CyberLink PowerDirector 18 Review: Most Awaited Upgrade
CyberLink PowerDirector 18 is one of Windows’s best consumer video editing software. This edition carefully calibers functionalities which will make it easy to understand for all user levels while maintaining a recognizable interface.
PowerDirector, the best video editing for Windows users, offers new features from CyberLink. For version 18, the new features include a redesigned UI and a virtual 1:1 ratio for uploading and distributing content. Although PowerDirector is a consumer product, it calls on amateur moviemakers who are imaginative and exploratory.
Availability & Price
PowerDirector comes in many different varieties, including stand-alone lifetime licenses. The final version costs $130 and includes additional advanced features, other third-party plug-ins, and special effects.
The annual subscription for CyberLink is $70 for CyberLink’s PowerDirector 365 and charges $20 a month for the monthly subscription. There are also Director Suite packages, which include video control director, still-photo manager, audio server, and color grading for $130 a month.
Ultra and Ultimate models have a 25 GB online storage capacity. You get 50 GB of cloud storage when you purchase a package.
Features: PowerDirector
The latest features in version 18 include the square aspect ratio, new animated graphic titles and Facebook/Instagram banners.
As compared to the top-down structure of previous versions, an app upgrade helps you to organize tracks in any sequence you choose. During the previous version, you can merge clips and adjustments to reuse in several programs with the PIP builder.
You also get a new Shape Builder to add the vector types, easily fit with the text and key-frame keys, to your images when you subscribe to the most expensive Ultimate version. New advanced formats and cameras such as MXF (8-bit 420 AVC), Apple ProRes (10-bit 422) and Sony XAVC (8-bit) video files are supported by the Last Edition and offer 18 additional transitional effects. The redesign also included under-the-hood improvements, such as its 8 + core processors stability and multi-threading, making the new 4 K experience smoother.
Sound scrubbing arrives in the new Ultimate edition, so you can hear and see the demo on the timeline. You can now edit 4K videos in dual preview. With the addition, the new version Ultimate can be used to personalize and remove library windows, timelines and previews anywhere you want to edit workspace.
Motion-graphic titles
One aspect that is superlative for PowerDirector is to give you the options to turn your brain. CyberLink PowerDirector 18 provides you with dozens of new movie graphic titles. You begin by using a preset to configure the menus and insert the title into the video timeline. This feature is designed to display your choices, play, and saved settings in your video until you are satisfied with the feel.
The title designer is also modified so that you can now apply particle effects and place them inside your headings.
Reversible Track ordering
Although the default design of the system appears the same as before, CyberLink provides greater flexibility to change the sequence of tracks stacking the timeline. Instead, the timeline tracking order can be inverted so that the main video track is at the top of the list, and overlays and overlapping effects are combined. It might seem like a trivial issue, but many new users who are used to manage video programs followed in the opposite direction have been bothered. Check a box from the Preferences Menu to reverse the track order.
Square video
The square option provides additional flexibility to post videos on Instagram and other social media. Without black bars that ruin your video, you can turn any aspect ratio into 1:1.
Nested projects
The nested project functionality of the PowerDirector helps you for project development and duplicate. The opportunity to view a nested proposal as a PIP in an optimized version 18 is fresh. This sounds complicated, but everything functions really easy and allows you plenty of freedom to edit.
Features: PowerDirector 18 Ultimate
Audio scrubbing
You can now hear the audio with the new version of PowerDirector by dragging your playhead through a project to quickly find the scene that you need by ear. To use the audio scrubbing preview, you don’t have to do other than turn the volume on. It’s convenient to listen to the video when you pass forward, and we want to see it in the Ultra version.
Shape designer
You can animate and modify vector objects with the new form model and apply titles to vector Objects. The app offers 24 basic shapes that can be updated by attaching colors, gradients, form shifts, sketches and text to the design. The form in the mainframe can be animated by customizing the location, size, opacity and object rotation.
4K video editing
You can now upload and modify the 4K video directly into the program. To use this feature, you will need an advance Windows box.
I was impressed with my experience with the 4K video. The demo was unheard of and the audio scrubbing sound quality was not different from that of the lesser-quality video. Nonetheless, problems can evolve on lower-end consumer systems as you add results and transformations. Modification in 4K is a good feature, but not an obligation, so it is not appropriate for lower-end users.
Final Words
There are many valuable novel features in Cyberlink PowerDirector 18 and the strongest is that many of the changes that are of interest are included in the $100 Ultra. You’ll want to spend a $30 extra for the Ultimate version for the full spectrum of upgrades from PowerDirector which include the shape designer, 4K capabilities and advanced interface options. Most users will nevertheless be pleased with the Ultra version upgrades as 1:1 video and title and motion graphics improvements are probably the most highly valued and used elements for users.
