PowerProducer

Creating pro-looking DVDs, Blu-ray discs, and video CDs is a simple and hassle-free task with CyberLink PowerProducer.

This wizard-based tool can also transform your image collections into slideshows and capture video and photos via any camera connected to your system. You can then combine any of these captures with existing video clips and slideshows to create stunning discs. As a bonus, the program comes with an extensive set of extra tools that will allow you to copy discs, burn ISO and RDF image files to disc and vice versa, erase discs, rip DVDs, and design your own disc labels in the most intuitive way. Apart from creating all types of discs, you can also “edit” rewritable media, burn data to disc, and produce AVCHD and AVREC high-definition video files.

Being the program’s main feature, movie disc production has been designed in a wizard-like way so that all kinds of users can make use of this powerful utility regardless of any previous experience with the matter. You just need to select the type of disc you wish to create and define its main characteristics (aspect ratio, capacity, etc.), select the media files you want to include in it, a menu template, and burn the project to the corresponding disc. It is this simple, though this versatile program comes with a plethora of extra features that will help you enhance your discs. Thus, you can edit your video files by cutting, merging, or splitting them before transferring them to disc. Likewise, you can customize the slideshow that the program generates automatically from your photos by changing the transition effect, choosing a preferred display time, adding a “pan & zoom” effect, editing any of the photos using PhotoNow!, or by adding some background music to it. When authoring your menu, you can use any of the templates provided or design your own. Chapters can be automatically detected by the program using the “scene detection” feature, or you can set your own chapters manually. You can preview your work of art before burning it to disc, and perform any necessary adjustments. While your movie is being authored you can use the time to design and print your disc label and covers using CyberLink LabelPrint.

The disc utilities that PowerProducer offers are just as useful. Here you can erase rewritable discs, clone your favorite discs, make DVD-VR discs compatible with the DVD-video standard (so they can play in any DVD-compatible player), open and close rewritable media, burn image files to disc (both ISO and RDF), create image files from DVDs and Blu-ray discs, burn discs from video folders, and rip DVDs to file in a snap.

If you take into account all the features and utilities available in PowerProducer, you will find it difficult to come across a similar tool that matches its versatility and flexibility. This, together with its easiness of use and the high quality of the output it produces, allow me to recommend PowerProducer to anyone interested in serious disc authoring and production.