Product Reviews

It took Adobe a long time to release a low-cost video-editing program, but with Premiere Elements the company got it right first time. It changed little from the heavyweight application Premiere Pro, producing by far the most powerful video-editing software aimed at home users.

Unlimited tracks meant that video, still image and audio elements could be layered in ways other low-cost editors couldn't hope to achieve, while object motion and effects settings benefited from comprehensive key frame-based automation, allowing the user to morph settings over time with incredible levels of precision. Premiere Pro isn't the easiest program to get to grips with, but Premiere Elements added some welcome signposting to help new users find their way.

One of these signposts was a series of buttons that ran along the top of the screen labelled Capture, Edit, Effects, Titles, DVD and Export. Clicking these buttons rearranged the windows onscreen, bringing all the necessary controls for a particular task to the foreground. Best of all, you could customise each screen layout to your liking, giving the timeline more space in Edit mode or making the Monitor window larger in Titles mode.

The most obvious difference in Premiere Elements 2 is that its windows are docked together, so expanding one automatically contracts those beside it. You can also dock windows over each other and access them through a series of tabs. This makes the screen feel slightly less cramped, although it still looks busy. One disappointment is that the Effects and Export buttons have disappeared. We found

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it useful to switch between Edit and Effects modes, so it seems strange that we're no longer allowed to do so.

The one area where Premiere Elements lagged behind competitors was in its DVD authoring, which consisted of picking a template and changing the text. In version 2, it's possible to rearrange the layout of menu buttons, reformat text and use your own background image, video or music in menus. This is great news for those who are put off by the cheesy templates, but it's still not possible to personalise the menu navigation layout, which ambitious users may find limiting. DVDs can be encoded with stereo Dolby Digital audio, which uses less space than PCM audio and frees up room for more or higher-quality video.

SUPPORTING ROLE

Premiere Elements is now less fussy about video and audio formats. We imported footage from a wide variety of digital cameras and even from unencrypted DVDs. However, there's no HDV support, which is a shame now that HDV cameras are within reach of home users. Other new features make the software easier or faster to use, such as a Split Clip button, opacity and volume fade in/out buttons and thumbnails that show what effects do before you apply them. But in places Premiere Elements is an uphill struggle for new users. Many effects present their settings as a list of jargon and numbers. And while having dedicated key frame tracks for each parameter gives tremendous precision, casual users may find it baffling.

Premiere Elements 2 isn't a huge improvement over its predecessor, but it's a welcome one. However, its main rival, Sony Vegas Movie Studio, is easier for beginners and faster for experienced users. For example, overlapping two clips in Movie Studio puts a dissolve transition between them, but doing the same thing in Premiere Elements chops off the end of the first clip and puts it after the second clip, which seems pointless. Given the recent power boost Movie Studio 6 has received, along with HDV support in the Platinum Edition, Sony's programs are our top choice for inexpensive video editing. But if complex animated video collages are your thing, Premiere Elements is the only low-cost option