Codec: H264 - MPEG-4 AVC (part 10) (avc1)
Type: Video
Video Resolution: 2560x1440
Buffer Dimensions: 2560x1440
Frame Rate: 60
Orientation: Top Left
Color Primaries: ITU-R BT.709
Color Transfer Function: ITU-R BT.709
Color Space: ITU-R BT.709 Range
Chroma Location: Left
Length: 02:53:17
Data Rate: 82254kbps
Total Bitrate: 82443kbps
This recording is perfectly clean, has no lag, never dips below 60 FPS, and has no visual artifacts.
After taking the above recording, putting it into PD20, and producing it, the output video has this codec info:
Codec: H264 - MPEG-4 AVC (part 10) (avc1)
Type: Video
Video Resolution: 2560x1440
Buffer Dimensions: 2560x1440
Frame Rate: 60
Orientation: Top Left
Color Primaries: ITU-R BT.709
Color Transfer Function: ITU-R BT.709
Color Space: ITU-R BT.709 Range
Chroma Location: Left
Length: 02:53:17
Data Rate: 82254kbps
Total Bitrate: 82443kbps
Despite being 1:1 identical, this video is blurry, choppy, laggy, blocky, and looks like it's 30 FPS.
Every single video - no matter what the original codec info is - always comes out like this. Note that PowerDirector 17 did not do this to any of my recordings.
I've done extremely extensive testing and have 100% confirmed that the problem absolutely is NOT my hardware. Every other video editing software does not do this - the output video comes out just as clean as the original. PowerDirector 20 is 100% the problem here.