reviews Tes Ted. Reviewed. veRdic Tized
MAXIMUMPC july 2007
P
owerDirector 6’s powerful features
are handcuffed by a mildly frustrating
interface. Unfortunately, the app just
won’t let you easily tweak things, which is
strange because the product seems aimed
at pleasing the button-mashers.
CyberLink embedded a simple process
that allows users to upload rendered videos
straight to YouTube, so you can tell who the
company is marketing this product to. We
easily uploaded a slide show we created
using a wizard, though we did encounter
some problems with this featurette.
In addition to one-click (well, three)
uploads of your YouTube feature,
PowerDirector 6 includes a host of pleas-
ing video effects, but again, the clumsy
interface forces you to hunt around for
the proper controls. If you apply an effect
directly to a video in the timeline, you can’t
simply right-click on the track to remove it.
You have to select the track, hit the Effect
button, and uncheck all of the effects you
don’t want to see.
It’s a minor quibble, but we struggled
with the interface more than we expected towith a product that should be user-friendly.
The updated slide-show wizard, in particular,
annoyed us. If you autocreate a slide show
but don’t like the result (for example, every-
one’s head is cropped off), you can’t easily
modify the slide show to fix the problem.
The only thing you can do is keep applying
different templates to see how they look—and that’s a multistep process. It’s almost as
though CyberLink gets paid by the click.
But enough about the bad stuff. The
software does include some pretty neat fea-
tures, such as the PiP effect, which lets you
easily move a still image or video across the
screen. There’s no key-frame ability, but the
method CyberLink uses to move, rotate, and
resize objects in a video is probably easier
for newbies to understand. And honestly,
do you really need to key-frame the thought
bubble over someone’s head in your Blind
Date spoof video? It’s also worth noting that
the subtitle engine can import .SRT subtitle
files. Unfortunately, subtitles can’t simply be
turned on or off; they’re rendered directly
into the video.
HDV editing is now included as well.
We captured video from a Canon HV10
HDV camcorder in PowerDirector 6 with
no hitches. Although one of the primary
scene-detection methods did not work for
us, post-capture scene detection effec-
tively diced up our video for us. That’s
certainly better than Adobe Premiere
Elements 3.0, which doesn’t preview HDV
video capture or have any post-capture
scene detection. Likewise, Pinnacle’s
Studio 10.7 requires that you activate
scene detection. It doesn’t cost anything,
but we shouldn’t be subjected to the has-
sle. One of PowerDirector 6’s weaknesses
is how it exports HDV video. You can cre-
ate an AVI file at high res or output it backto tape, but that’s it. There’s no Blu-ray or
HD DVD disc support nor a way to master
the disc so that it will play on an HD DVD
deck using a standard single- or dual-layer
DVD encoded at a higher resolution.
PowerDirector 6 does excel in VOB
editing of commercial discs. While
Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0 is unreli-
able in its handling of commercial VOB
files and Pinnacle Studio 10.7 has issues,
PowerDirector 6 easily imported a VOB
file ripped from a commercial disc. That’s
of great value if you want to recut The
Godfather: Part III to remove all of Sophia
Coppola’s scenes.
Whether PowerDirector 6 is for you
depends on how far you want to go. If you
want a quick-hit editor, it has more than
enough to keep you happy. If you expect
to get a little more medieval with your
edits, you’d be better served by Pinnacle
Studio 10.6.
—Gordon Mah UnGCyberLink
PowerDirector 6
Powerful yet constrained
We found Powerdirector 6 better than its competitors at handling commercial
VoB files.$90, http://www.cyberlink.compowerdirector 6Michael corleone
Best program for VOB han-
dling and subtitle support.Mary corleone^7
Awkward button placement.The auto slide show tends to cut off
people’s heads but offers no easy way to
correct this problem.