Product Reviews

VideoStudio often seems like the comfortable slippers of video editing. While it rarely delivers ground-breaking features, it has always managed a decent set of tools to take a video-editing project from start to finish, and for a lower price than the competition from Pinnacle, Roxio and Sony.

VideoStudio 8 is a bit different, though. While VideoStudio has never been short on features, version 8 adds masses more, and some are really quite ambitious. Text overlay has undergone a thorough overhaul. There's also a new Movie Wizard for automatic editing and adding more effects. You can import footage directly from DVD discs, and a handy batch converter lets you change the format of a whole collection of video files in one go. The new Audio View lets you mix various audio elements more precisely, while Auto Music generates incidental music that matches the length of your movie, and video. Audio tracks can now also be edited independently of the video: useful for getting your soundtrack just right. Finally, photo-slideshows now benefit from a Pan and Zoom option. This means that, instead of just showing a photo immediately in its entirety, the software may start by focusing tightly on one area then pan out to reveal the rest of the scene.

Of the new additions, the animated text is a particular highlight. You

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can format each word or phrase separately, and choose different animations for each from a choice of classy-looking presets. The results look great, but sadly, you can't precisely control the timing of each element, so more ambitious text montages can become confusing to read. The Pan and Zoom function makes slideshows look gorgeous, and you can even specify the exact movement of the virtual camera to guide the eye across a photo. It's a shame you can't do the same for video, though. The new audio functions are generally great, but there are some weird glitches - it's really tricky to set the volume of a track to zero, for instance. The Movie Wizard is less impressive: its templates are either dull or tacky, or dull and tacky.

We're also disappointed to see that there a few problems that still haven't been addressed, despite us moaning about them for years. Transitions are found under the Effect tab, while effects don't have a tab, but are hidden away in a drop-down menu and called Filters. Surely it won't upset current users if these are given sensible names and locations. Ulead claims that previews are instantaneous, but there's often a five-to-10 second wait while VideoStudio readies itself, and playback stops if you use the timeline zoom controls. We also wish it didn't crash as much - at least once a day in our tests. Admittedly, Pinnacle Studio and Roxio Videowave suffer the same problem, but Sony Screenblast Movie Studio is far more stable.

Despite our grumbles, VideoStudio 8 is still an excellent update to an already strong product. The new Pan and Zoom and text animation are particular highlights, while VideoStudio's format support and DVD authoring facilities remain the best available at this price. On the other hand, its foibles can be frustrating, and will be tricky for novices to work around. We'd recommend that anyone serious about video editing save up for Sony's Screenblast.