The last time I looked at Power Director from CyberLink, I was impressed by what it could do but distressed by relatively frequent crashes. The latest version is still impressive and the crashes seem to have disappeared.
Power Director 15 has suggested retail prices ranging from $230 (Ultra) to $400 (Director Suite), but nobody ever seems to pay that price. Expect to pay about $60 for Ultra, $70 for Ultimate, $150 for Ultimate Suite or Director Suite. So perhaps you're wondering who this application is for.
If you're a professional, you'll be more likely to use Adobe Premiere Pro and you will have spent countless hours mastering both the Premiere Pro interface and the other applications that enhance it -- Prelude, Speed Grade, After Effects, Audition, Media Encoder, and more. Power Director is aimed at consumers and, as such, it scores a direct hit.
Several competing programs are available for consumers: Adobe Premiere Elements, which has an interface that's very easy to learn and use, Corel's Video Studio, and Magix Movie Edit Pro are all aimed at the same market segment.
Power Director's interface is somewhat complicated, but that's because the application offers many advanced features that aren't found in consumer products in this price range. It even offers a 9:16 video mode for those people who forget to hold the smart phone in a horizontal position. This is in addition to the two standard horizontal formats, 4:3 and 16:9.
If you have a smart phone, you also have a video camera. The camera might even support 4K video and Power Director can handle 4K video. It also supports exporting to the new H.265 format, which offers better compression performance and lower bandwidth needs when compared to H.264.
Power Director runs on any version of Windows beginning with Windows 7 in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. As with all other video applications, the 64-bit version is recommended. Installing will consume about 1000 MB of disk space.
When started, Power Director will offer (1) choices for the aspect ratio, (2) interface options for the editor, and (3) an option to always use the full editor. If you choose the 4:3 aspect ratio, but the first video file you import is 16:9 or 9:16, you'll see a recommendation to change the setting. Most users, once they get past the initial learning curve, will probably want the full editor. The 360-degree editor is useful only if you have hardware that supports this format.
Power Director automatically loads several sample files. This is annoying and there should be some way to turn this off. When you're learning how to use the application, these training files are useful, but they just get in the way when you're ready to work on your own projects.
When I asked CyberLink to provide an evaluation copy of the software, I had a particular project in mind: Last year, I had several reels of 8mm film converted to video. The videos were all far too dark and the audio tracks included a horrendous hum and I wondered if this application had tools that could be used to improve the output.
The basic application (Ultra) doesn't include CyberLink's Color Director, but when that's added the user has impressive abilities to fix exposure, colors, contrast, and more. The built-in audio tools were insufficient when it came to eliminating the noise, so I used Adobe Audition for that task.
Apple developed the concept of allowing the software to create a story using a template and your video clips. I've never particularly admired the results of randomly selected scenes, but I do have to admire the built-in intelligence that allows an application to do this.
CyberLink includes Express Projects, but you need to download the templates. You'll have a choice of nine -- wedding, travel, adventure, love, anniversary, action, and such. Drag opening, middle, and ending clips in -- add extra clips -- and then let CyberLink do the rest. It's a more manual process than what Apple and Adobe offer in their consumer products, but that means it's also more customizable.
If you have a camera that's capable of creating video for a 360-degree project, the MagicMovie feature will help you to produce it. Likewise, if you have a GoPro or some other "action camera", Power Director offers a special Action Camera Center for features that are commonly used -- speeding or slowing the video, freeze frame, replay, and such.
Power Director also supports combining video from multiple cameras. Unlike in the old video tape days, digital recordings are easier to combine. The program supports video from up to 4 sources. Typically, you'll use the audio from one track as the main source and switch only the video. Use professional sync methods if you prefer, but you'll probably find that Power Director's audio analysis function will do an entirely adequate job and you won't have to deal with complex timecodes.
You'll also find the ability to create slide shows and tools to create menus for DVD projects.
A worthy update makes a strong video editor even better.An already good program has been improved significantly. Professionals will stick with Adobe Premiere and its many associated programs, but those who want to cut together home videos should definitely take a look at what Power Director has to offer.
Additional details are available on the CyberLink website.
Both the House and the Senate have now passed astoundingly great pieces of legislation -- if you're an internet service provider. If you're a customer of an internet service provider, it's not so good. The Senate passed the law last week, the House followed this week, and the president says he'll sign it.
The law eliminates privacy rules established by the Federal Communications Commission last year, rules that were already far more lenient than those in the European Union. Internet service providers will now be free to capture massive amounts of information about how you use the internet and then sell that information to advertisers. Will your bill be reduced because the ISPs can make money from selling information about you? Don't bet on it.
The Senate sponsor of the bill, Arizona Republican Jeff Flake says that the new law "will not change or lessen existing consumer protections" and he said that the new law will give consumers the ability to "make informed choices" about how their data can be shared.
Whitehouse.gov explains that the legislation nullifies a rule that required ISPs "to obtain affirmative 'opt-in' consent from consumers to use and share certain information, including app usage and web browsing history." Regardless of how Senator Flake characterizes the legislation, the White House explanation certainly makes the law seem to be the very opposite of giving consumers choices.
Consumer advocates have condemned the new legislation that they say gives ISPs the right to track users and gather private information such as your location, finances, and health information, and then sell that data to advertisers. Randolph May, head of the Free State Foundation, however, says that web sites and apps already collect this type of information. This reminds me of Arlo Guthrie in Alice's Restaurant when he was looking for a place to dump some garbage: "We decided that one big pile was better than two little piles and, rather than bring that one up, we decided to throw ours down." Now rather than making web sites and app developers clean up their acts, we'll just allow ISPs to be even worse.
You don't do anything illegal, so you don't care who sees you? I hear that a lot, but maybe you don't want it to be public knowledge that you've visited a medical site to find out about early-stage Alzheimer's or a venereal disease. Maybe you'd like to keep your visits to that porn site confidential. Maybe you don't particularly want the names of the banks or stock brokers you use to be shared publicly.
So you use the browser's "incognito" mode because that will protect your private data. Sorry, but no. Incognito means that the browser won't store any information locally about where you've gone so you can keep members of your family in the dark. The ISP still sees and can track every bit of information to and from your computer.
Wired Magazine has a summary that says "Several technical workarounds—especially virtual private networks, or VPNs—will return some semblance of control to you, the internet user. But even these solutions are far from perfect."
The article says opting out might be a possibility, but an ISP in a market with little competition would have scant reason to appease customers by allowing them to opt out.
I've maintained that any wireless user should have a virtual private network (VPN), but now maybe they'll be needed for wired connections, too. VPNs generally slow the connection speed and the article points out that you need to be able to trust the VPN provider not to collect your information and sell it. There are other problems, too: "Netflix, for example, tries to block all VPNs to prevent people from accessing content not licensed in their home countries."
Instead of using a VPN, maybe you should switch to ToR. It's the best option currently if you value privacy, but many websites block traffic from ToR because they can't track users and make money from then. Using it could attract the interest of the FBI.
As bad as internet privacy is today, it's about to get worse. A lot worse.
Microsoft's Patch Tuesday for April (the 11th) will push the Creators Update out to users, but you might be able to download it earlier if you'd like to. Windows Insider members in the Slow Ring received updates this week. The update is, of course, free for any device that's already running Windows 10.
Although the update process will begin on Patch Tuesday, your computer may not receive the update then. Microsoft says the update will be rolled out in a "measured way" to ensure the best possible customer experience. If you don't want to wait, several tech websites reported links to the ISO files on Microsoft's website. Some of these sites are still displaying those links even though Microsoft has blocked access to them, returning a 403 ("Forbidden") error. If you choose to search for the files on your own, be very careful. Better still, just wait until mid April and Microsoft will deliver.
3D is a significant part of this update. A new Paint 3D app makes it possible to create 3D objects from scratch, modify colors, and add textures. Users can also start with a 2D picture and convert it to 3D.
Microsoft says that 3D industry will grow by more than 60% in the next 3 years. 3D better represents the real world, but most graphics tools have been limited to 2D. Adding 3D opens the door to "mixed reality", the ability to merging of real and virtual objects that can interact in real time. New computers to be released next month from Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, and Lenovo will eventually include Windows Mixed Reality-enabled headsets. The devices will be available later this year for $300.
Computer monitors emit a lot of blue light and the Creators Update has a "night light" feature that reduces the blue. This feature has been on some phones for a while. The display has an amber cast that's said to help users sleep better. This would be a problem for anyone who's using the computer to adjust color on photographs, but it's a good idea for those who use the computer at night.
Windows Defender has a new Security Center dashboard that Microsoft says allows users to keep an eye security: anti-virus, firewall, system performance, and more.
If you'd like to delay the upgrade instead of getting it earlier, I'll talk about that next week.
A new version of Alien Skin's Exposure X2 is free to existing users. Expect a more detailed report in a few weeks. It's called the Advanced Layers Update. In the past Alien Skin and other developers created plug-ins for Photoshop, but now most of these applications work both as plug-ins and as free-standing applications. This puts the developers in a position of being both partners and competitors for Adobe.
The Exposure X2 Advanced Layers Update adds layering to enable stacking effects for added creativity. Layers can be copied and pasted, turned on and off individually, and applied to multiple images.
Effects have been added to the vintage presets section for platinum tones characterized by warm blacks and expanded mid-tone grays and border overlays simulate the matte brushed region that surrounds the image. High DPI support has also been added for compatibility with 4K monitors and a quick-exports function makes it possible to simultaneously save variants for web, publishing, and other uses. This version adds supports for several new cameras and manual lens correction.
The Advanced Layers Update for Exposure X2 is a free update to owners of Exposure X2. New users will pay $150, and users of previous versions of Exposure can upgrade to the X2 version for $100. There's also a 30-day free trial version.
See the Alien Skin website to learn more and to download the update or the free trial.
Last week I titled an item "How to Fix a Misbehaving Mouse (Maybe)". It's still very much a maybe situation.
The problem I described involved the scroll wheel making the mouse seem like it was being chased by a large and hungry cat. A single click of rotation caused the screen to scroll a full page in just about any program. Changing the Control Panel scroll wheel settings lasted only until I rebooted the computer. Then I found a Registry setting that seemed to help.
It still seems to help, but (much like privacy on the internet) it may be just an illusion. The Registry setting allows the Control Panel change to survive reboots. Sometimes.
Other times, I find that the scroll value has been reset to the apparent default of 3, which makes the mouse crazy. Sometimes the value stays at 1 where I set it. On one occasion, the value was 4 following a reboot and the mouse wasn't even remotely usable.
Sometimes it's necessary to sneak up on a solution. This seems to be one of those cases.
