In PD8 we can vary the clarity of the preview presentation from the timeline. The quality of preview available is dependent upon the two factors.
1. Settings (if they can be modified)
2. Your PC's graphics card

Dafydd

Hi,
Thanks for the quick reply. The problem I'm having is that the video quality is dramatically reduced once put into the project. The origional raw file is excellent and HD, but once I put it into the project and then produce, it is dramatically less crisp. I have an excellent video card an ATI 5770 and that shouldn't matter anyways if in the raw file preview it's crisp but in the project preview it's dull. It's obviously the application doing something when taking the files and making a project out of them. The file types of mp4 or quicktime playable files so i can open them with quicktime(excellent quality) but not with windows media player. I want to be able to make a movie while still keeping the same quality. Something in powerdirector is changing the quality and I can't figure it out. Please help me,,

PD8 uses a low(er) resolution preview player to display the clips/movie as set up in the timeline to reduce the load and (where possible) give a smooth playback preview. The options are Low, Normal and High - set by small square after the fast forward button under the preview screen.

You will have a full (but not completely customisable) set of profiles available to produce your project to a file type and resolution/bitrate etc etc when you go to produce your project. Depending on your choices you should be able to reach nearly the same quality as the "raw" files produced by the camera.
Cheers
Adrian Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.

HI, If this is true, then the video when produced should be good quality right? Because I'm confused. I need to check what version of PowerDirector I have but I just bought it online february this year. Here is the link to the video clip. If you watch this vid in HD, it still is not the quality of the raw file. The raw file was so beautiful but this is just not even close
It was uploaded using the HD quality direct upload to youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xps7NYkPBs

Hi Shane,

The problem you are having with poor visual quality is most likely related to the default "bitrate" of the YouTube profile you selected within Power Director when you uploaded your video. When you select the "HD quality" profile it has a default bitrate of around 1,800 Kbps which won't maintain the same visual quality as your original footage. Your HD camera probably shoots in either 17,000Kbps or maybe even as high as 24,000Kbps.

The solution:
Produce your own custom YouTube profiles that have a higher bitrate and resolution (1920x1080). It is pretty easy to do. And when you produce future videos you will be able to select your custom profiles within Power Director. You need three things:

1. You can find these wmv profiles that you need to modify and add at this location on your computer C:/ Program Files/ Cyberlink/Power Director/ Language/ ENU(or select your language)/ Profiles.

2. Download and install this program (Windows Media Encoder) so that you can edit these prx files.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5691ba02-e496-465a-bba9-b2f1182cdf24&displaylang=en

3. Watch this tutorial to show you how to make the changes to the resolution and bitrate settings in the profile. Once you create these new profiles you will be very pleased with the resulting output.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw2RlzIt9EM

Good Luck,

Kevin
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OK, I will try and let you know. Thank you so much for the information. This could be the solution.

Quote: Hi Shane,

The problem you are having with poor visual quality is most likely related to the default "bitrate" of the YouTube profile you selected within Power Director when you uploaded your video. When you select the "HD quality" profile it has a default bitrate of around 1,800 Kbps which won't maintain the same visual quality as your original footage. Your HD camera probably shoots in either 17,000Kbps or maybe even as high as 24,000Kbps.

The solution:
Produce your own custom YouTube profiles that have a higher bitrate and resolution (1920x1080). It is pretty easy to do. And when you produce future videos you will be able to select your custom profiles within Power Director. You need three things:

1. You can find these wmv profiles that you need to modify and add at this location on your computer C:/ Program Files/ Cyberlink/Power Director/ Language/ ENU(or select your language)/ Profiles.

2. Download and install this program (Windows Media Encoder) so that you can edit these prx files.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5691ba02-e496-465a-bba9-b2f1182cdf24&displaylang=en

3. Watch this tutorial to show you how to make the changes to the resolution and bitrate settings in the profile. Once you create these new profiles you will be very pleased with the resulting output.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw2RlzIt9EM

Good Luck,

Kevin

I tried this and ran into one problem. When I made a new profile, it would dissapear right after and I could not see it in the "profile" folder. I made sure it was the right folder and it was, but it just would not save new profiles. So what I did is just changed the settings in one of the default profiles and that worked. I changed the bitrate and the fps but the quality is still the same. I tried uploading the raw file to youtube directly and the quality is good, but not as crisp as the raw file. Even in HD this is the case. Am i destined to not be able to create and/or upload files in the original quality the camera gives me. I am very discouraged. I don't know what to do
Below are my upload attempts, they all look the same to me.

Original attempt to output HD - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xps7NYkPBs
Updated Bitrate and FPS upload attempt - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xIhasdApRc
Raw HQ HD file - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0SrwT6N4OM

Which ever format you choose, youtube will re-render it to suit its own parameters. youtube do seem to keep changing the way this works and the results can be a little variable. In practice, I doubt that you will get the same quality as the raw video.

Many folk have their own favoured way of outputting for youtube, maybe do a search on the forum and scan the latest results.

This video is shot and edited in 720p, probably produced as a 720p mpg and uploaded (I can't remember, because I'm getting old :cry as an .mp4 produced in SuperC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvEd7qOLq50

I was happy with the result - only the quality, not the dead camera which was a bit of a ...........

Cheers
Adrian Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.

Quote: Which ever format you choose, youtube will re-render it to suit its own parameters. youtube do seem to keep changing the way this works and the results can be a little variable. In practice, I doubt that you will get the same quality as the raw video.

Many folk have their own favoured way of outputting for youtube, maybe do a search on the forum and scan the latest results.

This video is shot and edited in 720p, probably produced as a 720p mpg and uploaded (I can't remember, because I'm getting old :cry as an .mp4 produced in SuperC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvEd7qOLq50

I was happy with the result - only the quality, not the dead camera which was a bit of a ...........

Cheers
Adrian

This is true, however when i made the adjustments to the bitrate quality in cyberlink and saved it to my computer, the quality is the same(not crisp anymore). So weather it is youtube or just saved on my hard drive, the quality drops when put through powerdirector. I will try searching more forums to find an answer, but for now no solution.

Hi Shane,

I watched your test videos and had a couple of questions.

1. What value did you change the bitrate to in your new profile? For my YouTube uploads I create a bitrate of 8000K, which is about half of the original footage.
Here is a sample of something I uploaded to YouTube. It was shot in 1920X1080 & 17,000K bitrate. The profile I created was in 1920X1080 @ 8,000K bitrate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTdKRv8mVy8
And what Adrian is telling you is absolutely correct. YouTube is constantly changing and reprocesses the videos to suit its player. What was acceptable in quality a year ago has now degraded in quality when I view them now. This is why I now upload at full resolution and at a much higher bitrate.

2. Why did you change the "fps"? What value did you change it to? This is the "frames per second" parameter and I don't usually change that value.

3. Did your final profile look anything like this? The only parameters that I changed from the original "HD quality profile was the "resolution"....changed it from 1280X720 to 1920X1080 and the bitrate...changed it from 1,800K to 8000K.





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I forgot to change the bitrate, i will do it and get back to you. Thanks

I did all those steps that you showed me and I am able to match the video quality that is in the timeline of the project which is still really good. But it isn't as good as the raw footage. I don't know what to do about this. I am going to try and use Final Cut pro on my friend's MAC and see if it does it too. I'll get back to you.

Hey guys, my friend's final cut pro couldn't open the files because they were .mov files. Dont know why. But I kind of had a suspicion why I may be losing the quality. My camera records in 60fps which is really good, and i'm wondering if cyberlink is shrinking down the fps which may result in a less crisp look. What do you think?

I think I have a hunch what the issue is. My camera records in 60fps which really gives excellent video quality. Once in the project, I think PD downgrades it to 30fps. Even if you produce in 60fps, It's already after it was degraded to 30fps which means it's just doubling the frames from the project. Is this correct

Quote: I think I have a hunch what the issue is. My camera records in 60fps which really gives excellent video quality. Once in the project, I think PD downgrades it to 30fps. Even if you produce in 60fps, It's already after it was degraded to 30fps which means it's just doubling the frames from the project. Is this correct

No it isn't.

Perhaps you should upgrade to a more recent version of PD which the rest of us have.

Dafydd

I have version 8, is that not the most recent?

I have a similar problem with the recent PD version 13.
When I record video at 1080 30fps and then produce AVI in PD 13, the final AVI successfully remains at HD 1080.
However, when I record video at 1080 60fps and then produce AVI in PD 13, PD 13 only allows production at 780.
This seems to be a significant flaw in PD 13 in that it can not handle HD recorded at 60fps.
I'm unable to get techn support from CyberLink on this, so any advice is appreciated. I like PD, but I'm ready to look for another software package ...

I am having similar issues.
Recorded 5 videos on same equipment.
All 5 look perfect when viewing the original files.
When I import them to PD 13 Media Room they still look perfect, but as soon as I drag movie 3 out of five to the timeline, the quality drops alot! The other 4 are perfect.
What is happening? There is a green movie icon on the movie (shadow file ready), is that the problem?
I have preview quality cranked all up, and the produced movie also is in bad quality?

Søren, you're posting to a 5-year-old thread about older versions of PD. You have PD13, and you should start a new thread in that *forum*

Please follow the steps listed in the "Welcome" sticky at the top of the index page, and post parts A and B. Attaching a screenshot of your timeline would help a great deal. It would also help to know where you see the quality drop. Is it when you preview the clips, or after you produce or burn a disc? Step-by-step details would be greatly appreciated and would help members assist you quickly

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