You won't get an answer here since CyberLink does not monitor the forum regularly, or usually share this info in the forum. Best you can do is wait and see, or ask them directly here.

Ash

https://www.cyberlink.com/stat/edms/english/2019/Q4/Black_Friday/index_en_GB.jsp Director Suite 365
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Is this the first year of a missing Black Friday option for the lifetime licence of a Power Director? This completly sucks ....

Quote Is this the first year of a missing Black Friday option for the lifetime licence of a Power Director? This completly sucks ....

Seems like it. They really push the 365 editions and are no longer interested in lifetime licence customers anymore. Shame. It's also a shame that a lot of customers don't seem to care and there's little to no resistance to these scams. Wait a few years and when everybody (excluding me) is over to 365 the development will halt, while prices will be rising as everybody is simply forced to renew their subscription anyway, else they won't be able to continue editing.

Exactly! I was a long time Director Suite customer/upgrader. Our studio is on a tight budget and the video is not our primary business, photography is. I want to feel safe doing some investments, in a sense that when I stop paying, I am left with the last version of the product I have paid for. It worked for tens of years in the IT business and is called a product maintanance fee.

The only company which seems to understand that, is on1 software. You might pay a "subscription", which also means tons of additional monthly bonuses, courses, trainings, special forum, for free. Once you decide to terminate the annual upgrade program, you are still left with the latest app version you paid for. Win-win situation. What's there to not understand about that?

But Cyberlink has stopped to offer perpetual upgrade options to Director Suite as a whole package. So last year I have upgraded just a Power Director. No special options for Audio and Color director and this year no special discount for Power Director either, so the situation gets only worse.

3 years ago I looked into a Davinci Resolve. It was kind of a resource hog on my notebook and quite complex. But you know what? In last 3 years, they have added an audio module (Fairlight), integrated their Hollywood grade special effects module (Fusion) and just recently added a Cut module apart to Edit, so that basic cuts are easier to do. And all of that is for free. If you decide to go Pro, you pay 299 USD. Not annualy, this is a one-off payment and you get asccess to additional plugins. A real plugins, not a hybrid versions like outdated Titler which Cyberlink is offering.

Time to hit the download button again and see, where the world has moved.

Quote Is this the first year of a missing Black Friday option for the lifetime licence of a Power Director? This completly sucks ....

100% agree.
I'll never EVER choose a subscription for power director.
Cyberlink is beginning to treat loyal customers like second class citizens and we're not liking it.
The good news is:

A) PD 17 works pretty well and I don't need any of the extra stuff introduced in PD 18, to be honest.
B) Once you understand the technique used to do something with a video editor, it's pretty much the same with other video editors, so making the switch is not too difficult.
C) There are plenty of very cheap alternatives out there... I was recently offered Corel's video studio ultimate and an upgrade to paintshop 2020 for an incredibly low 40$ fee (20 bucks each). I didn't buy it because I don't need it, but if Cyberlink keeps treating me like this, I might consider it one of these days... (I don't use any of Cyberlink's other products. I don't need a sound editor, I have Audacity which is amazing and free. I don't need a photo-editor, I use paintshop which is really cheap and been using it for more than a decade.).
D) Cyberlik is made in Taiwan. They're pragmatic, they know that a loyal customer who upgrades for a reasonable fee is better than a customer who buys another product...

And...

Is it just me or do other people think that a lot of Cyberlink's extra content is made for the female population? Weddings, birthdays, flowers everywhere... etc. We're men, we like special effects, explosions, and new cool features! PD17 Ult, PD16Ult, PD15ult + 13ult + 12ult
Painthop X9, X7, X4, 9
Aurora 3D (!!)
Animation Shop
Flex Gif Animator
Howler 9.5 !!
Intel Core I7-479 Cpu, 3.6 Ghz, 24 Gig Ram
Windows 10. 64 bits

Agree ... they will have no more customers if they keep offering / pushing subscription based software. This year they jack the price up for the annual "upgrade" and offer no discount, what a shame !!

Don't be suckered into the subscription plan, it was bad enough paying every year for the fixes, I mean upgrades... but there are many alternatives for video editing.

It just sucks after spending the time learning all the quirks and work arounds over the many years and constant upgrading that they chose to go this route for their loyal customers..



https://www.cyberlink.com/store/powerdirector-video-editing-software/upgrade_en_US.html

Quote Don't be suckered into the subscription plan, it was bad enough paying every year for the fixes, I mean upgrades... but there are many alternatives for video editing.

To be honest, if you were paying every year for a new version, how is that any different from the subscription plan?

There's tons more free content, like tutorial creation, motion graphics titles and callout packs, along with sound effects, background music and seasonal packs that come with the subscription, so I'd argue it's more bang for the buck. I agree with Javisyd that many of the earlier packs featured romance and weddings, but much of the newer content is neutral and focused on specific categories like graduations/events and frames.

Also, to be honest, I doubt that anyone would use many, or even most, of this extra content; but even one or two of the right items can make a big difference in a project. You may even find that the extra content is more valuable than you first thought, once you get used to having a huge free library at your beck and call.

The real downside is that if you stop the subscription, you won't be able to edit your existing projects, and that's a great reason to stick with the perpetual license. As far as I know, the perpetual license isn't going away, but it's certainly CL's purview to promote whichever version they want, including whether to offer an upgrade or Black Friday discount or not.

The bottom line - if you don't like the subscription model, don't buy it. If you don't want to upgrade to the latest version, then don't. Keep using whatever version(s) you have license(s) for, and pay for upgrades when PD brings enough new features to make it worthwhile. There's still a range of choices, even if the annual discount disappears.

If you want to send CL a message, I'd use Rate Us & Provide Suggestions under PD's File menu, as that has a higher chance of reaching the right people than anything posted here.

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Quote 3 years ago I looked into a Davinci Resolve. It was kind of a resource hog on my notebook and quite complex. But you know what? In last 3 years, they have added an audio module (Fairlight), integrated their Hollywood grade special effects module (Fusion) and just recently added a Cut module apart to Edit, so that basic cuts are easier to do. And all of that is for free. If you decide to go Pro, you pay 299 USD. Not annualy, this is a one-off payment and you get asccess to additional plugins. A real plugins, not a hybrid versions like outdated Titler which Cyberlink is offering.

I think nothing is free.
All "free" contents you received cost someone's time, money, efforts to get them done.

A company must find a way to take all the costs back otherwise they will get bankrupted to ashes, or they will need to drop the features to zero one day.

I saw many friends they might purchase one version of software (e.g. Microsoft Office, or cyberlink powerdirector, etc.), and keep it in use for many years without paying any more penies to the software company.

They might ask for technical support after approximately 3~5 years because the OS has been upgraded to Windows 10 and The old software didn't work well on the new OS. And, they think they are entitled to the free technical support because a software isn't like a hardware that would get physically broken. Software won't die actually as they are digital products.

The service cost is considerably huge when these requests require support agents or engineers engaged additionally.

The conventional "one-time payout" business model would gradually suffocate software companies as the margin of PC industry has decreased largely nowadays.

I vote for subscription as it is a sustainable concept and brings mutual benefits between customer and manufacturer.

Quote


I think nothing is free.
All "free" contents you received cost someone's time, money, efforts to get them done.

A company must find a way to take all the costs back otherwise they will get bankrupted to ashes, or they will need to drop the features to zero one day.

I saw many friends they might purchase one version of software (e.g. Microsoft Office, or cyberlink powerdirector, etc.), and keep it in use for many years without paying any more penies to the software company.

They might ask for technical support after approximately 3~5 years because the OS has been upgraded to Windows 10 and The old software didn't work well on the new OS. And, they think they are entitled to the free technical support because a software isn't like a hardware that would get physically broken. Software won't die actually as they are digital products.

The service cost is considerably huge when these requests require support agents or engineers engaged additionally.

The conventional "one-time payout" business model would gradually suffocate software companies as the margin of PC industry has decreased largely nowadays.

I vote for subscription as it is a sustainable concept and brings mutual benefits between customer and manufacturer.

Subscription model is imo well suited for the broadcasting services as a good example - you either consume movies / series or you don't. Nothing makes you dependant upon the service.

With the SW, it is a complete different situation imo and working in an IT area for cca 25 years, I regard it being a scam. Your example of friends requesting support after 5 years is an extreme example made just for the sake of the argument itself. IT industry knows something being called a maintanance fee, which sits usually in a 17-23% territory, which entitles you for a continual usage of the product. Once you stop your payments, you are left with the working product, which one day, might stop to work with the next SW update. But - your investment is protected.

And you know what? on1 software introduced kind of a subscription too. You get bonuses, monthly extra material and I pay gladly 130$ annualy. But once I stop the payments, I am still left with the last SW I have paid for and I can edit my previous work, if there is a need. With pure subscription model, this ability vanishes and I regard it being extremly stupid. Gee, I would pay even 150 $ for PD, if they would let me to use the last version, once I leave the subscribtion payments, for whatever reason.

Quote ... But once I stop the payments, I am still left with the last SW I have paid for and I can edit my previous work, if there is a need. With pure subscription model, this ability vanishes and I regard it being extremly stupid. Gee, I would pay even 150 $ for PD, if they would let me to use the last version, once I leave the subscribtion payments, for whatever reason.

That is an excellent point, and it's the weakest part of CL's current subscription model, in my opinion.

Here's the subscription agreement, and I've copied the last line below, because agreements tend to be updated and future readers of this thread my find something completely different when they read the linked page (if it even exists).

The relevent line of current version states "The rights granted to you herein will cease after a specified time period and the SOFTWARE usage is time-limited, after expiration of which it may be disabled."

Note that their terms don't explicitly state that you can't use PD once the subscription expires, just that is may be disabled at some point down the road. I've assumed the worst case in my earlier post which would leave PD disabled, but it's possible they'll allow it to remain functional.

I'd like to see a clear path to retaining a perpetual-like functionality if a) I've subscribed for a minimum of x months or years; of B) a discounted price for the a perpetual license for the current version.

Just a simple example... https://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/80852.page There'll be more of this in the future, I guarantee you.

Quote
They might ask for technical support after approximately 3~5 years because the OS has been upgraded to Windows 10 and The old software didn't work well on the new OS. And, they think they are entitled to the free technical support because a software isn't like a hardware that would get physically broken. Software won't die actually as they are digital products.

Hardware dies too - witness all the security bugs in Intel CPUs.
In any case, solving this does not require a subscription. Cyberlink can simply state that they will only provide support for full-versions for a certain duration of time, and only for the operating systems they had originally designed/tested the software with. This is done all the time in the enterprise software world, without require a subscription. You can buy support contracts if you want for additional years. At that point, the subscription does make sense.

However, if all you do is keep using your software to edit videos shot in years prior with old cameras and on an old OS, the subscription should most definitely not be required. That is where I have an issue.
I have upgraded my PD almost every year at the black friday upgrade price. No more. I'll definitely be looking somewhere else when I need new camera/OS support.

I agree - and have PD 15. I want a stand alone program, which I have the PD15. PD15 has served me well enough, but is a little limiting as far as moving ahead.

Only now looking at upgrading my PD - but see the push is for the subscription route. I guess the only advantage for me is that I assume this can be used on more than one machine, ie on my laptop if I'm traveling? Never missed that very much before, so meh.

I'm tempted to do the discounted subscripton for a year - and see. In this time, I'll go check out what else is out there and experiment. One main issue with switching software - as all of you know - the learning the new software. This needs to be done when deadlines are not an issue.

"No changes are permanent, but change is . . "