Windows 2 Apples

In a previous podcast, I admitted to shifting most of our video projects to the Mac so that we could use iMovie 09 video cropping to produce videos with the look and feel of recordings made with two or three cameras rather than one. When I realize I was becoming dependent upon my Mac, I began anew to look for Windows based video editors with a similar feature.

I have tried many Windows based editors over the years and finally settled on using Pinnacle Studio 12. Pinnacle is far from an ideal or even truly acceptable solution. It seems to take forever to produce output once edited and regardless of output settings the final product is almost always inferior to that produced on our Macintosh. Happily, I have discovered PowerDirector version 8 published by CyberLink. A major enhancement offered by version 8 over previous releases is the ability to crop videos much as I do when using iMovie 09.

PowerDirector 8 has the added advantage of a true multi-track timeline and intuitive user interface interface. A common trait shared by most PC-based video editors are interfaces that look like they were designed by geeks with no interest in aesthetics. PowerDirector screens and Windows appear as rich, glossy black displays with large buttons and responsive controls. As Apple users know, aesthetics are important. CyberLink has produced an application demonstrating Windows applications can be gorgeous as well as utilitarian.

The reason I downloaded the software and began experimenting with it was because of the crop mode available when accessing what CyberLink refers to as Power Tools. As in iMovie 09, I can crop an area of the screen to zoom in and gradually pan from one area to another. The Apple software uses the Ken Burns effect to smoothly segue from focal point to focal point. PowerDirector uses a more flexible but less intuitive trajectory assignment and keyframe referencing scheme to shift focus from one part of the screen to another. Although offering greater flexibility it requires a considerably more involved learning curve.

An immediately noticeable advantage is how quickly finished productions are rendered. I suspect, if I had been photographed as I watched the first time it produced a video my mouth would have been noticeably open. Not only does the application produce the finished video much faster than my iMovie on Mac and my other Windows video editors but the quality and resolution is excellent.

Other features that make Director stand out from the crowd are: the ability to enhance and upscale video resolution using process they call TrueTheater, a particle effects designer application which makes it possible to modify and create custom special effects. If you feel magnanimous, you can easily share your custom special effects and menus with other users through the CyberLink on-site social network. PowerDirector allows sophisticated edits using up to nine picture in picture (PiP) tracks. Dual monitor support is built-in as is optimization for Intel Core i7 technologies which purportedly enables wickedly fast rendering. Additionally, you have access to thousands of free additional effects created by CyberLlink and other users, turnkey uploading of your finished projects to Facebook or YouTube in HD quality and with the Ultimate version, the ability to produce and burn HD videos to Blu-Ray discs.

Although the provided menu and titling templates are less impressive than those bundled with iMovie 09, PowerDirector 8 supports a more granular approach to modifying and creating custom effects. And keep in mind the almost overwhelming and growing selection of free effects and add-ons produced by other PowerDirector users.

The Deluxe version sells for $70. The Ultimate version with Blu-Ray support can be had for $100 US. You can download and test drive a free limited version. Both iMovie 09 and powerDirector ship with built-in help screens and online tutorial videos. Unfortunately, as is often the case with Windows applications, PowerDirector online video tutorials are poorly organized and not even close to the quality of those offered by Apple. Apple sets the bar for on-line multimedia documentation. I admit, it does sting a bit more when video tutorials designed to support a video editing application feel so amateurish. For once, it would be nice to see a Windows application offering tutorials at least as well designed and executed as those provided by Apple.

Even though iMovie 09 is touted as being particularly well designed for those wanting to quickly splice together videos clips, I actually found PowerDirector far better suited to completing short video projects. It was a chore to create a simple DVD compilation of one of my favorite video podcasts, Old Jews Telling Jokes, using iMovie 09 and a relative piece of cake using PowerDirector 8. If I go back to using iMovie 09, it would be to complete fairly long and complex projects. Using the clunky concept of events as opposed to traditional folders to organize and categorize assets still feels uncomfortable and then there is the inevitable re-learning if I’ve not used the application recently. The use of traditional folders and timelines by PowerDirector 8 make it so much easier to import and organize video clips, photos and music and hen to stitch them together as a finished project.

As you might expect, all is not wine and roses. PowerDirector has a tendency to crash. The saving grace is … I was almost always able to recover interrupted work with minimal loss. I wouldn’t say that it crashes anywhere near as much as did the record holder of crashing … MacSpeech Dictate 1.3 but enough for me to make myself save my work every fifteen minutes or so. I hope this observation doesn’t keep listeners from trying PowerDirector 8 if they feel it meets their needs. The last project I edited was completed without a single crash and I am very pleased with the finished product. Thanks to PowerDirector 8, video edit projects have been shifted back to our Vista PC.

If you visit the MindFitnessFoundation.org website you can view examples of videos edited using both iMovie 09 and cyber link PowerDirector 8. Episodes four and five were produced using iMovie 09 and episode six using PowerDirector 8.

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