Tony,
I didn't mean to sound ungrateful for your help before. I did search before and found similar results to what you posted. A separate software product to post process something that PowerDirector created is not what I want; its extra steps that I didn't have before. I still think CyberLink would do their fans a HUGE service by publishing what they believe are the optimal settings for upload to the various video sites.
Roy,
Absolutely agree with you that the WMV is the right format. My default for that format is different though; it's "Windows Media Video 8 for Color Pocket PCs (225k)".
The option "Windows Media Video 9 HD High Quality" will definitely give you fantastic results on YouTube, but it will also creae the largest file. A few minute clip will be several hundred MB's.
Through my own testing, I've found that the best option for YouTube is:
.WMV - "Windows Media Video 9 HD Standard Quality". It gives you the same great HD quality on YouTube (fantastic) but produces a much smaller file to upload.
The only problem with either of these options (both High and Standard) is that neither work for 4:3 aspect ratio. If you upload a 4:3 aspect ratio video to YouTube or Vimeo that has been produced with these settings; YouTube and Vimeo stretch the video horizontally which looks just plain nasty. This happens even if you force all video clips into 4:3 format. I think its because the properties of the format say its 1280x720 and you can't change that. So, I'm still stuck. Nothing satisfactory yet. I can't seem to find a way to convert 4:3 to 16:9. Lots of options to convert 16:9 to 4:3 though.
I like the PowerDirector interface more than any other video editor I've owned. But the Produce options are mostly garbage options I would never use. Like the rest of their interface, they should make this part simple for folks publishing to video sites. The YouTube tab was always able to produce my videos correctly. I wish I could find the combination that tab uses.