How to Speed Up, Slow Down, Reverse, and Freeze Video in PowerDirector
Change the speed of a whole clip, or make it change speed partway through.
Updated Aug. 29, 2026 · 5 min read
In a hurry? Use the video speed quick guide instead.
PowerDirector gives you five ways to change speed, and which one to pick comes down to a single question: does the whole clip change, or does the speed change partway through it? Everything else follows from that, including what happens to the audio, which is the part that catches people out on their first slow-motion shot.
- Whole clip, fast: hold Ctrl, grab the clip edge, and drag when the cursor turns into a clock.
- Whole clip, exact: double-click it, open the Speed tab and set Uniform Speed.
- Changing speed within one clip: Speed Presets > Custom and build a curve.
Changing Speed in PowerDirector
Prefer to watch? Here is the whole thing in a little over three minutes.
Which Method for Which Job
All five live in different places, so it is worth knowing where you are heading before you start.
| What you want | Where to do it |
|---|---|
| Roughly faster or slower, whole clip | Hold Ctrl and drag the clip edge on the timeline. |
| An exact speed, whole clip | Speed tab > Uniform Speed. |
| Speed that changes within the clip | Speed Presets > Custom, then build a curve. |
| Hold a single frame | The icon beside + on the speed curve, then set a duration. |
| Reverse, or a replay effect on part of a clip | Video in Reverse for the whole clip, or Action Camera Center for a segment. |
The Fast Way: Ctrl and Drag
Hover the edge of a clip and hold Ctrl. When the cursor becomes a clock, drag: shorter speeds the clip up, longer slows it down. No dialog, and the length you see is the length you get.
The Exact Way: Uniform Speed
Double-click the clip and open the Speed tab. Under Uniform Speed, drag the slider or type a value. This is the one to use when the speed has to be a specific number rather than whatever the drag landed on.
What Happens to the Sound
Speeding a clip up raises the pitch of its audio and slowing it down drops it, the same way a record played at the wrong speed does. On anything with speech that is immediately obvious.
Tick Keep audio pitch and the sound stays where it was. The checkbox carries its own range, 0.1x to 10x only, so it holds the pitch across everything short of the extremes.
Past a point the audio is dropped entirely. PowerDirector prints the limit next to the control: when the speed is greater than 10x or less than 0.1x, the audio will be muted. Keep audio pitch does not change that, so if the sound vanishes on an extreme speed, the speed is the reason.
Changing Speed Within One Clip
To start fast and end slow, one speed for the whole clip is no use. Open Speed Presets and choose Custom to get a speed curve instead.
Put the playhead where the speed should change and click + to drop an adjustment point. Drag it up to go faster there, down to go slower. Add as many points as the shot needs.
Freeze a Frame
Move the playhead to the moment you want held, then click the icon next to + on the speed curve. Enter how long the freeze should last and apply it.
Play It Backwards
For a whole clip, the short route is the Video tab: open Tools and switch on Video in Reverse.
For part of a clip, use Action Camera Center. Drag the yellow block over the section you want, which is what makes this the precise option rather than the whole-clip one.
With the segment selected, tick Apply replay and reverse and Add reverse effect to get the replay-then-reverse move in one step. Apply stop motion in the same place plays the section with regular frame-by-frame pauses.
The Result
A clip that runs at whatever speed the shot needs, changing partway through if that is what the edit calls for, with the audio still usable underneath it.
Haven't got PowerDirector yet? Five ways to change speed, from a keyboard drag to a curve that accelerates partway through a shot. All five are in the editor.
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