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Cyberlink PowerDirector 15 helps ease your 360 video editing woes

This full-featured suite includes several tools to combine and correct immersive clips, while its PhotoDirector 8 counterpart will have you using movies for all kinds of still shots.

Headshot of Joshua Goldman
Headshot of Joshua Goldman
Joshua Goldman Managing Editor / Advice
Managing Editor Josh Goldman is a laptop expert and has been writing about and reviewing them since built-in Wi-Fi was an optional feature. He also covers almost anything connected to a PC, including keyboards, mice, USB-C docks and PC gaming accessories. In addition, he writes about cameras, including action cams and drones. And while he doesn't consider himself a gamer, he spends entirely too much time playing them.
Expertise Laptops, desktops and computer and PC gaming accessories including keyboards, mice and controllers, cameras, action cameras and drones Credentials
  • More than two decades experience writing about PCs and accessories, and 15 years writing about cameras of all kinds.
Joshua Goldman
2 min read

Several 360-degree cameras have arrived in the past year for consumers, but a good, simple way to edit the video from them has lagged behind.

One of the best desktop apps I've seen is the Samsung Gear 360 Action Director app bundled with the company's Gear 360 camera. These tools are now available in Cyberlink's new PowerDirector 15 suite for Windows.

The package doesn't do stitching, so it's meant for cameras that export in equirectangular view (think of a flattened globe). But it has tools for trimming and combining 360 clips and adding titles, transitions and animated particle effects. You'll also have the option to convert 360 video to regular 16:9 widescreen clips while using the full spherical view as a virtual camera operator by panning and tilting through a scene.

The base PowerDirector 15 software ($70, AU$130 orï¿¡80) includes the 360-degree tools, but if you want even more control, you can add the company's ColorDirector 5 ($130, AU$130 or ï¿¡100), which uses motion tracking to accurately color grade objects moving thorough 360-degree video.

The suite has a whole host of editing tools for standard video, too, which includes some specifically designed for action cams.

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PhotoDirector 8's video-to-photo tools let you create things like multiexposure shots from a movie clip.

 Cyberlink

Cyberlink also debuted PhotoDirector 8, which oddly has several new video-related features, namely, options for using video to create stills. You can capture single frames, sure, but you can also turn a panning shot into panoramic photos or take a clip of someone moving through a scene and turn it into a multiexposure picture. And if you always struggle with group shots, you can use video to select the perfect expressions for everyone in the shot and create one still image.

PhotoDirector 8 Ultra ($100, AU$110 orï¿¡80) is available for Mac and Windows version and includes 25GB of space on CyberLink Cloud for a year, while a Windows-only Deluxe package is $60, AU$65 orï¿¡50.