Adobe Premier Pro CS4 vs Cyberlink PowerDirector

[mikeydvx]

Can someone who is more familiar with Premiere Pro CS4 fill me in on what I'm missing? I downloaded the trial and I fear due to the program's complexity I am probably missing some points. Right now I'm close to uninstalling Premiere Pro CS4 because:

(1) It is incredibly slow at rendering. It takes Premiere Pro CS4 5 minutes on my quad core 2.8 Ghz machine to render a 1080 video that is less than a minute in length. PowerDirector renders the same video in 27 seconds... and at higher quality. I'm running the 64 bit version of Premiere on Vista 64 which they claim will be 227% faster than the 32 bit version. I'd hate to see the 32 bit version!

(2) Premiere Pro CS4 can't even open the native MTS files from the GH1. You have to convert with something like NeoScene first.

(3) Premiere Pro CS4's export options are very limited. I have many more options in PowerDirector. Where's the option to export a 1080 MPEG-2 file in Premiere?

The only reason I'm trying Premiere is that, as far as I can tell, PowerDirector will only let you edit/create projects in either 30 or 25 fps format. It can't do 24 fps.

Anyone else compared these two programs or at least found an affordable solution to edit 24p native video?

Mike

[PhilD]

I can't answer your questions but I really want to see what people will answer because I might switch from Final Cut to Premiere soon (Macs are too expensive)

I don't know about PowerDirector but the fact that I've never heard the name means that I won't consider it (for now)

[mikeydvx]

I don't know about PowerDirector but the fact that I've never heard the name means that I won't consider it (for now)

So what does that mean exactly? You just want to spend a lot of money and hope that the most expensive thing is the best?

Mike

[PhilD]

So what does that mean exactly? You just want to spend a lot of money and hope that the most expensive thing is the best?

Mike

No I want a program that is widely supported and that I know will have tutorials for on the net, for the kind of effects that I want.

[1k0]

Hi mikeydvx,
I was so happy to use Premiere pro CS4.1 to editing AVCHD but... I got sames issues as you, except I was able to import GH1 AVCHD files. (due to the 4.1 update) + it crashed 5minute later editing a AVCHD file...

So I decided to go for Sony Vegas pro 8.0c just to see how it worked.
...
It is magic:
1/ you can import your AVCHD files, read and edit them well,
2/ Edit your project as you wish (I never got CS4 build a 720p project),
3/ Export your files in a billion formats (nearly ) with many many options

It works for me and my GH1 PAL model

Hope it will help you

[mikeydvx]

Hi mikeydvx,
I was so happy to use Premiere pro CS4.1 to editing AVCHD but... I got sames issues as you, except I was able to import GH1 AVCHD files. (due to the 4.1 update) + it crashed 5minute later editing a AVCHD file...

So I decided to go for Sony Vegas pro 8.0c just to see how it worked.
...
It is magic:
1/ you can import your AVCHD files, read and edit them well,
2/ Edit your project as you wish (I never got CS4 build a 720p project),
3/ Export your files in a billion formats (nearly ) with many many options

It works for me and my GH1 PAL model

Hope it will help you

Thanks. I tried Vegas before but found it difficult to get good results. Based on what you said, I'm giving it another try now. We'll see how it works out but so far, it appears PowerDirector is still much faster at rendering and much easier to get good output at reasonable file sizes. I need to give Vegas more time though, so I'll have to report back.

Mike

[mikeydvx]

Well, I really tried but I keep going back to PowerDirector. Sony Vegas seems capable but it is extremely slow at rendering and the video always seems to get very jumpy when I insert a transition like crossfade. Right now I just can't find anything that works as well as PowerDirector.

Mike

[Mike@AF]

If you render the same thing out using both programs do they look identical? Is it possible you're getting better quality from Premier Pro CS4 or Vegas than PowerDirector and that's why they take so much longer?

[mikeydvx]

If you render the same thing out using both programs do they look identical? Is it possible you're getting better quality from Premier Pro CS4 or Vegas than PowerDirector and that's why they take so much longer?

No, they look the same to me, plus the transitions in PowerDirector are much smoother and better than the jumpy, jittery transitions in Vegas.

Mike

[DrDave]

There should not be such a big difference in rendering times. Pull up task manager to see what your cpu usage is. Also make sure in CS4 you are not running a filter or perhaps checked the deinterlace box in media encoder--there are quite a few things that can slow the render times.