Product Review: Page (2) of 4 - 05/10/05

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Auto Save
Auto Save is located in the Preferences file under the General tab. You can determine the duration that wish to work before VideoStudio 9 performs an Auto Save. The default is every 10 minutes, but you can choose to save every minute or any duration thereof up to 60 minutes. You can also save at any time, which is what I usually do. Auto Save helps you to concentrate on your work, and in the event of a crash, hopefully the software performed an Auto Save at the right time.

Ripple Editing
Ulead has added a new feature in VideoStudio 9 called Ripple Editing. Ripple Editing enables you to tweak clips in your project, either via trimming a clip or adding another clip to the project without disrupting the timing of your project. This makes it easier when you have to delete a clip from its position on the Timeline.

Flash-based butterfly sequence. Eighteen prebuilt flash animation files are included or you can use others from elsewhere.

Flash Animation Overlay Support
This release includes support for Flash animations. It ships with 18 prebuilt flash animation files (you can also import your own), that you can overlay over your video. In the image below, a flash animation of butterflies fly into the scene. The overlay options enable you to adjust the overlay border as well as the transparency. Transitions have also been enhanced with the mask and flashbacks transitions. The image below shows the flashback transition. Available in 15 styles, this particular Flashback look is similar to some of the flashback type scenes shown on TV these days.

Flashback transition

Masks
Masks come in three categories; Mask A, Mask B, and Mask C. Mask A features 21 masks, while Mask B features 9, and Mask C features 18 different Masks. All are different and all can be customized. by clicking the Customize cog. Many of these masks have a psychedelic look to them, so use them accordingly.

The customization window for masks

Audio Tweaks
VideoStudio 9 includes a few audio tweaks as well. Volume Leveling and Audio Reverb capabilities have been added to the mix. Volume Leveling attempts to match loud and quiet audio so your project will have audio consistency while Audio Reverb adds what Ulead calls a sense of acoustic space to your movie's audio. When I applied Audio Reverb to the audio portion of the clip, the sound was similar to that when speaking in an empty room with no carpeting. 

Auto Music Maker

Auto Music Maker automatically creates music tracks for your video. Based on the SmartSound QuickTracks application from Sonic Desktop Software, there is a small library of tracks that you can listen to and experiment with, including Bach Guitar, Blues to Go, Boulevard Funk, Cold Metal, Hot and Spicy, Innocence, Island party, It's Cool, Kickin' Back, Mozart night, Movie logos, Motor City Jam, and more. These can be added to your timeline and you can have them auto trimmed for the duration of your video or you can determine the duration manually. There is also a built in music analysis engine that Ulead says detects rhythm patterns in the background music, enabling transitions to occur to the beat of the music.  

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