Cyberlink’s Director series of video editing software suite has new versions, with PowerDirector 16, ColorDirector 6, and AudioDirector 8 offering new and enhanced tools to users of the NLE.

With the release of PowerDirector 16 and Director Suite 16, Cyberlink introduces several features and a industry leading collection of 360° Video editing tools, including color grading, titles and transitions and, last but not least, audio. Also new and the first-of-its-kind is the 360° video stabilization.

Traditional video stabilization is designed for narrow fields-of-view, unable to extend to the 360° space, and commercial-grade 360° video stabilization software options are limited and costing several hundred dollars. Consumers filming 360° video from handheld or mounted cameras have been forced to endure shaky footage. PowerDirector 16 now enables users to quickly remove this shakiness with a unique stabilization algorithm that is able to identify and correct both rotational and translational camera motion.

According to Cyberlink, the Director series’ 360° video editing capability extends to both its color grading solution, ColorDirector, and its audio editing studio, AudioDirector. Users can import 360° footage, apply and preview global color grades, or use ColorDirector’s automatic tracking tools to enhance specific sections of a scene, then export the video. AudioDirector also allows users to import and edit audio for 360° projects, before round-tripping it back to PowerDirector for final production.

“The 360° camera industry is forecasting growth of 5,000% over the next 6 years,” said Dr. Jau Huang, CEO of CyberLink. “With the substantial increase in volume of 360° video being recorded, it’s important that people have access to tools that transform raw footage into creative art. Our Director series is the first – and currently only – software that takes them from start to finish through that process.”

The new version of Cyberlink’s NLE; PowerDirector 16, includes other features, like a Video Collage Designer, allowing users to combine up to seven different video clips into a single customizable collage complete with animated openings and premium effects and templates from leading plugin makers, NewBlue, proDAD and BorisFX.

Color Matching, which automatically adjusts lighting, saturation, and color variables of clips to achieve a consistent look across an entire project and LUT Support, which allows users to apply color tables to footage to achieve instant film-grade looks are also present in the program. In terms of 360°, the stabilization fixes shaky 360° footage instantly for smooth, flowing video from any angle, while the 360° video titles and transitions make it possible to create of 360° projects without warping and distortion.

The new ColorDirector 6, for color grading, offers the option to import, color grade, preview and export 360° video footage. The new grading tool from Cyberlink also offers One-Click Tone Adjustment, which automatically keyframes scenes in your footage and adjusts video tone accordingly, dehazing, to instantly remove fog, smog and haze from footage for significantly clearer videos, and noise reduction, to reduce extraneous visible artifacts including luminance (grain) and color noise, which degrade video quality.

The third program from the Director Suite, AudioDirector 8, introduces 360° Video Audio Editing and also offers Codec Preview, to preview the result of lossy encoding before production to enable smart processing decisions and better sounding audio tracks. Auto-Fit Music, to adjust backing music tracks to fit the length of your video, and Ambience Creator, to instantly generate ambient noise for soundless clips to blend seamlessly with neighboring footage, are some of the new features included in AudioDirector 8.

Price for the Director Suite 6, which includes PowerDirector 16, PhotoDirector 9, AudioDirector 8, ColorDirector 6, over $1000 worth of premium content, and 50GB of space on CyberLink Cloud for 1 year is $299.99. There is also a subscription version option, Director Suite Live, priced at $99.99/12mo. or US$49.99/3mo.

The PowerDirector 16 Ultimate Suite, including AudioDirector 8, ColorDirector 6, over $900 worth of premium content, and 50GB of space on CyberLink Cloud for 1 year, costs $249.99. Cyberlink offers other packages that can be found online. Users only interested in PowerDirector 16 Deluxe can buy it for ($69.99). ColorDirector 6 and AudioDirector 8 can also be bought, priced at $129.99 each.

The products are available online at the CyberLink Store and in selected retail outlets worldwide in the following languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Japanese and Korean.