CyberLink PowerDirector 11 Director Suite

Introduction
CyberLink’s EnergyDirector was once a quite restricted video enhancing software program that was bundled with the whole lot below the solar, from graphics playing cards to optical drives. But the corporate’s sturdy video patent portfolio and dedication has lifted EnergyDirector slowly and certainly in the direction of being taken severely alongside the alternate options from Adobe, Corel / Ulead and Avid / Pinnacle. PowerDirector 10 continues to be the buyer video enhancing utility with essentially the most complete help for 3D. With EnergyDirector 11, nevertheless, CyberLink hopes to climb yet one more rung up the ladder, and probably topple its rivals.

CyberLink EnergyDirector 11 Applications
The greatest information about EnergyDirector 11 is that CyberLink has branched out to incorporate two extra helper purposes, ColourDirector and AudioDirector. We shall be wanting on the options of those two newcomers, which can be bought and used standalone, later on this overview. For now, suffice it to say that ColourDirector brings options you’d usually anticipate to see in a high-end video instrument like Adobe After Effects, while AudioDirector gives {powerful} audio amenities akin to Adobe Audition or SoundForge. Used alongside EnergyDirector 11, they each present round-trip enhancing, the place you possibly can name them from inside EnergyDirector, with any modifications you make being mirrored again to the host app. This is broadly much like Adobe’s DynamicLink, and makes ColourDirector and AudioDirector basically perform as super-powerful plug-ins.

However, the brand new apps are solely included within the new, costlier EnergyDirector Ultimate and Director Suites, which price £199.99 and £239.99 respectively, pushing the value for EnergyDirector into new territory which not many video purposes have inhabited for some years. If you buy the EnergyDirector 11 Director Suite bundle, you additionally get the more and more {powerful} PhotographDirector, now in its fourth incarnation.

With such {powerful} new capabilities readily available from these two new additions, the principle EnergyDirector utility doesn’t really feel prefer it has fairly such important enhancements by itself. The interface isn’t noticeably completely different from the earlier incarnation, with the truth that media library thumbnails might be resized simply utilizing a slider being the obvious enhancement. There have been some noticeable enhancements below the hood, nevertheless. The rendering engine already appeared to help each {hardware} acceleration obtainable. In model 10, other than being 64-bit and multithreaded, to profit from a multi-core CPU, it was accelerated by OpenCL and CUDA, so may harness the facility of most up-to-date AMD and NVIDIA graphics playing cards.

With model 11, EnergyDirector may harness a number of graphics playing cards, together with Intel HD 3000 and 4000 built-in graphics alongside a discrete graphics chispet. There’s additionally optimisation for AMD second-generation APUs in addition to Fusion and Vision. However, solely a portion of EnergyDirector’s results are GPU-accelerated. We discovered scrubbing and playback fairly slick once we did use accelerated results, though this may differ relying on the host {hardware}. Our check system was packing a 2.2GHz quad-core AMD Phenom 9550 with 6GB of DDR3 SDRAM and NVIDIA Quadro FX 1700 graphics, so a comparatively modest specification by right this moment’s requirements. But the software program was very usable even with a number of layers of AVCHD check footage.

CyberLink EnergyDirector 11 4K Compatability
As we talked about initially of this overview, EnergyDirector already had essentially the most complete native help for 3D footage in model 10. CyberLink appears to be like additional into the longer term with model 11 by including help for each 2K and 4K footage. The former has a horizontal decision of two,048 pixels, and the latter 4,096 pixels. This permits EnergyDirector to deal with digital cinema footage shot on Hollywood-grade cameras just like the RED, though there isn’t a native help for RED’s REDCODE R3D information, so these must be transformed to MPEG-4 previous to import.

The Content Aware Editing system is an attention-grabbing new addition, though it isn’t included within the Deluxe model, simply Ultra and above. You select a clip, and proper click on to edit on this mode, which begins evaluation of the footage. When that is full, a brand new window seems with a timeline exhibiting how the clip divides into sections. Any zooms are detected and proven, as are pans. But the software program will even point out when faces are onscreen, when there’s movement within the body, and when shaky video or poor lighting is detected. With the latter two, there’s a easy icon to allow computerized fixing of each issues, which works extraordinarily rapidly. However, the concept behind this technique is you could rapidly discover the attention-grabbing parts of your clips, then mark these as chosen or deselected. For instance, the belief is that you’ll in all probability need footage with folks’s faces in it (comparable to members of the family) and motion, quite than sections with no one in them and nothing occurring.

CyberLink EnergyDirector 11 Effects
A number of smaller enhancing enhancements have been included too. You can undock the preview window and transfer it by itself to a second monitor, then maximise it for a full-screen preview. Ripple enhancing permits you to add or take away clips while sustaining the alignment of the remainder of your edit. You can select to overwrite, or transfer simply the affected monitor to the proper, and even transfer all tracks to the proper. There are actually hotkeys for varied instructions, which you’ll be able to customise as desired, for instance replicating the instructions utilized by an enhancing utility you may have used earlier than. The Design Studio now consists of timeline-based Designers for Titles, Menus, Picture-in-Picture and Particle Effects. You can create four-colour gradient borders within the Picture-in-Picture, Title and Menu Designers, too.

The results included have additionally been expanded, though not all variations could have this. A few further NewBlueFX packages have been included. There are 10 new movement results and 12 new paint results from NewBlueFX, in addition to a brand new Content Pack Premium equipped by CyberLink itself. This features a host of latest content material for the title, particle, picture-in-picture and menu designers. However, EnergyDirector Deluxe simply will get the unique 10 NewBlueFX Effects and Content Pack Essential. It’s additionally value noting that not one of the NewBlueFX filters are GPU accelerated.

CyberLink EnergyDirector 11 ColourDirector
ColourDirector is the primary of the 2 quite stunning new additions to the EnergyDirector arsenal. Although it may be used by itself, and bought for £99.99, it’s strongest when utilized in tandem with EnergyDirector. Accessing ColourDirector from inside EnergyDirector entails selecting the Fix/Enhance button simply above the timeline after which choosing the ColourDirector button. This masses the clip into ColourDirector, the place you can also make the changes you need. The Back button then returns you to EnergyDirector, the place your changes shall be instantly mirrored. Reload ColourDirector with the identical process, and you can also make extra tweaks to your settings.

Once you may have a clip loaded into ColourDirector, an enormous vary of color changes grow to be obtainable. These embody very refined color correction, comparable to one-click white steadiness. Tone might be adjusted, with separate controls for 5 ranges of brightness, in addition to general publicity and distinction. There are sliders for readability, vibrancy and saturation. Hue, saturation and lightness might be adjusted for eight completely different color ranges, and one might be changed wholesale with one other, though this may trigger some negative effects when utilized globally, altering areas you may want left alone, regardless of the tolerance slider.

There are additionally Magic Bullet-style colourisation presets to offer your footage the look of particular movie sorts or outdated video broadcasts. You can create your personal presets, and there’s a direct conduit to CyberLink’s more and more standard Director Zone, so you possibly can obtain the presets of others, or add your personal. These modifications are all non-destructive, even when transferred again into EnergyDirector. There’s a keyframe timeline which might be uncovered, offering the choice to differ just about each parameter because the clip progresses. There are even reasonable trimming and splicing instruments, so you possibly can confine your work to a small part of a clip. Automatic scene detection is obtainable, to drag out a number of clips from one video file.

ColourDirector’s specific energy might be present in its masking skills, nevertheless. You can choose a area by defining factors round it and regulate solely the world inside or exterior that, though the factors haven’t any Bezier controls, so vertices shall be very angular. Gradient masks might be utilized, too, which can be utilized for quite a lot of duties, comparable to enhancing a boring sky with a bit extra variation, or making a quasi-tilt shift impact. All the identical adjustment parameters can be found as can be utilized when making world changes.

Perhaps essentially the most stunning characteristic of ColourDirector is its capability to trace the movement of an space of color and substitute this space with one other color because it strikes. Similar instruments to the spectacular sensible choice brush present in PhotographDirector 4 can be utilized to focus on an space to trace, and ColourDirector will then undergo the clip frame-by-frame and monitor this space. You can then regulate the settings only for this space, for instance to alter the color of a shirt, or invert it, for instance to make the whole lot however the shirt black and white. We discovered the tracked space must be steady and never vastly various in form or measurement, however in any other case the outcomes had been fairly spectacular, and never like something now we have seen exterior of Adobe After Effects, which prices round ten instances the value.

CyberLink EnergyDirector 11 AudioDirector
EnergyDirector did already include a decent WaveEditor with some helpful audio results and enchancment capabilities, which could possibly be accessed from inside EnergyDirector utilizing the Edit Audio button simply above the timeline. AudioDirector, nevertheless, might be accessed in the identical manner and goes a complete lot additional. For a begin, WaveEditor can’t natively edit audio past stereo, and can convert 5.1 sound to this format for adjustment. AudioDirector, in distinction, can deal with 7.1 multichannel sound in LPCM format, and may load the audio from MP4, M2TS, and 3GP video information in addition to AVIs and MPEG-2. This is a real multi-track audio instrument, with help for as much as 99 layers of audio, with as much as 32-bit 192kHz sampling. The waveforms are represented on a visible timeline with rubber band controls for quantity keyframes.

Keyframes can be utilized with the audio results, too. There are a number of those obtainable, and this may be prolonged utilizing third-party VST plugins. However, the audio restoration instruments are what singles AudioDirector out most of all. Noise discount and therapeutic applied sciences from iZotope are inbuilt, permitting you to take a print of background noise and take away this. Particularly {powerful} is the spectral view with therapeutic amenities. This permits you to discover particular blemishes inside your audio, comparable to a siren within the background, and take away simply that, leaving just about the whole lot else untouched. There’s an computerized harmonic finder, too. This will find the identical noise supply at completely different frequencies and choose these for removing as effectively. This is a really high-end facility, and can initially be comparatively laborious for a newcomer to know. But it’s an especially {powerful} instrument, permitting way more skilled audio enchancment.

Overall, AudioDirector’s toolset is uncannily much like Adobe Audition, which is not any dangerous factor, as Audition is without doubt one of the finest sound instruments within the enterprise. AudioDirector is a strong audio enhancing and sound therapeutic utility, and obtainable standalone for an inexpensive £99.99, when you don’t buy it throughout the EnergyDirector Ultimate or Director Suites. Our solely criticism is that it doesn’t embody any loop-based musical soundtrack creation. Although EnergyDirector does embody SmartSound QuickTracks, it will have been much more {powerful} to have this obtainable inside AudioDirector, the place higher mixing management shall be obtainable.

CyberLink EnergyDirector 11 Verdict
CyberLink EnergyDirector 11 Director Suite isn’t going to offer the highest high-end skilled video enhancing platforms stiff competitors but, and possibly CyberLink gained’t need to take it this far. But it does signify an enormous step in the direction of the applying being a critical alternative for the semi-professional and fanatic market. It reopens a mid-range that has been uncared for for a while, with solely Avid Studio concentrating on the superior hobbyist and marriage ceremony videography sector immediately, since Avid Liquid and Corel MediaStudio Pro have lapsed into obsolescence. This is quick changing into a mature and really succesful video enhancing platform, with a easy workflow and loads of options, notably when you go for one of many high two bundles. These could each be fairly a bit costlier than the buyer competitors, however they provide capabilities that none of them at the moment have.