Q
QC 2.0
I do not have the same "buggy as all hell" experience like you in the new version and I'm definitely not trying to blame your pc.
There is workaround to restore the timeline cursor behavior to the old one you like.
For the "Fire" effect, I guess you can not find it because they've already removed some "old-fashioned" effects in the previous powerdirector 365 v21.
Cyberlink support once provided users a workaround to restore the old effects. I've tested it and the trick is still effective in the new powerdirector 2024 or 22.
Delete this file in powerdirector's folder:
C:\Program Files\CyberLink\PowerDirector22\CESdlls\PlugIn\CES_DSP_ExtInfo.xml
You may backup it in advance if you're worried about the deletion breaking powerdirector.
I'm not a fan of the new design, and the search in the Effect room really sucks.
But, I understand that as the video subjective has changed, video editing can no longer be enthusiasts stuff only.
We all know Pros won't and never come to use powerdirector no matter in the past or now, but newbies won't come either if the software didn't change but just act what it used to be in last couple years.
Yep, Davinci is free to use, but all the professional studios will pay the premium. There is nothing really 100% free.
For the video issue and crash issues you mentioned, if you really want to get the problem resolved or get further help, contact cyberlink support to let their engineers check further.
If there are bugs in the software, it is impossible to "fix" in few hours or in few days even weeks. It takes time to investigate the cause, modify the program, testing, etc..
In software engineering perspective, immediate or quick fixes are not possible nor feasible in theory in such big software.
P
Paul Dutton
QC 2.0: "But, I understand that as the video subjective has changed, video editing can no longer be enthusiasts stuff only." I don't understand this point. How does taking out basic functionality like 'Apply to All', or producing an editing timeline that is really laggy and slow (compared to previous versions) respond to 'change'? Surely the 'change' should be an improvement on the previous versions, but virtually everything's got worse!
D
David Savery
I’m logging this just to get it off my chest. I don’t expect a response, and even if I were to go through the support channels it would take a week and be the usual “here’s a link to some tutorials” boilerplate.
PowerDirector has been ruined which is why I’m cancelling my 365 subscription once I’ve wrapped up my work in progress. That’s not just my opinion; take PD University, a YouTube channel of over 130k subscribers who creates tutorials for PowerDirector. Here’s his response when I asked him on Twitter what he thought of the recent updates:
“Let’s just say it crashes so much I can’t even make tutorials. After the latest update I moved to Davinci Resolve for all my client work and my other YouTube channels. Still fond of PD but I have to get things done so I had to move on.”
He stopped posting updates to his channel back in June.
Frankly, if he can’t get it to work, then what hope is there for the rest of us? And if Davinci Resolve is his go-to, then that’s where I’ll be heading.
Now, I’m sure Cyberlink think PD is still a great editor and that they’re doing a fantastic job, but I’m going to explain why I’m not going to give them any more of my money, and they can take that as feedback or ignore it entirely, but there’s no point in them trying to convince me that today’s terrible iteration of this once great product is still worthy of my cash. I’ve been using it. So, let’s start with the UI.
Imagine you had a pretty slick product which was well liked, yet for whatever reason you figured you’d change the recipe. Think Coke vs. New Coke – and look how well that went down with the masses. Whenever software makers shuffle around the look, feel and colours of their interface design as much as they have, the effect is not one that’s easy to swallow for those using the product. We have to re-learn where everything now is, and all prior tutorials by the likes of PD University are instantly obsoleted because icons and menu options are no longer where they were.
The new UI has a feel of being designed by committee. It’s like different groups made their changes to individual elements without all talking to one another. I expect they all think they did a great job, but does anyone there ever try using the product to, you know, actually edit a whole video project? They should give it a go and see how frustrating it now is, especially compared to how it was six months ago.
And that new interface? Buggy as all hell. Here are a few examples:
After making a trim edit on the timeline, one moves the timeline cursor to just before the edit to view the result, however it now selects the clip below the cursor position which plays only to the end of that clip before jumping back to the clip’s beginning. Why would anyone want that to happen?
Keyframe editing worked better when it was all in the lower third panel and lined up together. What is this mess shovelled up in the top left when trying to tie multiple keyframes together?
Search results no longer work properly. If I go into Effects and search for Blur, I get no results. It’ll show a result if I search under Style Effect, but then I have to know it’s in Style Effect, and if I know it’s in there, I probably wouldn’t need to search for it!
Some effects are now missing entirely. In a previous project earlier in the year, I used fire and explosion effects, however I cannot find them now even with reinstalling the extra effects packages. A search doesn’t work (of course), but I’ve manually scrolled through everything without success. Previously, a search for ‘explosion’ would have turned up a result in moments.
The new iteration is buggy and crashes often. Here’s one example of a repeatable crash, at least for me: Click Titles / Stylize / LED and watch it fall over every. single. time. There are other gotchas just waiting to jump on your unsaved changes.
For some reason, the new version has problems with some of my camera's MP4 files that prior revisions did not. As a result, merely trying to view a clip in the timeline results in a ‘Rendering’ message appearing frame-by-frame making one current project in-edit a write-off.
F10 no longer brings up the audio recording. Why bother changing key presses users are used to?
The audio in the timeline often shows no waveform making audio editing tricky. When the waveform is there, if the beginning of a clip is trimmed, the waveform moves in relation to the cut. Example – an audio clip has a noise at the start of recording which shows as a peak on the waveform. One drags the clip past the peak to start the audio after it, but the waveform moves in sympathy with the cut so that the peak still appears even though it’s no longer heard in the audio. If the clip is moved, the waveform refreshes to show correctly.
The new UI has a habit of jumping to the end of the project. If I make a timeline edit near the start, then press CTRL-Z to undo such, it jumps to the last clip in the project!
Not a bug in the new UI, but a perma-pain of PowerDirector – why does pressing Stop or letting the cursor reach the end of the final clip default it all the way back to the beginning? I’m editing the end of the video, why would I ever want it jumping back to the start?
This isn’t an exhaustive list, but it’s a bunch of niggling faults that have ruined one project entirely and made the user experience too frustrating for me to begin too many new ones on this platform. The stupid thing is, how are Cyberlink not seeing these faults and jumping on them? Why take a fluid UI and turn it into something that feels slow, clunky and frustrating?
Before anyone blames my PC entirely, I switched from my old computer, which ran PD just fine until recently, and I’m now using a new machine bought just last year with all the same bugs and annoyances carried over.
Again, I don’t expect a response. I doubt anyone official even read this. It’s ironic though that I left Movavi back in 2021 for all the same reasons – they brought in a UI refresh that make the thing clunky and unreliable, and now the same has happened here. But hey, thanks for all the useless stickers and goodness knows how much “A.I.” nonsense I’ll never need. I’m off to download Davinci. While I wrap my head around trying to use that, maybe someone at Cyberlink should have a crack at actually editing something together using their own software.
Although be prepared to press CTRL-ALT-DEL quite often though and for goodness sake save changes regularly!
M
Marcos Rocha
David Savery: Davinci is a good alternative, video editor, audio editor, animation editor (kind of After Effects) all in one, a lot of tutorials, just one software for everything, everything is high level, PowerDirector audio editor quality is infinity lower than AudioDirector, only the name of the functions is the same, to enforce you buy the AudioDirector, we don't have a simple OpenFX support on PowerDirector because they want enforce you buy this low level content packs and subscription with low level materials and effects. Davinci is the same software used in hollywood, pro level and FREE! Why pay for PD now that is this s**tty?
D
David Savery
Marcos Rocha: I agree. It's just the pain of learning something new... again. But you can tell how little Cyberlink care - look at this forum and the number of unanswered queries on it. The place is a wasteland. Even with the support system you're limited to 5000 characters in a ticket only to be fobbed off a week later by being directed toward guides and FAQs. It's baffling when a software company torpedos their own product, but here we are and it doesn't take much digging around to see how many people are unhappy with how things have turned out.