PowerDirector 3
From CyberLink
By Terry Currier

First off I don’t claim to know a lot about editing video. I myself have just started learning and doing these things. Maybe that is the point I want to make. I don’t know many who can open up a video editing program (sight unseen) and instantly figure out how to use it. Magazines, or other rating are done by people who do it professionally. So this review is for the non-professional.

If you’ve never worked with video before I should point out a few things. When you start out don’t be intimidated by it -   it does take time to learn. I think there is nothing wrong with starting out simple with something like Pinnacle Studio, CyberLink’s PowerProducer, or PowerDirector. A low price product which is not so high end with features as to frustrate a new user.

One of the first things you need to know before doing video editing is it takes a lot of disk space. When I say a lot I meant about 20-30Gb of free space. And, that is just for one hour’s worth of work. Once you then get into the project it needs another 10-20Gb for the processing of the video. My import of 1.5 hour was saved into AVI format and took up 25Gb.

Another thing to know is that while the DVDs you buy will say “record up to two hours” on it, you can really only do one. For best quality (DVD quality) video the products will only fit one hour on them.

With PowerDirector there were some things I was disappointed in. While I could view   video from my VCR through the Dazzle unit I brought, it would not capture it. Pressing the record button merely brought up a dialog box saying an error has occurred and could not be recorded. So to get it in I used the Pinnacle Studio (version 8.10) to capture the video, and then import it into PowerDirector. They do say that you can capture from TV, PC cameras (web cams), TV tuners, or other video capture card. Their PowerProducer product has the ability to capture from a VCR, but they left it out of PowerDirector.

You can import AVI, or MPEG files. You can also record directly to a DVD disc if you want. One of the best things for PowerDirector 3.0 is it’s the speed for importing video from the camera. It scans the video and brings it in at 6 times normal speed. After capturing video you can have it detect scenes with-in. Once in you are able to preview the video at speeds up to 16 times normal. I imported some video of my daughter’s high school drill team and band. Believe me after listening to the same marching song many times I was using that fast forward a lot.

You can capture to MPEG-1, MPEG-2, or AVI format. Remember AVI being the best it takes up a lot of space. When you have the video in you can add in effects such as blur or ripple. There are 24 different effects for you to work with. For scene transitions there are 122 different and clever effects from Blizzard to X-Ray. All of these are very easy to put in with simple drag and drop wherever you want them.

The interface of PowerDirector is easy to figure out. Bring the video into the library. You can bring in several videos and pictures for whatever project you work on. Then just drag and drop the video or pictures at the points you want them. The workspace is divided up so well that most will be able to figure out how to do things.

You can work with the video in either StoryBoard mode or TimeLine mode. StoryBoard mode being if you have a number of scenes or videos making it easy to view them and follow the story. I found both easy to work with. In the voice area you can add a voice background, or over others. For example you could add a voice narration of video when editing. You can actually add multiple audio tracks of music and audio into the background. The most fun part (for me) was putting in a PiP (Picture in Picture). The editor can just put in video from anything else in a small window of the video. I took a video of the band and drill team practicing for a parade. I then took the video of the actual parade march and put that in the PiP.

That is all well and good, but what if you think (such as I did at first) “I’m in the trim section so this is what I want to trim out.” After all there is a Delete button there. I clicked on the Delete button, and the video section I was working on was deleted from the workspace, oops. I’m sure people who have been doing video editing for a while are saying “what was he thinking”. Foolish me for thinking the Delete button is there to delete just the selection I don’t want. The mark in and mark out can only be used to show that section of the video and can not be used more then once per video. I figured out to split out the sections I did not want, and get rid of them by using the Delete KEY. I will say it was easy to edit at a precise spot since I could move the slider to the time, or put in the time on the trim pull out, and then move it frame by frame to the exact spot needed.

Okay you’ve edit the video, put in effects and titles where you want them, now what? Well you produce the video. This gathers the video, photos, audio, and effects and compiles them. They have a Production Wizard that opens giving you the choice to

Produce a Disc: produce a movie and letting you burn to DVD, VCD, SVCD, or MiniDVD disc.
Create a File: produce a DV-AVI, Windows-AVI, MPEG-1, or MPEG-2 file to watch on your computer.
Create a Streaming File: produce a  Windows Media Video, RealVideo, or QuickTime you can then stream over the Internet.
Write Back to DV Tape: write the movie production back to DV tape.

PowerDirector has what they call SVRT (Smart Video Rendering Technology). It   reduces the time needed for rendering video by rendering only the portions of the video that are edited, instead of the whole length. The bad news for me was the SVRT box was always grayed out for me so I could not use it. The good news was it was still much, much faster to render the video then my Pinnacle Studio was. I did find out that it is not available if you have any effects in the video. Than why do they offer it? 

By the way when you start this it creates a file (MPEG) which if you don’t notice on the left side of the screen is named default.mpg. It really should ask you what you want to name it, but it doesn’t, which means when you go to the next step you could be scratching your head trying to figure out which file you want.

You can have the program divide it up equally into 8 chapters, have it search for scene changes, or do it manually. I, and I sure most would want look through the videos themselves to set the chapters. I actually enjoyed going through it and selecting the different chapter points. That done you go back to the preview menu. Here was another weak point. I spent a lot of time looking through the video and finding key points that I felt would make good chapters points. When done it took me back to the preview area. There on the screen instead of the eight chapters I divided it into was only the first scene on a button. I went through the process of telling it I wanted eight buttons and what they were to look like, but still it only showed one button in the center. When I clicked on the button it changed to the next chapter scene on the button. Double-clicking on that would make it start at that point. Okay, but not ideal nd certainly not what I told it to do. It drove me nuts, I even gave up and burned a couple of disc with just that. Then I thought about clicking on the list of chapters in the Title Menu area. Lo and behold the other buttons appeared. Even the book did not tell me to do that. If you want, in the customize menu module you can add in a first play. First play is the 20 second introduction part of the disc. Usually where the movie companies put their copyright notice, which can not be fast forward through. It can be something as simple as a picture or short video.    

When done you are ready for the burn. In the Final Output you burn it to the disc. If you want you can have it include an PowerDVD Auto-player on the disc. This is a great DVD viewing programs. You also have the choice of saving as a disc image, or create a DVD folder on your hard drive.

PowerDirector 3 video editing is about $80. Despite some weaknesses it’s a very good program for beginners to intermediate users.
Company Info: CyberLink USA, 510-668-0118, www.gocyberlink.com

From our April 2004 newsletter

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