I have been evaluating PowerDirector Ultra64 9.0.0.2930.
I've been looking for a consumer end (consumer end priced anyway) application to edit the AVCHD video from my Panasonic camera.
The reviews for PowerDirector 9 are good and the functionality I have found and tried seems a good match for my needs, with a learning curve that isn't too steep. So far so good.
However I have a but which I shall explain below. The short version is I cannot get PowerDirector to produce acceptable quality HD video (at all), including but not exclusive to H.264 AVC which is what I want to use. The output is HD, but at a significant loss of quality, complete with jaggies etc.
The native 1080 HD interlaced AVCHD video from my camera is good, as you would expect. I want to produce edited video primarily to play back on my HD TV. My TV (also Panasonic) displays the native AVCHD video from my camera very nicely. I will also want to upload some of my video to You Tube or Vimeo. Again the native video from the camera uploads and displays just as I would expect.
I have hardware acceleration turned of in options and the very latest ATI Catalyst for my Radeon 6670 graphics card. What I am seeing is that even with a project that consists of one imported video, with the H.264 AVC output matched so that SVRT recognises no rendering is required, the out put .m2ts is noticeably poor quality. How apparent this is depends on what I play the video back on. On my PC it does not jump out at you, but my monitor is not HD. On my HD TV via a DMP player (you guessed it, Panasonic), you can see it but it is not too bad. Played directly via my TV, it is appalling. A video of the London Eye shows it very clearly looking at the spokes, which are fuzzy zig zags and not defined straight lines. The same occurs whether I use SVRT rendering or no fast rendering at all. As mentioned, I have tried producing in other HD formats, which are no better some worse.
My early conclusions after some reading were that this was poor deinterlacing by PowerDirector and I read of similarly poor deinterlacing of other products too, including some of the higher end applications. I also note that my TV sees my native .m2ts files as "video" and my PD produced .m2ts files as "mpeg2".
With such poor results from the media I want to work with, although disappointed to do so, I started to look at alternative options.
Trying Corel Video Studio Pro X4, I was frustrated by what appears to on the surface be an inferior product. However the Corel product works with my same native video and even regardless of how I trim or introduce audio tracks etc renders AVCHD .mpg or H.264 .m2t files without any visible reduction in quality. My TV also sees these files as "video" just like the native files.
So now I am frustrated. I have the product I want to use (PD9) but doesn't actually produce as I require or the product I'd rather not use (Corel VS X4) that at least produces the fundamental goods.
Next I tried something that I thought was a off to a loosing start, but turned out to be very interesting.
I produced a video, titles, transitions, trimming and audio in PD9 from my native m2ts files. I produced using AVC 1080HD format, with SRVT rendering. Output just about acceptable, so long as not played back on my TV (TV via the DMP OK but not as good as native footage). I took that produced video and imported into Corel Video Studio X4. I then produced that video as a AVCHD .mpg file. I played that back on my TV (which saw it as "video" not MPEG). There I had the video how I wanted it produced with quality I cannot tell from the very original footage. This last test suggests to me my problem is not that PowerDirector is reducing the quality (otherise how does it return) but the format it is saving in is not quite right, something Video Studio X4 over comes.
Can anyone explain why I cannot get this result from PowerDirector alone or where I am going wrong?
thanks for sticking with me if you read this far! I want one tool that is powerful enough to meet my needs that can produce without a noticeable reduction in playback qaulity. I haven't the engergy to try more products and not all have trials. I hope the asnwer is not that I have to learn to live with Video Studio.
Thanks in advance
Graham
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Sep 04. 2011 07:55
i7 860 @ 2.8GHz
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ATI Radeon 6670 1GB GDDR5 (Sapphire Ultimate)