CyberLink PowerDirector 8 Ultra (PC): Amazon.co.uk: Software

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Product Features

Powerful Editing - The strength and functionality to create great videos
Faster Performance - Ultra-fast video rendering, previewing, and authoring
Time-Saving Tools - Automatic correction of video quality and features that save production time
Shared Creativity - Unlimited resources and production techniques that users can share with other creators
Broad Publishing Options - Extensive ways for sharing videos online, on disc, and on the go

Product details

Product Description

Manufacturer's Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Powerful Video Editing with Unlimited Possibilities.
CyberLink PowerDirector 8 Ultra is an easy-to-use yet powerful video editing software application. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out, PowerDirector makes video editing an enjoyable experience. It features many new video enhancement and editing tools to let you create great videos. Upscaling technology will help improve your video quality with just a click of a button. Designer tools and more timeline tracks offer even more power, and you can simply spice up your projects by downloading any of 13,000+ free effects and templates already uploaded to DirectorZone.com, PowerDirector's online community. With broad format support and the options to upload videos to YouTube & Facebook, or output to on-the-go media players, you can share your creations with anyone and everyone.

Upscaling Video Quality with TrueTheatre Technology

Quick and Easy Video Enhancing

A host of new tools and technologies are designed to save editing time and improve your video quality. Leveraging PowerDVD's video enhancing TrueTheater technology, PowerDirector delivers HD-like results from standard definition content by upscaling video resolution, smoothing out playback in slow motion and enabling virtual surround sound. With easy-to-use settings, PowerDirector's TrueTheater technologies fix common video shooting errors such as extreme backlighting, poor white balance, and inadequate lighting.

Achieve Professional Results with New Design Tools

Achieve Pro Results

PowerDirector 8's suite of design tools—for creating titles, animated objects, and disc menus now offers a Particle Effects Designer, letting you experiment with movie-like special effects. As with PowerDirector's other design tools, particle effects can be uploaded and shared with other users on DirectorZone, PowerDirector's community website. Enjoy working with more editing tools such as Reverse, Crop, Speed and Rotate video tools. For precise trimming, retain frame-level control with the patented Zoom-In Cut™. While the expanded 16-track timeline offers more creative possibilities including the ability to cut & paste sequences to other parts of your production.

Faster Performance with Multi-Processing

Faster Performance

The first consumer video editing software to be optimized for Intel Core i7, NVIDIA CUDA, and ATI Stream technology, PowerDirector delivers up to 5X faster performance for rendering effects and transcoding videos, with vastly improved editing and previewing speeds.

Share Your Creativity with DirectorZone Members

Share your creativity and learn from others

Ever wonder how home movies achieve memorable effects? Now you can by viewing other users' timelines and even sharing your own on DirectorZone.com. This unique glimpse into others' creative approaches is a remarkable learning tool, offering incredible insight for your own projects. PowerDirector's unique "open editing" experience also lets you share special effects, video editing secrets, and a chance to learn from other users. Download, upload, and share an unlimited amount of effects, DVD menus, particle effects, and PiP objects via DirectorZone.

Faster Performance with Multi-Processing
Upload HD Videos to Facebook and YouTube

Ways to Show and Tell

Video editing software, PowerDirector, provides direct HD video uploading to Facebook and YouTube, enabling easy sharing on today’s most popular social networks and video blogging sites. Or enjoy your finished movie in HD at home by producing Blu-ray Discs or AVCHD discs in high-definition resolution. If it's mobility you are after, you can produce playback files for your iPhone, iPod, or PSP.

Key Features

Create pro results with 16 tracks, particle effects designer, & more
5X faster video rendering with support for CPU/GPU acceleration
Upscale SD video to HD-like quality. Fix video problems instantly
Learn editing tricks from other users on DirectorZone
Share videos on YouTube and Facebook, output to mobile devices, and burn to discs
PowerDirector 8 has been tested to meet all of the technical requirements to be Compatible with Windows® 7

Minimum System Requirements

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7, Vista or XP (Windows XP Service Pack 2 is required for HDV capture)
Screen Resolution: 1024 x 768, 16-bit color or above
PowerDirector 8 is optimized for CPU with MMX/SSE/SSE2/3DNow!/3DNow! Extension/HyperThreading technology.
AVI Capture/Production: Pentium 2 450 MHz or AMD Athlon 500 MHz
VCD Quality (MPEG-1) Profiles: Pentium 3 600 MHz or AMD Athlon 700 MHz
DVD Quality (MPEG-2) profiles: Pentium 4 2.2 GHz or AMD Athlon XP 2200+
High Quality MPEG-4 and WMV, QuickTime, RealVideo Profiles: Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz or AMD Athlon XP 2400+
AVCHD and MPEG-2 HD Profiles: Pentium Core 2 Duo E6400 or Athlon 64 X2 5000+
Memory: 512 MB required (2 GB DDR2 above recommended for editing HD videos)
Hard Disk Space:5 GB required minimum (note: 400 MB is for Magic Music Library)
10 GB (20 GB recommended) for DVD production
60 GB (100 GB recommended) for Blu-ray Disc/AVCHD production

Box Contains

PC CD-Rom

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 49 people found the following review helpful

The best editing software I've used. 2 Nov 2009

By Mark Tyler

I'd been looking around for quite some time for video editing software that would fulfill my two major requirements. The first requirement, an easy to use software with which would allow me to make edits to home videos. The second, and probably most important, is that it must be simple enough to input/output files and produce DVDs. Having played around with a number of other video editing software over the years, I can say in good standing, that PowerDirector has served me much better than most

Right from the start I didn't have any problems installing this program. The interface design is clean and slicker than others I have seen, I was able to do navigate comfortably without having to go through users guides and tutorials. Inputting a wide range of video formats was easy enough, and this was great as I could use my Sony camcorder's AVCHD files. My video editing purpose was fairly straightforward, I just needed to trim some home videos and also some video material from work projects. Having a big selection of effects, meant I could produce some pretty professional looking stuff, which I wasn't expecting. When it came to burning HD material or converting formats, it took a little time to produce HD DVD, but there were no crashes or hangs thankfully!

All in all, there is a long list of impressive features and for me the fun has been exploring and experimenting with them. The price is reasonable, its reliable and easy to use with some really cool effects - I'd give it a 5!

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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful

Simple but effective- great for Kodak ZX1 footage 1 Mar 2010

By Holmsey from Yorkshire TOP 1000 REVIEWER

I purchased a Kodak ZX1 mini HD recorder and I initially had a very difficult job attempting to edit the .MOV (Apple Quicktime) format output files and preserve the quality.

The problems are that:

a) Windows is generally not compatible with .MOV files- at least without third party software. Windows Movie Maker will not handle them, or HD format files for that matter.

b) Third party products such as Sony Vegas editing suite also do not like .MOV files. I tried everything to get it working properly in Sony Vegas including conversions, renaming file extensions etc- what a palaver!

c) The HD files on my camcorder are large files. They can be compressed to AVIs or put on DVD but you obviously lose quality. However, I do not have a Blu Ray burner, nor do I want to pay for blank blu ray discs.

Then along came Powerdirector. Initially this software got some bad reviews because by all accounts it was unacceptably buggy. However, as long as you update with the very latest version off the website after you have bought and installed it, it works beautifully.

Powerdirector is good because:

1) It does not crash, unlike most of the other software I used when working with HD files.

2) It is easy to use, and gives good results. However, do not expect Adobe Premier levels of customisation. This is fairly simple software but very powerful and more than enough for the average joe at home consumer.

3) It handles .MOV files- no problem. Why can't all other software be like this?

4) If you have a blu ray player or PS3 it can output your HD camcorder files to what is known as an AVCHD disc. This allows you to author a DVD disc which will play high definition content in a Blu Ray player (just don't put the disc in a normal DVD player- it may get stuck). Therefore if you have a blu ray player (especially a Sony) or a PS3 and a high def camcorder, this is the software to buy.

5) The disc authoring/ writing feature actually works and burns the DVD correctly without crashing- a very rare event for this type of software.

6) If you are making AVCHD discs- just make sure you download the very latest version of the software- unfortunately the previous version, which may well ship, results in jerky final discs- Fortunately, this is totally resolved by version 8.00.2508.

7) Don't worry if you do not have a blu ray player. Whilst it will also burn actual blu rays, it will also burn various quality DVDs, compress to Sony PSP, do Mpeg 1, 2, realmedia, avi all at various types of quality and setting.

Overall, as long as you update to the latest version, this is really great software and well written. It is just a shame it took them so long to get there!

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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

CyberLink PowerDirector 8 Ultra (PC) 16 July 2010

By DJH

As a new beginner to the world of home video editing, I downloaded a number of trial versions of editing software to test before I made my final purchase, and this product stood out as being the most user friendly, whilst also delivering as much (if not more) than it's competitors.

I ordered the software from Amazon UK (mainly because it was the cheapest I could find, but also becauase I have had nothing but excellant service from them in the many purchases I have made over the years).
As usual, I selected the free delivery, and as usual it arrived withing 2 days of buying on line.

I brought the Ultra version as I have just puchased a Sony HDRXR155EB High Definition Handycam Camcorder With Built-In 120GB Hard Disc Drive - Black (a lovely bit of kit in itself) and needed to have the HD availibility, although you can also use it for non-HD recordings as well.

This software was so easy to get into for a new beginner. Some of it's competitors were not so user friendly and took several searches of their help section to get a reasonable understanding of their functions, whereas with PowerDirector 8 I was able to understand the applications just from trying them out and experimenting.
The On-Screen views are well set up and are very easy on the eye and in my opinion far out plays it's competitors.
The On-Screen icons used are very clear and their functions are easily translated making the editing process very simple throughout.
Trimming both music files and video files is a piece of cake. Adding Transitions, Titles, Voice over etc just as easy.
Also good that you can mute the original sound recordings easily wherever you want to.

I have now spent many an hour editing my videos and have managed to create fairly decent DVDs from them (so much better than just copying everything you have recorded - let's face it at least 50% of recorded material is rubbish so you need a good editing software).
In all honesty, I am having great fun with the editing and, as with doing anything enjoyable on a PC, the hours have flown by.

To date, I have had only one instance of the software crashing on me (other reviews I read before buying infer this to be a constant problem, but I have not found it to be the case - I do however have a faily high spec PC set up so this this may have helped) and that did not cause me any major problems as I make a habit of regulary saving my work as I go no matter what software I may be using.
It was just a case of restarting the software and going back to where I last saved it.

Start up time for the software is fairly quick, but it must be remembered that when opening up an existing/in progress project, all linked files have to be refreshed and relinked, so the time to open up an existing project will depend on how many video/music files are linked in and how fast your processor is.
For an example, a current project I am working on, which has approx 1,400 videa clips and 50 music tracks linked in to it, takes about 2 mins to refresh all links on re-opening.
I thereore do something else in the background whilst it opens fully.

If like me, you are a beginner in video editing, in my opinion you will not go far wrong with the Cyberlink PowerDirector 8 series, and you will have great fun in using it.
If you have a High Definition camcorder make sure you buy the Ultra edition (which for a few pounds more is probably worth investing in anyway just in case you update your camcorder later) but if not, the standard edition will work fine.
I am sure there are many much more complex editing software suites on the market, but for the money, this one ticked all the right boxes for me and I am more than happy to give it a five star rating as it has proved to be money well spent.

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