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Product Review: Page (1) of 1 - 02/25/05

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CyberLink PowerDirector Express

Editing tool of Cyberlink's DVD Solution 3 is robust and easy to use

By John Virata

Cyberlink's PowerDirector Express is the video editing component of CyberLink DVD Solution 3. In this review, we'll go over the workflow of PowerDirector Express and review some of the application's many features. PowerDirector Express is built around a tabbed format that includes Capture, Edit, Produce, and Burn tabs.

The Capture Tab is where you capture your video or audio files for your project. From here you can set up your capture session, specify where you want the captured media to reside on your hard disk drive, set a time limit or a size limit to the capture session, as well as monitor the capture session. The tools for monitoring the capture session include the recorded data size captured, the free space remaining on the drive, used space on the drive, number of dropped frames, as well as the audio profile (if capturing audio) as well as the video profile.

The Capture Tab

The Edit Tab is where you edit your project. From this tab, you can import media into your project via the load media folder. Once you have all your media, it resides in a visual folder called the Media Room. This room houses all aspects of your media: audio files, video files, still images. To preview what the clip or media file looks like, you can double click the file and it will appear in the preview window. Once you have all the media files in the Media Room, you are ready to begin assembling your project. PowerDirector Express uses either a Timeline or Storyboard mode for editing.

The Edit Tab

Virtually all entry level video editing applications give you the choice to choose which mode you'd like to work with. In Timeline mode, when you insert a video clip, that clip will take up the exact amount of space on the Timeline that the clip is in duration. For example, if you add a three minute clip to the Timeline, that clip will take up three minutes on the Timeline, which can be viewed in the Timeline bar located at the top of the Timeline. In Storyboard mode, when you insert a clip, it just sits in a box with the clip's duration information located below the clip. If you are going to add titles, voice, or music to your project, it may be easier to work in Timeline mode, because you get a visual representation, including durations of everything that you place on the Timeline. To the left of the media Room are five picons. From the top, these picons are the Media Room, as discussed above, the title room, the Transitions room, and below those are the audio mixer and the voice over recording.

Title Designer

The Title Room is where you pick a Title style that you want to add to your project. There are 25 styles to choose from, including several different kinds of wipes, rolls and crawls, and rotation-style titles. If you wish to preview a title, you simple click on the title that you wish to preview, and its style will display in the preview window. To add a title to your project, just grab the title from the Title room and place it on the Title portion of the Timeline. Double click it and the Title Designer opens so you can edit the title. You can tweak the titles attributes here. This includes the capability to change the color of the text, the font, size, and how the title behaves, as well as modify the duration of the title. You can also bold the title, italicize it, right, left, and center justify, as well as undo and redo the changes you made to the title. You can also position the title as well. When you are finished, click ok and you are done. You can further add more titles anywhere in the project.

The Transition Room offers 60 different transitions that you can choose from to spice up your project. The transitions run the gamut, there is boxed transitions and burning transitions to collapses and dissolves, all the way to fades and wipes and everything in between.

The Transition room offers many transitions to choose from.

As with the Title Room, you can preview each of the transitions in the preview window before you commit them to your project. Once you have a transition in mind, it is as easy as grabbing the transition and placing it between two media clips. To preview how the transition looks in the project, you can simply move the progress bar to the portion of the project just right before the transition and press the play button. The project will play for you complete with the transition. Several years ago, you would have had to render the transition before you could view it in your project. Today, for many applications, including CyberLink PowerDirector Express, you don't have render the transitions to preview them in your projects. If you wish, you can also have the application apply a random transition effect to all.

Produce Tab

Produce enables you to specify how you want to display your project. From the Produce window, you can choose to produce a disc (VCD, DVD, SVCD, or MiniDVD), create a file (DV AVI, Windows AVI, DiVX, MPEG-1 or MPEG-2), create a streaming file Windows Media Video, RealVideo or QuickTime), or write back to DV tape. PowerDirector Express takes a step by step process in the produce window. For example, to create a file, you must choose the file format in which you wish to create the file in. When you select the file format, you can further adjust the file's quality via the settings button. Clicking next will take you to the rendering window, which details the file type, the codec, the video size, and the duration of the clip. Pressing the start button starts the rendering process.

After you produce your project, and if it is a project amenable to burning, the next and final step is to burn the project. Clicking the Burn tab launches PowerProducer Express, which you can read about here.

Conclusions
The video editing component of CyberLink's DVD Solution 3 PowerDirector Express provides quite a bit of functionality. You can edit in both Timeline or Storyboard mode, there are ample transition effects and titling choices to choose from, and the output, or burn capabilities are numerous. The interface is laid out in a logical fashion and there are plenty of options and tools to tweak your projects, from adding cool transitions to adjusting the quality levels of produced files. The capability to edit for both NTSC and PAL formats is also available. I especially liked the color coding that occurs when you add a transition to the Timeline. At least this way you know there is something going on between clips. I personally like working in Timeline mode, because it gives you control over all aspects of the project, especially the audio track. Storyboard mode does not handle the Voice or Music tracks, and if you are working in Storyboard mode and try to add audio, the application will automatically switch to Timeline mode. Overall PowerDirector Express is a very capable editing tool and works well with the suite. It is easy to use and offers just the right amount of features for those new to the computer video editing process. For more information, visit www.gocyberlink.com