Review by Rawim

Cyberlink PowerDirector 13 Ultimate is a powerful video editing program that can let you do a ton of really cool things, the biggest drawback is the learning curve it takes to get proficient with how the programs works and how to apply the various edits tricks and effect you want to use.

Installation is relatively simple, but lacks directions or instructions, you just get boxes that open up asking you which program you want to install, now I could figure out what order I want to do this in, but someone less experienced may get confused. Installation was fairly quick, probably under a half hour for all of the programs on both discs. Also once installed and running, the program recognized that it needed to download a free update to the software to apparently help things run smoother.

I consider myself a fairly smart guy and pretty tech savvy but this program just seem to take me a while to get used to. You don’t get a lot of easily accessible instruction or help when working with this. There is a help file and manual, but it isn’t the easiest to navigate or find information in. When you have a big new program like this it would be helpful to have maybe some training tutorials or walkthroughs that would help you cover the basics of the software. It is nice that everything uses a similar interface to work with you just have to get used to that interface.

So I basically spent a weekend afternoon playing around and I was able to figure out the basics, there is a lot of built in effects and add-ons with this package. The mains ones for me being a wedding package, which includes all type sof pree made titles, effects, etc for weddings, and a holiday package which similarly had all sorts of great stuff for holiday videos.

So in fact I used the program to make a nifty little holiday video for the office, it was only a few minutes long, and only took a few hours to make, like I said once I knew what I was doing, the software made things pretty easy. The software made things look great, everything came out great in HD for a nice rendered web video and also burnt for hi-def on a blu-ray disc for posterity sake.

Overall this is a great program just be willing spend the time to experiment and figure out how everything works, do that and I think you will be happy.