Product Reviews

Video editing is pretty much the coolest thing you can do with a PC, especially since it's now capable of better-than-VHS quality. It is, though, a bit of a nuisance when you have to output edited home videos or cinematic masterpieces back to boring old VHS - and this is where the latest versions of Ulead's (and MGI's) video editing software step in. Their built-in DVD authoring allows you to create DVDs of your footage, complete with menus and immaculate image and sound quality. The downside is that you also need a DVD-R drive to burn the discs, and these cost around £500. All is not lost though, as both can use a CD burner to produce VideoCDs with limited but reasonable quality. Or try Mini DVD, to fit twenty minutes of high quality DVD-compatible video onto a CD-R!

VideoStudio comes from the same camp as the very capable Media Studio Pro reviewed last month, but caters for the home user without hundreds of pounds to spare. It still offers lots of scope for creating professional-looking results, with support for all the main file types (including MPEG-2 as used by DVDs and the better capture cards), and DV for anyone with a DV camera and FireWire card. There's also a vast collection of transitions from 3D

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explosions to burning paper, sophisticated text animation, plus lots of effects, ranging from simple colour correction to the more creative whirlpool and emboss. All these come with a range of templates to drop straight onto a clip, but you can also set your own parameters, and even morph between two settings across the length of a clip.

The interface is generally good, with a collection of headings across the top to guide you from initial capture to rendering the finished file. Each one covers an area such as compiling clips, or adding text, music or narration, and the consistent screen layout helps make editing quick. However, there's still a number of missed opportunities and areas of potential confusion, such as the Effects editor that actually deals with transitions, while the effects themselves are tucked away out of sight as Video Filters. The fixed layout also wastes screen space on 17in monitors, and it took me days to find the standard fade among the many submenus of transitions. At least most of these quibbles will become insignificant as the program becomes more familiar.

The interface's one stumbling block is in previewing work-in-progress, which is only possible after rendering the whole project as a single, temporary file. This means for videos over 30 seconds long you may as well not bother, as a preview will take many minutes.

Despite its many benefits, VideoStudio isn't the best video editor under £100, as the editing tools don't come close to those offered by Sonic Foundry's VideoFactory. VideoFactory provides tremendous creative scope, plus proper real time previews, and we can't stress enough what a difference this makes to the creative process. But, alas, it has no DVD authoring. So, you'll need to decide which is more important, or perhaps just go for both!