Although I am just a hobbyist in the video world, I am quite familiar with PowerDirector 13 for creating and editing video.
 
In a couple of weeks, a videographer will be shooting a group of girls dancing in a green screen room for a music video for one of my songs.
 
Question: Can PowerDirector produce a very high quality result?  I know it will do the simple effects I need (crossfade, chroma key, picture in picture, etc.).  I am more concerned with whether or not the output will be good enough from a quality standpoint.
 
I told the videographer I was planning to edit myself using PowerDirector, and of course he advised against it; but I don't know if this is just because he wants the work, thinks he's better, or if he sincerely thinks PowerDirector won't cut it.
 
I would be happy for someone else to edit, but 1-there is the question of money, 2-I wasn't crazy about the editing of his I've seen, and 3-doing something yourself is usually the way to get it the way you want.
 
The thing is, I can't pay a choreographer, dancers, and cameraman and rent a studio and then end up with something bad.  (I already went though that went an animator/artist whom I now despise.)  The end product needs to be pro if I cam going to spend the money.
 
Thoughts on the quality and capabilities of PowerDirector?

I have not used Power Director so i cannot give an honest opinion.  In general i think people , rather than products  are what are professional. A good editor with Power Director will create a better product than an amateur with any of the big names.  How well the footage was shot will often make a much bigger difference then which software you key with.  That being said, some keying software is better than others. Most professional editors treat editing and compositing (green screen work is included in this) as separate functions and often use separate software.  The keying options in most editing programs is basic at best.  It will get the job done when you have perfect footage to work from and the standards are low on finished product. Do you want your subject's hair to look like they got an impossibly neat trim or do you want to see fine hair detail?  pro green screen work often requires multiple passes.  One of the best keyers you can get is free and is included in Fusion (recently acquired by Black Magic Deisgn).  It's free but highly advanced with very steep learning curve. You can edit in Power Director.  After all, cuts and faded moistly look the same regardless of program.  You can do compositing in Fusion and have higher end results if you can master program.

I'm not sure about power director. But Blender which is free can do a good job of removing the green screen and compositing in a new background.
 
I did just that using blender in my music video. checkout the youTube link in my signature.
 
It can do quite a bit more and there is a learning curve but the results are good.
 
You can bind blender at www.blender.org if your interested. There are tons of video tutorials to help you get started.

I've used Power Director.  The output quality is as good as the input material you give it.
 
It's the same with video as it is with sound in DAWs, everything is being calculated by the computer so there's no reason why the quality of output should be any different with different programs. 
 
Where it may fall down by comparison to the bigger names is in the fine details.  Being able to remove the green/white around people shot against green screen,  or it's ability to colour correct/match different camera shots, etc.  It's those sort of things that the viewer may notice when watching the final result.

These comments are extremely helpful.  Thanks!

Tom Riggs
I'm not sure about power director. But Blender which is free can do a good job of removing the green screen and compositing in a new background.
 
I did just that using blender in my music video. checkout the youTube link in my signature.
 
It can do quite a bit more and there is a learning curve but the results are good.
 
You can bind blender at www.blender.org if your interested. There are tons of video tutorials to help you get started.

Blender is extremely powerful and maybe the best value of any video software. It is horribly unintuivie and unintuitive but capable of doing so many things. I have friemd that swears by it.  Among freebies, Fusion's keyer is still hard to beat.

I wouldn't describe Blender as Video software.   It's a 3D graphics creation package that has gained video compositing capabilities over the years.

That is correct Karyn. However the compositing in the new Cycles render engine and improvements to the VSE (video sequence editor) have made lots of progress.
[edit]
I see from one of your posts on the songs forum you are using Final Cut Pro on your Mac. How do you like it so far?
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I have only tried power director once a few years ago and the green screen stuff was a disaster for me. It does make a big difference if you can capture a good quality video and have a proper green screen and lighting setup.
 
In addition there are camera tracking tools and if you want to take a photo of a venue you can use the tools to map the room and place yourself in it.
 
I'm sure other tools can do the work as well perhaps even the current version of Power Director.
 
If you have not tried blender in the last year or so it would be good to check it out again, plus its hard to argue with the price. LOL
 
If you decide to try it drop me a note and I will help you find the correct tutorials for what you are trying to do.
 

Tom Riggs
I see from one of your posts on the songs forum you are using Final Cut Pro on your Mac. How do you like it so far?

I don't do a lot of video,  I got it a while back for some simple music video stuff I was doing at the time for a client and not used it much since.  The vid in the Songs forum was knocked up in an afternoon, including shooting...
It's VERY good for quick cut music vids, and while the learning curve is quite steep it's very easy to use once you know what you're doing.
 
I would still describe Blender as a 3D graphics package, not a video editor.  You use it to create content and scenes that you then import into an editor.
 
Yes, I have Blender.  No, I don't get to play with it as much as I want to

I've tried Power Director, Premiere Elements and a light version of Vegas. THey all work well but I found Premier to be the most difficult. Vegas and Power Director are both good but the Vegas version I have is only 32 bit.