| Page (4) of 4 - 05/10/05 |
 email article |
 print
page |
|
There are two ways to create a slideshow. You can use the movie wizard feature and insert images, or you can drag and drop images onto the timeline of the video editor. When you create a slideshow via the video editor, you can easily add effects and transitions in the same way as you would with video. To apply effects to individual images, you simply drag the effect/filter to that image's position on the Timeline and drop it right on the image. The software will do the rest. All the parameters that are available for tweaking when in video mode, are still applicable when in still image mode. The second and easier way is to use the Movie Wizard.
| | |
| Slideshow with Flash bubbles and pan and zoom applied |
When you add images, the movie Wizard automatically adds them to the Movie Wizard Timeline. Click next and you are brought to the screen where you can work with some of the new features mentioned above, such as determining the duration of the images,, apply smart pan and zoom, change the duration of the images, fit to background music tempo and duration and fit to background music tempo. Once you've made all these adjustments, your next step is to create a video file, create a disc, or edit in VideoStudio Editor.
DVD Motion menu support
VideoStudio has always had several output options available. In addition to the capability to write back to video tape, and several flavors of digital video, the application can also create DVDs complete with motion buttons and audio and video based backgrounds.
First Impressions
VideoStudio 9 gets more feature laden with each release, which can be a good thing and a bad thing. All of the editors in this category seem to be adding so much content to their applications, that the install footprints are getting larger and larger. VideoStudio 9 requires 1.2GB for a full install of the application, which could be considered average. Some applications in this space require upward of 3GB of free disk space for a full install, which was unheard of just a few years ago. This is a good thing because there is so much content that can help you to spice up your projects, but it can be a bad thing because of the disk requirements. Many folks are still working with minimally configured computers with 40 or 60GB disk drives. And video is a disk hog. The only solution in this case would be to add a second hard drive if applicable, or to get a bigger hard drive of say around 80GB. This would give you some huge elbow room to work with. System requirements are another story. While the box says a minimum 800MHz Pentium III CPU with 256MB RAM (512MB recommended) running Windows 98SE or later, it calls for a mere 4GB free disk space is required for video. This is truly a minimum configuration, because for all the effects and other features to the application, you are going to need a lot more horsepower and disk space to run this application without frustration.
All the players in this space are guilty of low balling the minimum system requirements, but video editing tools, especially today's offerings with full blown special effects and such, require major horsepower. I created some videos with the VideoStudio 9 on a 3GHz Dell Precision 360 system with 512 MB RAM and 25GB of free disk space. While for the most part everything ran just fine, the rendering of the video to a file when I was done sprucing it up was wanting, and this was for an 8 minute video. People running this application on an 800MHz machine probably won't have a very friendly overall user experience.
Overall, VideoStudio 9 has quite a bunch of new tools to help you make the most out of your videos, while adding an option to virtually bypass the editor if you wish to go straight to DVD. Many of the new features, such as Flash animation overlay support, the new Flashback and masks, and the new video filters are cool additions. The Pan and Zoom feature is also a cool tool, as is the DV Quick scan feature, which enables you to scan your video and get a timecoded list of your clips, makes editing video faster. The retail price of VideoStudio 9 is $99.99 while the cost to upgrade from a previous version is $49.99. For more information or to download a tryout version, visit www.ulead.com
John Virata is senior editor of Digital Media Online. You can email him at jvirata@digitalmedianet.com
Related Sites: Digital Producer , Corporate Media News , DV Format , Presentation Master , Oceania , CEN - Consumer Electronics Net , CEN - Camcorders , CEN - AV Software
Related Newsletter: DMN Newsletter , Timeline Newsletter , KNews Newsletter , Digital Media Net , DMNForums , CEN - Gadgets Newsletter , Review Seeker
Vegas Pro 8 + Free Vegas Seminar Series
