(**Edited to add a few more suggestions)

First of all, I want to say how impressed I am with what Cyberlink’s PowerDirector has become. I tried it only a little in the past (way back in the early 2000's) and saw it a little around version 8; but didn't get around to playing with it for quite a while until recently.

A big part of testing it out again was available time to do so and the format of the Free Trial Download: Full-Featured With A Time Limit – that’s how you do a demo (other companies take note)
A ‘handicapped/missing features’ Trial would not have enticed near the level that an unrestricted [other than time] demo did, allowing me to test the full ‘Power’ of the application and all of its’ features. Impressed is the only word I can think of at this time, to express how I feel about this program.
If I may name a competitor directly, I was normally a user of Sony’s Vegas Video and [now] Movie Studio (being a small blog creator and not a Production House, I could never afford the Professional versions). However, I have been testing out the unrestricted/'non-crippled' Trial for a while (I am just over halfway through it’s time limit, initially downloaded under a more personal name) and I can already see that PowerDirector offers all of the features that I was using in Sony’s NLE product – and a few more (sorry, Sony!)

One of the features that PowerDirector has [that Sony Vegas doesn’t] is a built-in ‘Video Noise Reduction’ filter. I love this and it has become my favourite feature of PowerDirector. I periodically go back and try to restore older videos and productions I have (and do so for other people as well), and PowerDirector’s “Denoise” filter (listed under the Fix/Enhance tools) seems powerful - and even ‘smart’ - when used as a 'tool' to do so. It is great at hiding and/or smoothing-out compression artifacts of older clips, such as Macroblocks and Gibbs Effects (“ringing”) around objects, all the while attempting to keep the sharp edges of text and other elements visible [it must intelligently search for and recognize text as ‘text’, as it seems to treat it slightly differently than say, a high-contrast edge on a piece of clothing... Not being a developer for CyberLink, I have no idea exactly how it works of course, but it is wonderful stuff]... and I haven’t even gone into any of the other myriad of options and effects that this program has (“Fine Noise” as a ‘Film Grain effect’ that isn’t blotchy/messy like some other programs!) - insert my word for PowerDirector again here: “impressed”.


The only ‘suggestions’ I can come up with so far, are some feature ideas and one issue with rendering output that is compatible with my trusty old PSP (PlayStationPortable):

Render ‘Issue’:

The “Device” tab in the Production section of the application is Manna From Heaven for people who do not know the exact specifications to render to, for compatible playback with every device they might own. However, I found a peculiar occurrence when rendering out for playback on my PSP (for traveling):
When rendering with the Device Preset(s) for the PSP, including the 480x272 (Native Resolution of the PSP) PS-Vita preset [because it isn’t available in the PSP section], everything plays back without a hitch. However, when rendering using the MPEG-4 “Standard 2D” format/category, in 720x480 (Maximum Resolution of the PSP for input before the PS-Vita was released) with compatible settings (Main Profile, 1500kbps, etc) for playback, if I render utilizing the CPU (disabling the Fast Video Rendering Technology of PowerDirector), the PSP will not play the output result. If I render utilizing the GPU/videocard (”hardware video encoder”, enabling the Fast Video Rendering Technology of PowerDirector), the PSP will play the output result without problem. [Possibly related to how either the program or the videocard is formatting the output, I personally find this conundrum interesting; but] Since this issue can be ‘worked around’ [by rendering with the Hardware Video Encoding option], I am listing this as more of a ‘suggestion’ to be looked at sometime (a Low Priority matter of course) rather than a problem or bug with the program.


**A few Suggestions (is there a more proper forum for Suggestions?):

There seems to be no way to add more than one instance of an effect to a clip at a time... It would be great to be able to ‘double up’ some of the effects, to increase their strength past the built-in settings, if desired for creativity purposes (what is meant here is, to add more than one instance of the same effect into a clip event)

Customizable Resolutions for rendering (where you can enter in a value manually, ‘Unlockable with a warning that only Advanced Users should enable this' perhaps)... The presets are all great, common and compatible resolutions; but it would be nice to choose some non-standard resolutions (as well as [from my personal example ‘issue’above] the ability to choose a resolution/codec combination that is not readily available in the Device tab of the Rendering section (to use my example above again, being able to choose 480x272 for an MPEG-2 codec render) or an output size that matches a set of images, without resizing or cropping)

Customizable Resolutions for editing (again, perhaps an ‘unlockable for advanced users’ option, where you can enter in a resolution manually)... The preset working resolutions are good, but there are only 16:9 and 4:3 [although these are the common device/home user resolution standards], where one cannot produce, for example, an set of effects on an image and save that in a readily-available (no need to crop/resize later) output.
I must say here though, as an editor, that I do like the ‘at-a-glance’ AR icon at the top of the program to remind me what I am working in, if I forget for a moment!

The ability to choose a framerate ‘correction’ type... The program warns you if you are importing material that has differing framerates [than your project default - where can you change your project framerate?], but it would be nice to have options on how to adjust for the differences in utilized clips. For example, an [‘unlockable’?] option to allow for the choice of framerates (15fps, 60fps, 120fps, etc) and how to adjust for them (to be able to choose between frame dropping, frame interpolation, etc)

The ability to 'override' the warning in the Create Disc section, that the Project is larger than the assigned disc size. Some of us realize this and will playback the composition from the Folder on a Hard Drive or Thumbdrive, not from an optical disc. Also, we can use other software that will allow us to compact the output into a standardized disc size (such as Nero's Recode utility) afterward, if desired

The ability to create a simple, one-menu disc project, in the Create Disc section. No chapters, no fuss, just put my two little clips over an image and it's done. Why isn't this simple ability in PowerDirector?

Still, overall I am thoroughly enjoying PD12. Perhaps I’ve been getting tired, but I still simply cannot access my personal vocabulary enough to produce many other words than “impressed” for PowerDirector and my reaction to what I have seen so far of its’ most recent iteration (especially coming from not having tried the program for a while and the amount of capability, for the price point, seems to be a fantastic value). I am a ‘small-time’ blog creator [with an audience of only about 6,000 viewers a month]; but if I ever become ‘big enough to be interesting’ to CyberLink, feel free to use these quotes, Contract-Free, at any time for PowerDirector 12:

“Very Impressive” ~ The Game Tips And More Blog
“Surprisingly Powerful for any Home User or Blogger to create Productions” ~The Game Tips And More Blog



Thank you, CyberLink, for a great Trial and a wonderfully-developed application.

**