Magix Gets Serious
The low-cost video editing software
market has really been heating up in the past year or so, resulting in a
plethora of low-cost, full-featured video software packages. Case in point:
Magix Movie Edit Pro 10, a rich, well-rounded solution that costs about as much
as a newly minted video game. Magix clearly intends to corner the worldwide
low-cost video editing market with
Movie Edit Pro 10, and our first look indicates they might just have a winner
on their hands. Pro 10 includes storyboard and timeline editing, CD/DVD
creation, slideshow software, a well-organized interface and excellent built-in
tutorial options. This product will do almost everything a hobbyist video
editor would ever want to do, while leaving plenty of room for the Adobes,
Avids and Apples of the world to take up the slack when it's time to grow into
the professional realm.
Start It Up
To test Movie Edit Pro 10, we installed the software on our test Pentium 4 computer
with a 2.8 GHz processor, 1GB RAM and an ATI Radeon 9800 video display card.
Movie Edit Pro 10 comes with 2 CDs: a Program CD-ROM and a Content CD with an
archive of video and audio material you can use in your productions.
Installation was a bit time-consuming, and resulted in one easily recovered
crash. Total time required setting up the software, crash and recovery
included, was about 40 minutes.
After installation, two new program shortcuts appear on your desktop: one
for Movie Edit Pro 10, and another for Magix's Media Manager 2004 Silver
software. The latter is a limited edition version of Media Manager Platinum, a
sort of cross between a full-featured file player, photo album software, disc
burner and uber-iTunes knockoff, complete with a music editor and a gigantic
list of Internet radio stations.
Movie Edit Pro has many helpful tutorials and other
explanatory features that will make this multi-function software easier to
understand.
Let the Editing Begin
Movie Edit Pro 10 offers both Storyboard and Timeline-based editing, and
functions in a way that's similar to many low-cost editing applications. One
nice function in Storyboard mode is the Text button. This brings up the titler,
which comes with dozens of preset movements and a few simple options for text
fonts, styles, colors, and movements. The FX button brings you to the effects
screen, which has endless options and dozens more basic presets for warping,
stretching, manipulating color, adjusting transparency, creating simple
composites and otherwise visually distorting your images (This screen is the
most fun part of Movie Edit Pro 10). The Transitions button gives an easy way
to load one of 170 standard transitions between your clips, or create your own
by combining them.
Up to 16 tracks are available in the Timeline view. Each can hold either
mono or stereo audio, still images, or video. From the Timeline view, you can
easily access the program's audio filters and the program's handy Audio Mixer.
Also found in the Timeline view are tools for adding chapter points to videos
that you plan to export to DVD.
In both Timeline and Storyboard view, buttons along the top of the screen
offer easy access to