This is good software for entrepreneurs and teachers who want to create low cost video tutorials. It is also useful to video enthusiasts who do not want to spend over $700 or more on professional video editors. To give you a feel how this video editor works, view the short tutorial of Cyberlink, the authors of PowerDirector: It only took about 15 minutes to produce this sample. Installing the software takes quite a while. This is not a small application (over 3GB in total), notwithstanding the low price tag of $74.99 USD at this time of writing. PowerDirector Ultra asks if you want to install QuickTime. You may want to cancel the QuickTime installation if you have a later version or the Pro version. Cancelling the QuickTime installation does not break off the installation of PowerDirector.Ĭlick OK to install if you do not have QuickTime. Then you are asked to install SmartSound.

Click Yes, because it is an essential part of the software. One annoying thing after installation is that the software asks several times to set a cookie on my computer. I regard this as an invasion of my privacy and it serves no purpose to me. Denying cookies does not influence the use of the application, so I block those cookies.

The first time, PowerDirector opens conveniently a demo project with images and a HD video. Strangely enough this video is in WMV format, which is not the best choice since that format isn’t widely supported, certainly not on the internet. However, it is not a big problem, just be aware that you do not use this format as your final production if you plan to publish your videos online. When you import a video, you are asked to enable shadow files. If you do not have a lot of horse power on your computer, this is recommended. For testing, I use a HP Pavilion Entertainment PC (laptop) with a AMD Turion II Ultra Dual-Core Mobile M620 2.50GHz processor, 4GB ram, 64bit Windows 7. It gives slight distortions in the preview window, but this setting makes no difference for the end product. You can set this per project if you want. The preview window shows the video in real-time without stuttering.

Cyberlink photodirector