivX, DVD/SVCD/VCD/MPEG video and MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) for iPod and PSP and high definition H.264
* Web content: Direct uploading to YouTube.com, Upload video to MediaMax powered by Streamload
* Sharing: Pack project feature allows projects to be output to other PCs
* Disc burning: DC-R/RW, DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW
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System Requirements
*Operating System: Windows Vista/XP/2000 (Windows XP service pack 2 required for HDV capture)
* Screen resolution: Minimum 1024 x 768 16-bit color
* Memory: 512MB required (1GB or more recommended – 2GB recommended for HD content in Windows Vista)
* Hard drive space: 10GB required for DVD production (15GB recommended)
* CPU: PowerDirector 6 is optimized for processors with MMX/SSE/SSE2/3DNow!/3DNow! Extension/HyperThreading Technology/Core 2 Duo
(Basically it is optimized for all current Pentium, Celeron, Athlon and Sempron processors – personally I recommend either the Athlon 3400+ or Pentium 560 or better)
- AVI Capture/Producer: Pentium II 450MHz/AMD Athlon 500MHz
- VCD Quality (MPEG-1 Profiles): Pentium III 600MHz/AMD Athlon 700MHz
- DVD Quality (MPEG-2 Profiles): Pentium 4 2.2GHz/AMD Athlon XP 2200+
- High Quality MPEG-4 and Streaming WMV, QuickTime, RealVideo, and DivX Profiles: Pentium 4 2.4GHz/AMD Athlon XP 2400+
- MPEG-4 AVC and MPEG-2 HD Profiles: Pentium 4 3.0GHz with HT/AMD Athlon 64 recommended
* Optical drive: CD or DVD burner required to burn VCD/SVCD/DVD titles
Video capture device support
* PCI or USB 1.1/2.0 capture device compliant with WDM standard
* DV camcorder connected via OHCI-compliant IEEE1394 (FireWire)
* DVD camcorder connected via USB 2.0
* Sony MicroMV camcorder
* JVC Everio camcorder
* Sony HDR-FX1/HDR-HC1/HDR-HC3 (HDV)
* JVC GR-HD1U (HDV)
Conclusion
CyberLink has taken one of their best programs and made it better. I have been using PowerDirector since version 4 and it is the first program I go to for video editing. I do incorporate several programs in my video projects but the one I use the most is PowerDirector. I use it for capturing, adding transitions and effects (I use effects very sparingly) and I use it to create videos for our web site because it does a great job creating streaming video files for use on the web.
For the price, you can not get a better package of editing and production software from any company. This program does everything from capture and import to editing and production. If you read this review and still have questions, please refer to my previous reviews of PowerDirector 4 and PowerDirector 5 for details on the function of the software. If you still have questions feel free to email me (address is on my profile page) or leave a comment and I will be happy to address your concerns.
Oh, and to reiterate again from the system requirements, this sofwtare is 100% Windows Vista compatible.
Thanks for reading,
Gr8ful ;-)
Recommended:
Yes
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