Announcement: Our new CyberLink Feedback Forum has arrived! Please transfer to our new forum to provide your feedback or to start a new discussion. The content on this CyberLink Community forum is now read only, but will continue to be available as a user resource. Thanks!
CyberLink Community Forum
where the experts meet
| Advanced Search >
POWER DIRECTOR 12 - Great For Editing Limited Options For Menu Creation
JohnDLUK
Newbie Location: Isle of Wight Joined: Sep 18, 2013 21:12 Messages: 2 Offline
[Post New]
Recently upgraded to Power Director 12, and must say for general editing of videos cannot fault the programme. The new multi-cam is a great feature, and can sync sound from multiple clips to boot. I've found it best not to overload this feature with too many clips and to keep the time of the clips down. i.e. If you're computer can't cope with half an hour or so of main footage plus added clips, try a smaller time cut of main footage.

However the Menu Creator function as far as I can see, lets the overall program down. Compared to the freeware DVD Styler there are numerous basic functions that I have not found a way of doing. I'm putting this out to forum to see if anyone has any workarounds to the following.

1. The only menu options appear to be Main, Scenes, & Subtitles (if used). There are other desirable sub menus, such as 'Special Features', 'Gallery' etc. commonly seen in commercial disks. Is there any way that Power Director can do these?

2. Is their any way of doing text only links? Thumbnails are all very well, but if overused can make the production look amateurish. Most commercial disks use simple Text Links to scenes, extra features etc.

3. Leading on from the above point, there appears little options available for thumbnails. Such as selecting start and finish of the clip. The default appears to be the beginning of the clip, in some cases this may be just the first clips title credits - not normally what you want on a thumbnail.

4. The Menu structure appears to be inflexible and linked to the number of buttons available on the template, and sub menu pages follows from there. A 3 button menu template means that for 13 titles you have five sub pages. The first four will have three thumbnail links, and the last page only one. Is their anyway of controlling this behaviour.

Some of the above may be 'old chesnuts', but it is disappointing to see what looks to me the same Menu limitations on Power Director 12 as its previous versions. Would welcome any advice and workarounds on resolving the above.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Oct 07. 2013 13:27

John D Henry
James1
Senior Contributor Location: Surrey, B.C., Canada Joined: Jun 10, 2010 16:20 Messages: 1783 Offline
[Post New]
Hi,
I have to agree with you in some aspects that the programmers didn't address any new features in Menu Designer. The Menu Designer may be limited by the DVD standard for Mpeg-2. that being said you can have up to 14 chapter per page (this was changed), but you have to be careful when you implement these as if they get Overlapped you get error message.
Jim Intel i7-2600@3.4Gz Geforce 560ti-1GB Graphic accelerator, windows 7 Premium 12GB memory

Visit GranPapa64's channel for your YouTube experience of the day!
Carl312
Senior Contributor Location: Texas, USA Joined: Mar 16, 2010 20:11 Messages: 9090 Offline
[Post New]
JohnDLUK welcome to the forum.

Your observations are spot on, the Create Disk module in Powerdirector has changed very little since Powerdirector 7.

It is the weakest area of Powerdirector.

If you go to Director Zone, you can find many templates for Powerdirector that other users have created. Some even appear to have no thumbnails. However all Menus in Powerdirector has thumbnails, whether seen or not.

http://directorzone.cyberlink.com/

This is a menu with no Motion buttons
http://directorzone.cyberlink.com/detail/131974176

Tony has a menu with 14 items. Works in PD11 and PD12.
http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/30177.page#165361

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at Oct 07. 2013 17:22

Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

Russell1967
Senior Member Location: Kissimmee, Fl USA Joined: Aug 10, 2013 23:35 Messages: 165 Offline
[Post New]
The best stand-alone DVD creator that I have personally seen and used is Sony's DVD Architect Studio (You can find version 5 on Amazon for about $40US). I got mine as part of "Imagination Studio", which also included Vegas Platinum (not Pro), Acid Music Studio, Sound Forge and over 1000 sound loops and sfx.

Anyway, I use PD12 for creating the actual videos, and then DVD Architect to create the DVD/Blu-Ray. There is a "Pro" version of this also, but it costs about $100 and I can't honestly imagine a scenario where I would need more functionality. I believe you can download a demo of Architect Studio to see if it meets your needs. It can do just about anything you need it to do.

I guess burning DVDs/Blu-Rays is PD's secondary purpose, so they've not spent much time in that area, which is understandable. What *I'd* like to see, is even MORE functionality in the area of post production/compositing, so as to be more of a competitor to After Effects or at least HitFilm!

Russell System specs: Windows 7 Professional x64; Gigabyte Z77-DS3H motherboard with i5-3579K 3.8Ghz processor with 32GB RAM; Zotac GTX 760 w/4GB; 1xWestern Digital 1TB 10,000RPM HD; 1x Samsung 840 Pro SSD System Drive
BarryTheCrab
Senior Contributor Location: USA Joined: Nov 06, 2008 22:18 Messages: 6240 Offline
[Post New]
Russell1967,
I am not the "police" here, but touting competing software you'll run afoul of the Forum rules and the nasties will not take that kindly. I use PM's for such things. HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
Nvidia GTX 960(4GB)/16GB DDR3/
Canon Vixia HV30/HF-M40/HF-M41/HF-G20/Olympus E-PL5.
Tape capture using 6 VCR, TBC-1000, Elite BVP4+, Sony D8 camcorder with TBC.
https://www.facebook.com/BarryAFTT
Russell1967
Senior Member Location: Kissimmee, Fl USA Joined: Aug 10, 2013 23:35 Messages: 165 Offline
[Post New]
Oh, ok. Sorry 'bout that. That didn't even occur to me. That being said, though, I would actually like to see a more full-featured DVD/Blu-Ray authoring program available from Cyberlink, either built in to PowerDirector (perhaps as a bonus for Ultra and/or Ultimate versions) or as a stand alone program. Cyberlink is so great at creating easy-yet-powerful programs with well organized user interfaces, I would certainly buy such a program - at a MSRP of $39.95....

Russell System specs: Windows 7 Professional x64; Gigabyte Z77-DS3H motherboard with i5-3579K 3.8Ghz processor with 32GB RAM; Zotac GTX 760 w/4GB; 1xWestern Digital 1TB 10,000RPM HD; 1x Samsung 840 Pro SSD System Drive
JohnDLUK
Newbie Location: Isle of Wight Joined: Sep 18, 2013 21:12 Messages: 2 Offline
[Post New]
Thanks for the tips Carl3213 - certainly creations from users have done wonders within the constraints of PD Menu Creator. At least I have a solution for having item names without thumbnails, you just hide them!

Its the lack of flexibility as Russell1967 highlighted, two stock menus plus a subtitled one is not always enough, and the Main Menu feature in PD forces you into compromising original design thoughts. This is a shame as so far have found that PD video editing does whatever I want, the DVD creator is to my mind the opposite. Agree if Cyberlink offered a fully featured and flexible DVD/Blu-Ray authoring software at a reasonable price, I would rush out and buy it. As it stands PD offers a fully featured video editing suite, with a limited DVD/Blu-Ray menu creation facility. John D Henry
Carl312
Senior Contributor Location: Texas, USA Joined: Mar 16, 2010 20:11 Messages: 9090 Offline
[Post New]
Quote: As it stands PD offers a fully featured video editing suite, with a limited DVD/Blu-Ray menu creation facility.

Amen!

But, you cannot find a better video editor for the price anywhere else.


As Russell1967 pointed out, there is other Disk Creation software available.
Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

Powered by JForum 2.1.8 © JForum Team