Power Director 9 Question
 

I am using the trial version of Power Director 9 and noticed that it will not capture AVCHD. Will this also be the case with the full version?
Thanks.

Re: Power Director 9 Question
 

PD9's capture tab has AVCHD as a capture option for either DVD or AVCHD camcorders. Perhaps you missed that.

Re: Power Director 9 Question
 

Apparently. Thanks.

Re: Power Director 9 Question
 

Tried to drag and drop AVCHD files from PMB and it did not work. And, according to a site that compares different consumer editing programs, it says Power Director 9 does not accept AVCHD.

Re: Power Director 9 Question
 

I have not tried to capture AVCHD video with PD9. However, I use it frequently for editing AVCHD and it works well.

Re: Power Director 9 Question
 

If you are editing AVCHD using Power Director 9, how are you getting/downloading the AVCHD files to the program?

Re: Power Director 9 Question
 

In the upper left hand corner of the main display there is a small yellow folder icon which offers the options of importing a media folder OR files into PD9.

Re: Power Director 9 Question
 

Yes, I have seen that folder icon and tried to use it (I vaguely recall not seeing any AVCHD mentioned in the capture folder anywhere). The only way I could get my AVCHD files into PD9 was to change them to Mpeg2, which I don't want to do. If indeed, AVCHD can be used (and I can figure out how to use it), I will purchase the program. Unfortunately, my time with the trial has expired, so I can no longer test this product. I wish I could test it more to find out what I am doing wrong. I would hate to buy it and then find that I am constantly unsuccessful in using/unable to use my AVCHD files.

I recall in a comparison chart, the author pointed out that PD9 did not accept/work with AVCHD. I wonder if that was just for PD9 and not PD9 Ultimate (which may accept it?). Perhaps the trial is PD9 and not the Ultimate. I don't know, I'm just reaching here.

Thanks for your help. Hoping that things turn out for me if I purchase PD9.

Mike

Re: Power Director 9 Question
 

If you look at the following web page it confirms your guess. If you are buying, do so only from their web site.

PowerDirector 9 - World 1st 64-bit consumer video editing software

Re: Power Director 9 Question
 

Thanks. The Ultra is for me, then.

How do you judge the final picture for AVCHD final product, compared to what is actually in the camcorder? Personally, I think it looks darn fine, but somewhere else an opinion was stated that the final outputs' resolution was less due to so much rerendering of the files. What is your opinion?

Re: Power Director 9 Question
 

Mike,

I typically produce AVCHD, 1920x1080i footage. I do not use the 24 Mbps feature in PD9 since the visual differences to most viewers is negligible (even on a large screen) and thus the end product is a bit smaller allowing me to burn a full 1 hour AVCHD on a dual layer DVD. I also refrain from using 1920x1080p - I find it somehow jittery compared to 1080i. My input sources are either 1920x1080i AVCHD from a camcorder (24mbps) or 1280x720i AVCHD from a DSLR (24mbps). PD9 will not re-render a clip if it is identical to the source (it is not necessary) and uses the GPU on the graphics card (if compatible) to speed up the re-rendering otherwise. In my case (Win 7-64 bit, i7-920 cpu, ATI 5670 graphics) a typical AVCHD (1920x1080i - 24mbps) video project of 2 minute duration re-renders in 4.0 minutes (with video image correction, trimming, and audio track modifications) and 2.2 minutes if no modifications are made to the source. It is quite fast and the resultant video output is good. However, there are exceptions. And if you take a look at their forum pages there are users that have problems with HD editing. And of course the problem is the lack of solid industry standards making all of the NLE applications stumble at times.