CyberLink Offers Two Paths To Home Movie Production Complete Video Editing or Quick Movie/Slide-Show Assembly Eric Grevstad
Mon 1/6/03 -- Digital camcorders and CD and DVD burners are everywhere, but users are still all over the place in terms of their tech skills and film-producing patience. So CyberLink Corp. has announced two home movie-making programs aimed, respectively, at novice and intermediate users who want to capture, edit, and create CD or DVD movies.
PowerProducer ($50) is a wizard-based program that emphasizes speed and ease of use. A simple interface walks users through the process of making a movie or photo slide show with chapters and menus: After asking which of four disc formats (DVD, MiniDVD, VCD, or SVCD), two video standards (NTSC or PAL), and two quality levels (HQ or SP) you want, PowerProducer automatically configures the optimal video capturing profile and generates new files when video length reaches disc capacity.
CyberLink says the program's Smart Video Rendering Technology renders MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and DV-AVI video faster than any other on the market, since after producing your title, PowerProducer needs to render only the portions of the video that were edited. Chapters can be created manually or using automatic scene detection, with a real-time preview available to make sure everything will look good.
If you want more powerful, hands-on producing, PowerDirector Pro 2.5 ($100) delivers a full range of video trimming and editing features in a simple, drag-and-drop storyboard interface. A choice of non-real-time or InstantMPEG real-time conversion of DV footage provides top-quality video, while slow/fast motion and over 20 video special effects, plus title, transition, audio, and even picture-in-picture effects, give maximum creative control.
Over 90 menu templates help create a polished project, while a full array of CD and DVD burning options -- including a wizard that automatically includes a DVD auto-run program for playback on PCs without DVD software installed -- take care of PC or TV viewing.
