meagandowney's Full Review: Corel Ulead VideoStudio 11 Plus Full Version for P...
When I learned that my father was buying my family a camcorder for Christmas, I was ecstatic. I knew enough about camcorders to guess that I probably wouldn't get the kind that burns directly to DVD, but I didn't realize that our gift would end up requiring me to spend an hour on the phone with Costco tech support (thanks, Dan!), buying a $70 cord and an $100 firewire port for my PC. You better believe that by the time I was done putting that kind of labor into the DVD, I wanted a great editing tool. Enter Corel Ulead VideoStudio 11.
I'm afraid that I'm no expert when it comes to video editing software. You'll have to read a professional review or take a gander at some of the reviews written by Epinions Top Reviewers in the Software category for that. I selected this product in part because I was familiar with the Corel brand name, but in larger part because an earlier (and nearly useless) version of VideoStudio came with the firewire port I purchased from Dell and there was a free trial available online. Installation for the free trial was very easy, but the program ate up a precious 190 MB of disk space. To put things in perspective, this is only 40 MB larger than much earlier version (5) but still a whopping sum for most PCs. I have a PC running Windows XP and I wouldn't even try to load this on an earlier operating system.
For around $80, you get a VideoStudio Editor, a Movie Wizard and DV-to-DVD wizard. My product experience only extends through the VideoStudio Editor functionality, and it took me about 2 days total to install the program, capture roughly 3 hours of video from tape, edit, title and save 40 minutes of video for one DVD. Remember when I said that I put a lot of time and money into this process before downloading the software? Yeah, well I forgot the fact that I didn't actually have a DVD burner on my PC, so I ended up burning the file from my laptop via a home wireless network. I mention this not only to say that I can't comment on the burning capability, but also to underscore the fact that this video editing software is not the only component necessary to ensure that you'll successfully capture, edit and burn video. Double check the specs on your PC before buying Ulead. Tech savvy people will poo-poo me for even suggesting such a thing, but eager home movie enthusiasts may not think of all the details before buying this product.
After connecting the camcorder to the firewire port with the $70 cord, I started the video capture mode easily but capture happens in real time with tape. My boyfriend and I watched minute upon painstaking minute of my daughter doing mundane things wondering when the DVD-worthy moments would come. I suggest letting the capture mode run while you do dishes or laundry unless you know exactly what you want to capture less inspiration dry up before you into the desert that once was an oasis of all your home movie making dreams. While in capture mode, you see a small screen of video and get some audio as well.
While capturing, you're essentially making clips for a project you can save for burn. Once you've captured those clips, a jog slider allows you to edit your clips further and you drag and drop video into a chronological chart on the bottom of the screen. In edit mode, you can easily type in titles for clips and even add special effects if you like. Some white Times New Roman is about as "special" as our effects got, but you get slightly better than PowerPoint caliber effects with the Effects menu. You can also overlay audio with the drag and drop feature.
Dragging and dropping may sound simple enough, but I kept getting hung up on the jog slider feature. Timing is everything and so I spent a great deal of time ensuring that the clips were started and stopped at just the right moment. Luckily, this was possible with Ulead. You can clip down to tenths of a second with excellent picture resolution.
After saving my project, I prepared to burn but I found that I'd saved the video in too low a resolution for TV, so I had to completely recreate the project. The second version ended up being far better than the first, but all in all I was rather dismayed by the time it took me to edit. The menus aren't as intuitive as I may make them sound here. The interface took some getting used to. It wasn't as tricky as Adobe InDesign was upon first use, but it wasn't a cakewalk either. Every time I dragged and dropped, I found that I had to readjust the jog slider, and in spite of my careful titling, a few of them just didn't take.
I didn't add audio to my DVD, though you can import from a voice recorder or from an audio CD. The Share menu allows you to easily export the video to something appropriate for YouTube, DVD, etc., but I wasn't able to make fancy menus. I wish that the clips would automatically become chapters as I never quite figured out how to mark them as such. Still, a Windows software product on my laptop had no issues taking the project from Ulead and burning it into something palatable.
Overall, I would not recommend Ulead VideoStudio 11 to my friends. While I was successful at burning a DVD, many of them would have given up towards the end of Day One. I am actually dreading having to edit more video as opposed to being excited at the prospect of creating another DVD for my family. Ah, well. At least they have one to watch for now, right?
Three out of five stars.
More information about this product, including full feature descriptions can be found at http://www.ulead.com/vs/features.htm.
Complete, end-to-end HD DVD solution and video editing and DVD authoring software Movie Wizard helps you create movies in 3 easy steps; DV-to-DVD Wiza...More at Amazon Marketplace
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