CyberLink's PowerDirector video editing software bridges the gap between professional editing and consumer-friendliness. It has often been ahead of pro products with support for new formats and new technologies. It's also loaded with tools that help you put together a compelling digital movie, complete with transitions, effects, and titles. Best of all, it's easy to work with and fast at rendering. PowerDirector is the prosumer video editing software to beat and an Editors' Choice winner.
CyberLink's PowerDirector video editing software bridges the gap between professional editing and consumer-friendliness. It has often been ahead of pro products with support for new formats and new technologies. It's also loaded with tools that help you put together a compelling digital movie, complete with transitions, effects, and titles. Best of all, it's easy to work with and fast at rendering. PowerDirector is the prosumer video editing software to beat and an Editors' Choice winner.
As with Adobe's Creative Cloud and Microsoft's Office 365, new features now appear throughout the year to subscribers of the 365 version of PowerDirector and the larger Director Suite 365, which includes photo and audio software. CyberLink adds features, effects, and improvements at a dizzying pace, as you can see from PowerDirector's new features page.The current Version Replacement for video (similar to a newish Photoshop tool), stock content from Getty Images, as well as new tools and effects for text, audio, and graphics. The interface is a bit darker and has fewer colors on its buttons, so you can focus on your project media and preview. The previous version saw a new Photoshop-like selection tool for video, access to royalty-free stock video and images from Shutterstock, better color matching and keyframing, and a streamlined interface.
The current Version 20 adds Sky Replacement for video (similar to a newish Photoshop tool), stock content from Getty Images, as well as new tools and effects for text, audio, and graphics. The interface is a bit darker and has fewer colors on its buttons, so you can focus on your project media and preview. The previous version saw a new Photoshop-like selection tool for video, access to royalty-free stock video and images from Shutterstock, better color matching and keyframing, and a streamlined interface.
PowerDirector runs on Microsoft Windows 11, 10, 8.1, and 7, with a 64-bit version required. For AI features, you need Windows 10 or 11. You'll need a minimum of 4GB RAM and at least a 128MB VGA VRAM graphics card (2GB for AI features). A macOS version arrived in , which I discuss below; it requires OS X 10.14 or later and runs on both Intel and Apple Silicon M1-based Macs.
You can try out the software with a 30-day downloadable trial version that adds brand watermarks and doesn't support 4K. Two editions of the standalone video editor are available, the Ultra and the Ultimate.Another option is to bundle it with CyberLink's ColorDirector, AudioDirector, and PhotoDirector in the Director Suite bundle, which is only available as a subscription for per month or for a year. Finally, you can get PowerDirect Both subscriptions get you regular updates with new effects, plug-ins, and music samples, as well as the previously mentioned stock media.
What's New in PowerDirector?
For CyberLink adepts, here's a synopsis of new features since our last review update. To be frank, PowerDirector is already so replete with tools that new versions can feel like they are delivering diminishing returns. But for subscribers in particular, the company manages to continually add new effects and tweaks to improve existing tools. I'll list the most interesting adds in the new version below.
AI Sky Replacement. This class of automating tool has become a popular update in photo editing applications like Skylum Luminar and Adobe Photoshop. It takes multi-step procedures and automates them. PowerDirector's new sky replacement option automatically detects the sky and lets you choose from more than dramatic looks, with decent control.
Stock Content from Getty iStock. As if giving you access to ShutterStock content wasn't enough, PowerDirector subscribers can now take advantage of a second source of stock images and video clips.
New AI Audio Tools. New tools here include Wind Removal and AI Speech Enhancement, which remove background noise very effectively.
Soundtrack Fitting. The new Smart Fit Audio Duration tool can adjust the length of background music in your video while maintaining the music's style and cadence.
New Aspect Ratio Options. The program now supports wide and (favored by some social media apps).
More Shapes and Motion PiPs. There are now graphics primitives to choose from when creating a custom shape. Trapezoids, hearts, arrows—you're pretty much covered. Once you have a shape and have modified it to your taste, you can apply text, colors, shadows, gradients, and more. I wish you could combine shapes for a complex custom shape, however. Motion graphic PiP overlays are now available as well, such as the Social Motion Graphics set downloadable from the CyberLink Application Manager—no finding the files or restarting required.
Object Segmentation. Object Segmentation is basically green-screening without the need for a green screen. PowerDirector automatically selects the subject, letting you remove and replace the background. It's only for photos, but you can still easily select a subject in the Brush Mask Designer, the same place you find the new tool.
Plenty of New Transitions, Fonts, and LUTs. Every month, subscribers will see a new set of these effects that add more creative possibilities.
Pro Tools. The update adds functionality like the ability to add folders in the source panel and more support for editing items in nested projects.
Installation and Setup
Installing the program takes up over a gigabyte of your hard drive, so be sure to use a machine with room to spare. I tested the Ultimate edition on my Asus Zen AiO Pro running 64-bit Windows 10 Pro. Director Suite 365 subscribers get the Application Manager applet shown above, which not only lets you install and update the suite apps, but also offers content packs like the Bloggers Social Media pack, with picture-in-picture (PiP), title, and particle templates.
After optionally signing in to a CyberLink online account, the program asks whether you want to optimize GPU hardware acceleration. I can't think of any reason not to unless you don't want the program to work as quickly as possible!
A four-step startup wizard gets you started with video editing in the software, taking you through the program's main interface elements and basic options. A Quick Start tutorial window shows you the steps involved in creating a video—import; trim; add transitions, effects, and titles; and export. You have the option to watch an online video explaining the processes.
Video Editing Interface
The program's user interface is about as clear and simple as a program with such a vast number of options can be, but it can still get overwhelming when you're deep in the weeds of fine-tuning video or audio effects. It's not quite as simple and friendly as Adobe Premiere Elements or Ashampoo Movie Edit Pro, but that's because it offers more capabilities. CyberLink keeps streamlining the interface and cutting down on clutter, for example, Capture is no longer a main mode button but now a submenu option. You can see a bunch more interface updates on CyberLink's help site for the program.
PowerDirector Welcome Screen
The startup splash screen (below) makes getting to work easy. You start off in a Welcome screen offering big button options for Full Mode, Storyboard Mode, and Slideshow Creator. Two additional choices include Auto Mode and Learning Center—all these modes are self-explanatory.
If you don't need or want all these choices every time you start the program, a simple Always Enter Full Mode checkbox is for you. On this welcome screen, you can also choose your video project's aspect ratio—16:9, 4:3, and a 9:16 tall mode. Many people still don't think to hold their phones sideways for videos, and vertical videos just work better for some social media platforms.
The PowerDirector editing interface maintains the traditional Source and Preview split panels on the top, with your track timeline along the whole width of the bottom of the screen. You can now have two video preview windows—one for the source and one for the movie, which saves you from having to switch a single preview window between those two functions.
The storyboard view is more than just clip thumbnails. You can drag transitions between clips, apply effects, and add audio clips without switching to timeline view. I like the search box for media and the buttons at the top of the source panel for showing just video, just photos, or just audio in the source panel. Buttons link to video tutorials that pop up in the upper-right corner based on your current activity.
Recent versions have dispensed with mode buttons for Capture, Edit, and Create Disc—the only one left is for Produce, and when you're in that mode, you have a back-arrow button that makes getting back to editing clear and easy. You can quickly customize the timeline with a button for adding tracks, and the mouse wheel is your friend when it comes to zooming or moving in the timeline. You're allowed up to 100 tracks each for video and audio. Vegas Movie Studio limits you to tracks (if you upgrade to the Platinum level), which is already probably more than most people need, though not enough for high-end projects.
While editing, you can drag media directly onto its source panel or even onto the timeline from File Explorer. You can tag media, and each project retains its own set of content, but you don't get bins as you do with the pro-level products and Pinnacle Studio. Bins bring together all the assets for your project, including transitions and effects. You can, however, pack project assets into a folder, and use the Nested Project capability, discussed below.
By default, you get three pairs of video and audio tracks with CyberLink, as well as effects, title, voice, and music tracks. You can switch the layer order of the tracks to your preference—in some video editing apps (including previous versions of PowerDirector), lower objects on the timeline appear on top of higher tracks, and on others it's just the opposite. For me, it does make sense to have what appears on top in the video above in the timeline. Now you can choose whichever you're more comfortable with. You can also lock, disable/enable view, or rename tracks from the left track-info area, and you can even use drag and drop to move them up and down on the timeline. Zooming the timeline in and out is also a snap, either with Ctrl-Mouse wheel or a slider control.
PowerDirector for Mac
Users of Apple's Mac computers can finally take advantage of a good amount of PowerDirector’s multitude of effects, editing tools, and format support. An annual subscription plan costs $69.99, which, just like the Windows version, is often discounted. Also as under Windows, you install the Application Manager app. Unfortunately, it’s not available from the Mac App Store—you have to go to Cyberlink's site. The software runs on macOS 10.14 and later and on both Intel and ARM-based Macs with Rosetta support.
The interface is nearly identical to that of the Windows version, and you get a surprising number of editing and effect features. These include up to 100 tracks on the timeline, transitions, effects (including LUT support and lens profiles), speed changing, PiP Designer, Particles (think rain and falling leaves), and keyframe control. You get green screen chroma keying, voiceover recording, and titles and subtitles.
The feature set on PowerDirector for Mac isn't yet at parity with the Windows version, though. There’s no dedicated ColorDirector program, and you don't get motion tracking, stabilization, 360-degree, 3D, or multicam capabilities.
The latest update does add features previously missing for the Mac: Shape Designer, Enhanced Masking and Blending, Color Match, and Lighting adjustments.
Performance on my test 3.1GHz MacBook with Intel Core i5 and 8GB RAM gave me nothing to complain about. Adding long clips, applying transitions, and previewing everything went well, without any noticeable delays. Even a PiP sequence with four overlaid clips previewed smoothly.
Output options are excellent, with support for HEVC, MKV, MP4, M2TS, and XAVC S, along with easy output formatting for YouTube and Vimeo. You get CyberLink’s fast video rendering technology with hardware acceleration, but there’s no DVD authoring or burning capabilities—things YouTubers could care less about, but wedding videographers and hobbyists may still want.
Basic Video Editing
As with most nonlinear video editing software, PowerDirector lets you join and trim clips on the timeline. If you drag a clip to the end of the timeline, it firmly snaps next to the existing clip. If you drag a clip to the middle of the movie, you see a tooltip with five options: Overwrite, Insert, Insert and Move All Clips, and Replace. That last choice completely removes the existing clip, while Overwrite leaves parts of it that the new clip doesn't cover. If you use the Insert button that appears below the source panel when you select a clip, you can get your clip lined up without
You use PowerDirector's unique and intuitive selection cursor to split video and delete sections. Fix/Enhance options also include video denoise, audio denoise, and enhancements to punch up color and sharpness. PowerDirector also makes it easy to fix lighting and color. You can independently adjust the brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, sharpness, and white balance.
Assisted Movie Making
One of the best things to come to home video editors in recent years was pioneered by Apple with the Trailers feature of the Mac's included iMovie app. Premiere Elements has a similar Video Story feature. With either of these, you fill templates with video and photo content that meets the needs of a spot in the production, such as Group shot, Close-up, or Action shot. These are elaborated with transitions and background music that match your chosen theme.
Similarly, PowerDirector offers Video Templates (in the Project Room left menu choice) with placeholders for your content. From DirectorZone.com, CyberLink's Web resource site, you can download these templates, called Express Projects on the site. These are usually in separate opening, middle, and ending units. Business users also get Ad Templates for Facebook and Instagram Stories. Unlike the similar iMovie tool, PowerDirector requires you to add your own background music—there are no canned scores in the wizard or for Express Projects.
An Express Project only requires two steps: Dragging an Opening, Middle, and Ending onto the timeline, and filling the resulting clip tracks with your media. It's nowhere near as intuitive or clear as Apple iTunes' Trailers feature or Adobe Premiere Elements' Video Story feature. But it does offer guidance in crafting a digital movie, it is more customizable, and the results look pretty cool.
Another even easier creation tool is PowerDirector's Magic Movie Wizard. You get to this right from the startup menu's Auto Mode option. This features a four-step process: importing source content, adjusting and enhancing that content, previewing, and producing. As with the templates you can download various Magic Styles from DirectorZone to use with this feature. It analyzes your content and delivers a project that you can output to a file, a disc, or to the main editor for tweaking. I found this last choice necessary, since the tool doesn't know if two photos are nearly identical, and clips aren't trimmed. I had better luck with Movavi Video Editor’s similar
It's easy to get to. A Premium Stock Content thumbnail appears first in the source panel. Clicking on this opens the stock search window with two tabs for ShutterStock and iStock from Getty Images. You can use search terms to find an appropriate clip, picture, or sound sample. Clicking on the thumbnail of one you're interested in opens the full (watermarked) image in your default web browser. Note that you don't get the entire library of Shutterstock—a search for pizza only turned up 15 video clips, while the Shutterstock site has hundreds. Of course, you'd pay a lot more for access to the full selection. Shutterstock licenses start at $99 per month for use of just five clips.
Color Tools
The included Color Match option is important for movies shot at different angles with different equipment and lighting. The button appears when you have two clips selected. You scrub to the frame in each that you want to match, choosing a reference and a target that will receive the reference frame's colors. It previously did a spotty job in my tests with scenery and décor, but on retesting in version 20, it matched a cooler-toned interior to a warmer one with aplomb. You can adjust the level of matching, as well as brightness and saturation.
Near-Pro Video Editing
Nested Projects
Both Adobe Premiere Pro and Apple Final Cut Pro X let you combine edited groups of clips and move them around as a unit. PowerDirector's Nested Projects feature adds this capability. To use it, you simply create a new project, and drop an existing one onto the timeline. This creates a tabbed interface above the timeline, which lets you edit the nested project separately from within the new main project. You can also treat an inserted nested project as a PiP
Multicam Editing
With so many people shooting events simultaneously with their HD camera phones, multicam is no longer just for professionals. PowerDirector allows up to 100 multicam tracks, but what this really means is that you can sync that many tracks by audio in the main timeline. The actual multicam-switching interface still just has four video sources.
For synchronization, you get a choice of Audio Analysis (the best choice for amateurs), Manual, Timecodes, File Created Time, and Markers on Clips. When I used Audio Analysis, my two clips synced perfectly. The program lets you choose which track's audio should be used, or you can import a separate audio track. Hitting Record played all angles synchronized, letting me switch among them. The tool creates sub-clips labeled 1 to 4 for the camera angles, with adjustable split points.
When you're done cutting, the clip sequence appears on the regular timeline. Subclips are in separate tracks, but you can't adjust the cut points there without losing footage and messing up the synchronization. The multicam designer itself lets you adjust these. Thankfully, you can also reopen a multicam sequence in the designer after you've sent it to the timeline. In all, it's a well-done and powerful tool.
AI Styles
AI painting style filters were popularized by the iPhone app Prisma. PowerDirector offers plug-ins that perform similar magic on your video clips. Four packs of these AI styles are included: Chinese Painting, Van Gogh, Impressionists 1 (Manet), and Impressionists 2 (Monet). CyberLink plans to produce monthly new AI packs for subscribers. Note that they're not small, some at
The effects, like those from Prisma, are quite entrancing and beautiful. I do wish you could adjust their strength with a slider, but I guess that's up to the AI, rather than my inferior intelligence. You can trim the clip you're applying the effect to, and then you hit the Transform button. It's not super fast: A 16-second clip took 2 minutes to transform.
AI Sky Replacement
This is a separate plug-in, not an option from the timeline editor. In the tool's own separate window, you choose a clip from your drive, choose a sky to replace with, and tweak the result with Feather, Land Ambient (to adjust color on the non-sky portion of the frame), Sky Fade, and Position. When I first tried this with a skyline scene using no adjustments, the buildings were tinted by the blue-sky effect. What was tricking the tool was that some of the buildings were more distant than others in the foreground. It works much better (as you might suspect) with a clearly delineated land-sky border.
4K Video Editing and Beyond
For several years, PowerDirector has supported 4K video content, but I put it to the test with much higher-resolution footage: 8K from my Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra. The software also supports XAVC-S standard of 4K and HD videos used in Sony cameras and camcorders. This joins support for Canon 1DC, JVC HMQ-10, and GoPro Hero3 4K content.
In editing GoPro 4K footage, performance is better than I expected, not even slowing down with complex transitions. The 8K clip I tested with PowerDirector was easy to work with, especially since the program downsized the preview resolution to HD for snappier editing. Being first with 4K capability was a real feather in CyberLink's cap, but most competing products, such as Corel VideoStudio, also now support 4K. You can preview in 4K, as opposed to viewing a reduced resolution, to speed up editing. You'd only want to do this if your PC has high-spec components and a lot of RAM, however.
PowerDirector includes a powerful screen capture tool that lets you include a picture-in-picture view of simultaneous webcam recordings. You can size the resulting PiP image to taste and lock it to an app window. The utility's Game mode will appeal to YouTubers who want to show off their skills. A Time Limit option makes sure you don't record until your hard disk overflows with video data.
Audio
Audio tracks in the timeline by default show waveform lines, and you can turn up and down volume by grabbing and dragging them. The sound plays as you scrub in the timeline, which is helpful for locating a part of your movie based on acoustic events. The Audio Room, a simple track-volume mixer, features Normalize buttons for each track to even out clip sound levels.
It's also easy to create voiceovers with the Voice-Over Recording Room, accessible from a tab sporting a microphone icon. The included Audio Editor lets you correct distortion, equalize, generate reverb, and apply a few special effects. It also includes VST plug-in support for third-party effects.
For advanced mixing, recording, syncing, cleaning, and restoration, there's AudioDirector (included with the Ultimate Suite edition). This separate app offers round-trip editing from PowerDirector. It lets you easily apply effects and fixes that are preserved when you later open them in PowerDirector. Impressive ability to remove vocals from music and apply de-reverb are also in its arsenal. You can change pitch and remove wind noise—a common need for amateur video.
In fact, the Wind Removal tool now makes it to the main PowerDirector program's Fix/Enhance panel in the current version, along with AI-powered Speech Enhancement, which removes all but spoken words. I tried this with a friend talking while the mighty Niagara River was raging in the background, and the result sounded like she was in a studio! The Wind Removal tool was equally remarkable in its effectiveness in my testing.
Auto Remix fits soundtrack music to your video length. This now appears in the main PowerDirector program as Smart Fit for Duration atop the Tools dropdown. It can take any song, analyze it, and often convincingly shorten or lengthen it. The AudioDirector version requires you to manually enter the new length time; it doesn't bring your movie in for automatic fitting, while the PowerDirector version lets you set the length to the current insertion position. In either, you can see where the edit occurred with a squiggly line. Listening to the result, I couldn't tell that the music had been cut at that point except when cutting a song down very short.
Automatic ducking doesn't add quacks to your soundtrack. Instead, it automatically lowers background audio during dialog on another track. It didn't do much for a loud concert video on top of an interview but worked better with a standard background track.
Performance
PowerDirector is in the elite group of performers when it comes to rendering video projects, but it also feels snappy from the time you start up through all but the most demanding editing activities. CyberLink's investment in 64-bit optimizations and graphics hardware acceleration has paid off. Other speed-boosters include OpenCL (Open Computing Language) support and intelligent SVRT, which determines how your clips should be rendered for the best-quality output and fastest editing. In my latest round of performance testing, the program remains among the fastest consumer video editing applications.
We test rendering time by creating a movie consisting of five clips of mixed types (some 1080p, some SD, some 4K) with a standard set of transitions and rendering it to 1080p30 MPEG-4 at 15.5Mbps, H.264 High Profile. Audio is set to MPEG AAC Audio: 384 Kbps. I tested on my home workstation, a PC with a 3.4GHz Core i7 6700 CPU, 16GB RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 with 4GB GDDR5 RAM, running 64-bit Windows 10 Pro.
0 Comments