Powerdirector 8 Deluxe

I have edited a lot of photos, but had not tried to edit/burn videos before. I spent the last several days learning to do so, and, of the 4 programs I have tried, this is by far the best in my opinion. I have been converting from VHS to DVD, Hi8 to DVD, and Hi8 Digital to DVD, and now HD Mini-disc (the technology has changed at least 4 times in the last 20yrs. Hopefully DVD is around awhile, but if not, at least the quality does not degrade over time like tapes do).

I downloaded free trials for 4 programs. The cheaper "beginner" ones I won't even comment on. They were terrible. Then I tried Corel Video Studio X2 Pro. It worked but was very slow to compute, move screen to screen, and burn the disk. Burning to DVD took almost twice as long as the Powerdirector 8 Deluxe. But the worst part was it was not intuitive at all. You had what seemed to be two separate modules: The Wizards, and the Hard-Core Editing module. Heaven help you if you had to switch from one to the other. Totally confusing and non-intuitive. For instance, if you accidently added music by not UN-checking a box, and you saved your project, you couldn't go back. I'm sure there is a way to do it in the hard-core editing part, but I couldn't figure it out. The user guide was also pretty worthless.

Power Director 8, on the other hand, was very intuitive (at least as intuitive as video editing gets; there is still a steep learning curve for the first video or two). The manual was excellent, but I didn't even need to refer to it much. The program steps you from capture to burning the disk one step at a time, and you can skip around all you like without losing your work (unlike ny experience with Corel). It has some very nice templates for menus that are almost automatic, and make the finished product look great. The program is a great mix of "beginner" features, and professional editing capability. I was so impressed by it in comparison to other programs that I tried (I only tried 4), that I felt I should review it on here.

The best thing to do is to download these program's free trial and try them yourself. They are full-featured, and last for 30 days. Corel and Cyberlink both have this available. Then buy the one you like.

ALSO, make sure you have at LEAST 3GB of RAM, and a 100MB of hard drive, and 2GHz Dual Core CPU. That's what I had on my laptop, and it was marginal. I was running XP also. This program is Vista or Windows 7 compatible as well.

Sorry about the formatting, Amazon is removing all my spaces when I publish even though it looks fine in the editor.

Computer Specs:
Intel Core2 Duo @ 1.86 GHz
2 GB RAM
256 MB Video
32 bit
Windows Vista

My test:
Added 2 videos.
Added image stabilization to one
3D transition between them.
Rendered the project.
AVCHD in and MPG2 out (both in full HD, 1920*1440, Dolby 5.1 if available)
Video length 4 minutes and 20 seconds.

Overall Review:
**** Corel Video Studio Pro X3
**** Cyberlink PowerDirector 8
*** Sony Vegas Movie Studio Pro Plus 9
**1/2 Adobe Premiere Elements 8
** Magix Edit Pro 15
* Roxio Creator 2010
* Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 14

Package Options:
My reviews are against the top versions of each product line. You will find that most of the differences between the top versions and the base are Blu-ray export options, and some add some extra sound options. See for yourself the option that suits you at the manufacturer's website in their respective product comparison guides.

Windows 7:
All seemed to work for me in windows 7, 64 bit with 4 GB RAM. I didn't do any tests with it b/c I wanted to use an older machine that would come closer to representing the average computer. This includes Roxio 2009, but not 2010 for reasons stated below.

Final Opinion:
If you want something super easy to use, then I would go with Cyberlink PowerDirector 8. If you want something with a bit more power that you can grow into, I would go with Corel Video Studio Pro X3. Sony Vegas Movie Studio Pro plus 9 may very well be good, but I see no reason to purchase it with the power of the Corel package.
If you are a masochist, go with Adobe, Magix, Roxio, or Pinnacle.

DETAILS:
Adobe Premiere Elements 8
65 min render time
Pros:
You can search effects
Layout was good but not great
Interface was pretty straightforward
Cons:
Virtually locked my system
Slow and temporarily froze frequently
Output menu was cumbersome

Corel Video Studio Pro X3
19 min render time
Pros:
Great Output menu
Very fast
Easy to use user interface
Proxy editing*
Autofit for timeline
Cons:
No search function for effects
*edit*
After further review of this software, I had to knock it down from 5 to 4 stars.
I noticed more and more buggyness from the software the more that I used it.
It wasn't enough that one couldn't use it, but it was enough to be a bit frustrating at times.
*edit*

Cyberlink PowerDirector 8
30 min render time
Pros:
Output menu was nice
Very nice and easy to use layout
Cons:
No Blu-ray output
*edit*
Blu-ray output is available on Ultra.
After further use of this program, I have some issues with it and have lowered it to 4 from 5 stars.
I was disappointed with the menu editing in that you can not do text only menus, you can't really "customize" menus, and their stock menus total a whopping 2. They state they have thousands online, but almost all of these are menus that are horrible junk ones that others have created. There are literaly a few that are good or better. In addition, you can not search these menus, and the sorting is poor at best to browse them.
*edit*

Magix Edit Pro 15
41 min Render time
Pros:
Simple
Cons:
Poor user interface
Oversimplified (Too simple I think for most people)
Very Cumbersome to use and add effects
Output options were confusing and cumbersome
Extremely limited options for PC output (which is what many will be doing)
A couple of lock ups

Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 14
Pros:
Nice little finished project to see what can be done
Nice interface for editing
Cons:
ONLY SOFTWARE that I was not able to import a video
Locked up my system many times and left errant process running at 80% CPU
Took 50 seconds just to load the import video TAB
When I selected videos to import and hit start import, absolutely nothing happened
Tried one of their movies and went to help to find stabilization and it crashed on me b/c I didn't have enough memory
No Blu-ray output
Cons on install on windows 7 computer:
Failure on export of file on all formats
I actually tried Pinnacle about 10 years ago and had absolutely nothing but problems. Spent many days downloading patches just to get it to work. Then, like a moron, I did an entire project and when I went to burn it, the burn failed every time. I see a decade later, I still can't export a file.

Roxio Creator 2010
Pros:
-----
Cons:
They don't allow a trial download. I contacted them asking them if I could download a trial and even noted that I was a current customer. I personally like the 2009 Roxio. It was a nice "all-purpose" program. They told me that I had to buy it. I was offered a money back guarantee, but to do so, I had to send in a letter of destruction. This is way too much effort on my end to see if your software works for me.
I find it ridiculous in this day and age that you can't have a trial version of something, especially when EVERY ONE of your competitors does. In addition, this is how they were treating an existing customer!
You throw in all the compatibility issues that can occur in software in general and video software in particular, and that leaves me to think they have nothing to hide.
As icing on the cake, the following sentence was in their reply.
"Creator 2010 does support AVCHD software and hasn't been know to have any issues thus far!"
I replied to them about this OUTRIGHT LIE! First, you can read the compatibility issues on Amazon. Second, as a person that writes programs, there is no such thing as bug free software, especially video editing software.

Sony Vegas Movie Studio Pro Plus 9
14 minute render time (NO ANTI-SHAKE IN RENDER, see below)
Pros:
Computer stayed pretty responsive during render
Savable packages of effects
How to guide is nice
Cons:
Couldn't search effects
Very, very cumbersome to use
Couldn't find stabilization
The render time approximation stayed at around 1 minute or 2 left the entire time
Here is my issue with Sony Vegas. I have compared its features with many of the other programs and they are all very similar. Now, when compared with Corel Video Studio Pro X3 and Cyberlink PowerDirector, they are virtually identical. I personally think Sony leaves their software cumbersome so that it "looks/seems" more powerful.
I was definitely most disappointed in this product because it was the one that I was looking the most forward to using. When I say that it is cumbersome to use, it doesn't mean that it can't be used. Let me give an example. I am a programmer, and in something like excel, I like the ability to write my own code to create functions and tools that it doesn't offer or to tweak ones that it does. HOWEVER, when I want to enter numbers in boxes, I just want to enter numbers in boxes. I don't want to click in a box, go to a menu or right click, select some gadget and then enter a number. It is ok for complicated things to be complicated, but simple things should not only be simple, but also INTUITIVE.
The main thing that I saw that you could do in Sony Vegas that you couldn't do in the others is change your transitions (both audio and video) ramp as far as how quickly they come in and go out. I am not talking about changing the time, but how your out video accelerates out and how you in video accelerates in during that time. It is a cool feature, but something that 99% of people will only not use, but won't care about either.
Another thing, the image stabilizer should be easy to do, and it may be. However, I did a search in help for stabilize, stabilizer, sta, shake, anti, etc. and could not find out how to do this very simple thing. This worries me greatly that if this isn't readily available in the help docs, then much of the other stuff probably isn't either.

*A note on proxy editing.
Proxy editing is basically you working on a very low def version of your file, but when it comes time to actually render your output, the original file is used. Some view this as a crutch because they say you should be able to optimize the software to work with the high def video. My opinion is that if I can work faster, then I will work faster. Who cares what my resolution is while I am editing. If you have the fastest software out there for HD, and you can do your edits in very low def and it is even faster still, then why would you not want that?

This is a very good program, easy to use once you know it - but for the first several days I owned PowerDirector (PD8) I almost despaired of being able to use it, even though I had successfully used another video editing program (Pinnacle) a year ago. Despite what another reviewer wrote, PD8 is not an intuitive program to learn. There are no good tutorials on *the basic operations* of this program in English - plenty in French and in German, but none in English.

I would rate PowerDirector as five (5) stars except that it takes both time and persistence to learn it. That time and that persistence are very well rewarded - but the help files should be much better, and there should really be a comprehensive video tutorial (in English, with sound !!) on the basics of the program, for those who are new to it.

Before I go further, I do want to note that PD8 is NOT a terrible program as another reviewer reported. It does not make a computer crash. Yes, of course if you're going to edit high definition video, you need a rather powerful computer. People who are still using the original configurations of Windows Vista may have serious problems with this, or any other, video editing program. But otherwise, PD8 delivers the goods very well. It is very flexible, very useable, quite powerful enough even in its more basic configuration - once you get over the first several day "hump" of finding out where things are in the program. Its main shortcoming, in my opinion, is that the Help files are rather brief, and that there's no decent tutorial on the basics of its operation - at least there are none in English. There are plenty of tutorials on advanced features such as "Creating a Wall of Video" (what in the world is that?) and importing special title formats.

There appears to be no telephone support, but to their credit, the tech support people at Cyberlink do reply to emails. There's also a nice user forum. Of course, most of the posts to that forum are about advanced features; people who make amateur videos seem to be totally infatuated with bizarre and "showy" special effects. But there are also a few people on the user forums who are willing to answer newcomers' questions.

PD8 has all the features an amateur might want - title options, transitions, special effects, and (most important, for me) the ability to adjust things like brightness, contrast, sharpness, and noise reduction. You can use it to burn videos to disc, save them to HD, output them in various formats such as MPEG4, MPEG2,and so forth - you can output in various aspect ratios and in various screen sizes - you can export them directly to You Tube and other "sharing sites". It also has a nice full-screen playback available from within the program.

If you choose this program, stay with it for a few days. It really is an excellent choice for the home videographer and even for the advanced amateur. You just have to keep poking around in it, asking questions when you get stuck. I almost gave up on it, but I'm very glad I didn't.

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