Transform ordinary home videos into polished, professional movies with this easy-to-use editor
CyberLink PowerDirector 11 is the latest edition of this popular, feature-packed consumer video editor.
As with previous releases, the program provides everything you need to create professional videos, complete with soundtrack, transitions, special effects and more, before exporting your project to a file, sharing it online (YouTube, Facebook, DailyMotion, Vimeo), or burning it to disc, complete with your own custom menus.
And if you've tried PowerDirector before then you should find this release much faster, as the program now properly optimizes itself for your graphic technology (AMD VISION, nVidia GeForce or Intel 3rd Generation Core). While new multi GPGPU support means the program can, say, use the GPU processor in an integrated and additional graphics card to deliver even more performance (CyberLink quote a 38% speed increase as typical).
Elsewhere, a more flexible user interface means it's now easy to adjust the media room thumbnail size and timeline track height, so giving you a much clearer look at exactly what you're doing.
A new "Customize Keyboard Hotkeys" dialog displays all the program's hotkeys, and allows you to tweak them to suit your precise needs.
The Titles, Menus, Picture-in-Picture and Particle Effects designers now all run full-screen to help you produce more accurate results.
And of course PowerDirector 11 is now fully Windows 8-compatible, so if you're planning an early update then that won't be a problem.
Please note, PowerDirector 11 is available in several editions, and this one, Deluxe, is the most basic. If you don't need much editing power then it'll probably still be fine, but be aware that moving up even one edition, to PowerDirector Ultra, will get you significantly more features, including native 64-bit support; 3D movie editing support; new content-aware editing; full HD previewing; 4K and 2K Ultra HD import/ export support; BD/ BDXL/ AVCHD burning; and CyberLink's Premium Content Pack.
The download on this page is the trial version. You will receive the full build, with PowerDirector 11 Deluxe content pack, after purchase.
Review by Mike Williams.