Limitations of PowerDirector

[DarkChorus]

I bought PowerDirector from a place other than Steam on a sale. Already I've found limitations to the program. I will list them for your review and for suggestions for company improvements:

1. To output a custom resolution, you need to create a profile and then edit an .ini file manually. Otherwise PowerDirector FORCES the output to be 16:9 or 4:3 ratio format.

Example: You want to create a 200 x 700 resolution video for a web banner with no letterbox black bars. That is not possible in CyberLink PowerDirector, Corel VideoStudio, nor Adobe Lightroom. These programs were designed to output to YouTube or a television, not to output for user customized needs.

2. There is no method to output animated gifs. Files may be saved as AVI and you can use a different program to convert them into gifs.

3. The obvious one: Cyberlink does not *appear* to respond to anything in these Steam forums.

[SkullCracker]

Was reading #1 and #2 and was like damn that sucks. I read #3 and was like how pathetic. If they sell on STEAM someone should be here answering questions when people ask. I buy a lot of things here and don't feel like logging onto another website for some simple answers.

[`Clu`]

I totally understand your frustration with this program with your first complaint, DarkChorus. I would totally purchase PowerDirector or ColorDirector, as I love the color regrading features in them. But the lack of an easy customizing of resolutions is a deal breaker. I mean even cheaper programs like Filmora or less featured programs like Xilisoft Video Editor have an easy way of inputting a custom resolution in their menu boxes. I can't believe Cyberlink is up to version 16, and hasn't implemented this. I've e-mailed them about this, and they appear to be deaf on this issue. I guess they don't want increased sales.

[jablonsa2]

There is a workaround by manually editing the profile.ini file. but first create a custom profile in PowerDirector. exit out of the program and look for the Profile.ini file.
the Username will be specific to your computer and version of powerdirect as well.
C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\CyberLink\PowerDirector\19.0\UserConfigure
now open profile.ini file with MS Word. scroll down to the bottom and you should find your profile. edit the resolution, frame rate... save and your are set.

Also Im using power director 19, not sure if previous versions had this but in the (produce file) window to the right of select a file format: there is a Profile Analyzer button. it does not look like a button but it is. select that and it will analyze your video, find its resolution, bitrate, everything and let you create a new profile based on that. Im really grad I found this.

The issue I was trying to solve is the loss of quality im getting. Visible loss in sharpness and color. I am not only comparing against the original but another export i did on a old version of Premier CS5 which only exports to 264. And the export PowerDirector does to 264&265 are worse. And its driving me nuts because Im not paying for a new version of Premier and the old version I have does not recognize my gpu for quick rendering. Power director will render my video in 1-2 minutes. its closer to 35-40 in premier. I will experiment and see if I can somehow manually force it to render at a higher quality somehow.