CyberLink's high-end suite comes packed with post-production goodies
Director Suite is CyberLink's most powerful post-production suite, which includes PowerDirector 11, PhotoDirector 4, ColorDirector, AudioDirector and three CyberLink Creative Design Packs.
As with previous releases, PowerDirector 11 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, or burning it to disc, complete with your own custom menus.
And some interesting new features make this whole process faster and more efficient than ever.
There's no longer any need to waste an age manually browsing lengthy movies, for instance, identifying the key sections you'd like to import, because PowerDirector 11's new content-aware editing can do this for you. In just a click you have the program analyze any clip, quickly picking out the important scenes - the shots with zoom, pan, motion, faces and more. All you have to do is select these with the mouse, and import them for further work: much quicker and easier than ever before.
And your subsequent edits should also be much faster with PowerDirector 11, 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).
If you like to live on the leading edge then one of the ways you might use this extra power is via the program's new end-to-end support for 4K Ultra HD resolution; 4,096 x 3,072 (60p/60i) or 4,096 x 2,304 (60p/ 60i).
And benefits elsewhere include a more flexible, configurable interface.
The Titles, Menus, Picture-in-Picture and Particle Effects designers now all run full-screen to help you produce more accurate results.
And in the fourth quarter of 2012, CyberLink will also release PowerDirector Metro, their first Windows 8 tablet editor, allowing you to do quick work outdoors before importing and continuing your project in PowerDirector proper.
Director Suite goes further and bundles a selection of other professional CyberLink tools.
ColorDirector is a professional colour correction tool which uses advanced motion tracking to help enhance, correct and adjust the colour temperature and intensity of your videos.
AudioDirector is a capable and very complete sound designer which can apply special effects to your soundtrack, repair audio problems, record custom audio, mix tracks and more.
And the suite also includes PhotoDirector 4, a powerful tool for transforming regular images into polished, professional photos.
Note that you receive the full Director Suite 1.0 build after purchase, which is approximately 4.7GB with all the extra content. The trial download here is much smaller. There is no backup/install disc option for Director Suite 1.0, it's download only. Director Suite 1.0 is not available from retail.
Review by Mike Williams.