PowerDirector 3 is the best video editing application available!
Written: Dec 23 '04 (Updated Dec 24 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Easy to use yet powerful video editing application
Cons: No full screen viewing option while capturing video
The Bottom Line: CyberLink's PowerDirector 3 makes movie/DVD production easy!
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| ivplay's Full Review: CyberLink PowerDirector 3 Full Version Volume Lice... |
PowerDirector 3 by CyberLink is a robust digital video application that will assist the user in capturing, editing, producing and burning media files. The software is intuitive and easy to use yet remains powerful enough to fulfill your video editing/movie producing needs. I have used other video capture and editing applications in the past but have never been satisfied with the results as the applications were either too convoluted and buggy or the resulting files were useless due to audio/video syncing problems. After these experiences with other applications, I was excited to receive a review copy of CyberLink's PowerDirector 3. I am happy to report that this is now my preferred choice for video editing/producing software.
Why PowerDirector 3?
I built my own Home Theater Personal Computer earlier this year that functions as a DVD/CD player, Television, Personal Video Recorder and all-around home computer. Through the course of using this PC we have saved multiple television shows that the boys like to watch such as Dora the Explorer, Little Bear and Recess. As we take trips across the state to visit Grandparents, it would be nice to watch some of these shows on our DVD player in the car, and with PowerDirector 3 it is possible. I can edit the files we have already collected (to eliminate commercials) and burn them to a DVD-R with menus and chapters for our viewing enjoyment.
Other ways in which I have used this program is to capture video and audio from our webcam to a file that can be edited and produced for emailing or streaming across the net. Capturing Digital Video from a camcorder is a snap, and this data can be edited, produced and burned or simply burned right to a DVD with no in-between steps! Capturing from a TV Tuner card is no problem and the edit, produce and burn features allow you to do whatever you want with the file. The possible uses for PowerDirector 3 are vast!
Installation/System Requirements
CyberLink's PowerDirector 3 is available as a boxed, retail set or a downloadable executable for $69.95 at the CyberLink website, www.goCyberLink.com. If you are unsure of whether or not you would like to buy the program right away, there is an option to download a 30-day limited trial. You will not receive the authoring program EZ-Producer and any DV you capture will be limited to a five-minute show. Additionally support for Divx and Quicktime is left out, so your options will be to produce either an MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 file only. However, this will allow you to see the lion's share of the functionality prior to jumping in with both feet and $69.95 of your hard-earned cash. While installing the full product you will be required to enter a 16-character alphanumeric code to ensure proper purchase of the software package and then you are ready to run.
As with most video editing/rendering applications, the minimum hardware requirements are not going to break the bank. However, if you want to use the product to its full ability, you will probably want a better system than the one detailed out in the minimum requirements. For this software application, CyberLink has assembled a sliding scale for hardware requirements, and I would suggest sticking near the higher end of this scale as detailed below.
System Requirements
● Scaled from a low of P2-450MHz for working with AVI up to a 2GHz P4 recommended for capturing/producing MPEG-2 files
● Optimized for CPU's with SSE, SSE2, 3DNow! and Hyperthreading technology (No SSE3 instructions for Prescotts yet)
● 128 MB RAM (256 MB RAM and higher recommended)
● 1GB to 15GB free hard drive space depending on size of projects
● High Color display adapter at 1024 x 768 resolution (required)
● CD/DVD Burner - for creating CDs and DVDs
● Windows 98 SE, ME, 2000, XP
Feature Set/Use of PowerDirector 3
In my opinion, PowerDirector 3 is the most feature-filled, easiest to use video capture/editing software available as of this writing in December of 2004. I will walk you through the four main functions of the program below and relay my experiences with each.
Before getting to that, however, it is worth discussing the interface for CyberLink's PowerDirector 3. The interface is a clean, efficient use of space that opens to the edit function and has the typical band of expanding menus along the top with the four main tabs directly below this, Capture, Edit, Produce and Burn. From these four tabs the user can choose which function they would like to perform on the current project. In the default edit screen, the media library is directly below the selection tabs on the left side of the screen with the media preview window to the right. Below these panes are the video-editing timeline or storyboard complete with areas for effects, Picture-in-Picture, audio voiceover, title effects and music.
Capture
PowerDirector 3 installed in a snap on my HTPC and I was ready to start editing my videos. Initially I did not utilize the capture function, as I had already captured several video files ranging from AVI to DIVX to MPEG-1 and -2 formats via my ATI 9600 All-In-Wonder card and TV Tuner. I wanted to edit and re-encode these files to eliminate commercials and shorten the length and file size. Once I had worked through this backlog, however, I clicked on the Capture.
The program interface changes to allow for capturing video or audio. As the screen changes, PowerDirector 3 performs a hardware detection process during which time it will find any video or audio sources such as DV cameras connected via either USB or Firewire, TV tuner cards, media files on CD or DVD, webcams and microphones. My HTPC has a Logitech Quick Cam webcam set up through a USB 2.0 connection with both video and audio via a built-in microphone. The 9600 AIW card has a built-in TV tuner and I borrowed a friend's JVC DV camera. In all cases, PowerDirector was able to detect the hardware and set it up for easy capture by simply clicking a button. You can switch back and forth between sources quickly and easily with the touch of a radio button.
Before you capture your first video/audio clip you should setup a capture profile, telling PowerDirector 3 what format to capture the content in. For my uses I have captured in raw AVI format. After editing and producing I have only encoded once and therefore do not lose much quality through the process.
The capture process is intuitive and easy. You can set the maximum capture size by either file size (MB) or time in hours, minutes and seconds. If I am using the TV capture I will set it via time which allows me to do other things while the program captures, or even go to bed. Otherwise I have not set a limit, but rather manually started and stopped the capture via the button selectors. The interface visually portrays the amount of free space left on the partition to which you are saving your capture as well as estimated time available for capture profile, real-time recorded file size and dropped frames. Overall the capture process is very easy to complete.
My only complaint about the capture process is very minor. I utilize my TV tuner card to capture shows that we would like to watch later, but the media pane cannot be expanded to full screen. For this reason, if I am watching what I am recording I will use the ATI Multimedia Center software instead, as I can view fullscreen and capture at the same time. For shows that I am not watching at the time of recording, however, I use PowerDirector 3.
Edit
The editing function of PowerDirector 3 is robust in functionality yet easy to use. I have used this to piece together several small video clips of our family from the DV camera and the webcam to create email files to send to friends and relatives. The edit function can 'detect scenes' within a clip with a sliding scale sensitivity, and I use this frequently to find and eliminate commercials from previously viewed television shows. For the DV video, you can eliminate short scenes from your home videos that you don't want to include in the final production. Title scenes are a breeze, and the program allows Picture in Picture, music tracks (capturable from CD via PowerDirector) over the video as well as voiceover tracks via microphone. There are several built-in effects that the user can use; more effects than I have the desire to write about. A few of my favorites are the ripple effect, emboss effect and the swing effect. If you have seen an effect on a production video, chances are it is available for your use with PowerDirector 3.
The user can set transitions within PowerDirector 3, and mixing audio is simple. Open up the audio mixer and you can turn down the volume of the video, fade into the audio track and then add in a voice over. Want to fade out to a transition black screen and then fade into the next scene? No problem! Make sure to preview your movie complete with effects and sound in the preview pane prior to moving on.
Produce
Once you have perfected your movie in the edit screen you are ready to click on the Produce tab. This will bring up a separate window which will offer four tasks, Produce a disc, Create a file, Create a Streaming file, and Write back to DV tape. I have personally only used produce a disc and create a file. Produce a disc allows the user to create a VCD, DVD or SVCD while Create a file has options for AVI, DIVX and MPEG file formats in varying quality settings. Create a Streaming file allows the user to create a Realplayer or Quicktime file for streaming across the internet, and Writing back to DV tape is fairly self explanatory.
When using the Produce a disc option, it essentially created a file and allowed me to open directly into EZ Producer. Creating a file is the option I use most frequently to create files for storage on my hard drive or for burning at a later date. The encoding process is pretty quick on my system with a 40 minute file (1 hour TV show minus commercials) taking 42-49 minutes in most cases. Compared to other programs I have used in the past, this is lightning fast, mostly due to SVRT II, which is explained below. The quality is excellent with the effects added in editing coming through and a perfect sync of audio and video.
SVRT II
CyberLink's website explains SVRT:
New SVRT 2 (Smart Video Rendering Technology 2) is a patent-pending technology developed by CyberLink. Using SVRT allows users to produce movies faster (by 10 to 20 times normal speed), as well as preserve video quality of the original source files. This incredible feat is accomplished by only rendering the portions of the videos which have been modified. Unmodified portions of video are not reprocessed, thus saving production time and preserving the original video quality.
If this is the difference in rendering times and quality of the rendering, I am sold. The files are produced much faster and with less loss of quality, in my experience...
Burn
Selecting the Burn tab will minimize the PowerDirector window and open a new window which houses EZ Producer, the DVD authoring tool that comes with PowerDirector. EZ Producer walks the user through the process of creating a DVD which include importing media files, creating menu screens, setting chapters within the files and burning the disk. EZ Producer has a handy bar along the bottom of the project that visually shows you how much disk space you have used and how much is left to go. I have personally created five discs (DVD-R's) with this program and my Plextor PX-712A drive.
The burning process will take a while, as CyberLink recommends that you write the disk at 1X speed to ensure that errors are minimized, and none of the five I have created have contained any. The discs have played in our higher end DVD drives at the house, both DVD burners in our computers and the cheaper DVD drive we installed in the van. The CyberLink website states that if your DVD player has a DVD Video sticker on it, it will play the discs created with PowerDirector 3, and from my experiences this is true.
Tech Support
I have found the user manual to be extremely well written and thorough when it comes to explaining the product. Personally I have required no additional support for PowerDirector 3, although more is available at the website.
http://www.goCyberLink.com/english/cs/support/new_site/support_index.jsp
At the above address you will find a FAQ which should answer any other questions that arise. Email support is available for free and generally will result in a one day wait for your answer, or if you need immediate assistance there is a voice support number. The voice support is sold as a two-month package for $29.99 and is available Monday through Friday from 9 AM to 6 PM CST. It is only open to North American customers, as well.
Overall
CyberLink's PowerDirector 3 has been a godsend for our family, as we are finally able to edit our TV and DV captures, add effects and transitions and finally produce and burn to disc. PowerDirector 3 is the most complete video editing software application to date, and I recommend it to you without reservation.
Recommended:
Yes
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