A guide to Nero Video Premium HD

Introduction
High Definition (HD) video is everywhere these days: on Blu-ray discs in the shops, on television and even on mobile phones and portable players. And if you have a home video camera the chances are that it can record HD video as well. But there's no point in recording videos that nobody will ever see – so how can you share, edit and make the most of them?

Nero's latest inventions are designed to help with just that. Nero Video Premium HD enables you to edit even HD movies simply and easily, create slideshows then share the results on DVD, Blu-ray disc or online. It also includes a comprehensive player for Blu-ray discs and just about any media file.

Nero Multimedia Suite 10 Platinum HD includes everything from Nero Video Premium HD, plus more: It can also move video to iPods, iPhones and other portable devices, burn and copy most discs, and even includes a versatile but easy-to-use backup tool. Use the slideshow gallery below to learn more about the software.

Playing HD Blu-ray discs on a computer
Both Nero Video Premium HD and Nero Multimedia Suite 10 Platinum HD include a comprehensive Blu-ray disc player. Certified by the Blu-ray Disc Association, this provides everything you'd expect from a high-definition player, including support for the BD-Live extras included on some of the latest discs. And, unlike some players, it's easy to use: simply pop a disc in your computer's Blu-ray drive, open Nero MediaHub and click Play – that's it. If you're a movie fan, you'll find that Nero's player includes all the features you could want. As well as support for high-quality DTS audio you'll find full options available for subtitles, multiple audio tracks and pop-up menus that give you access to commentaries and special features throughout the film.

 

Create picture-in-picture effects in HD movies
Watching movies is only half the fun, though, as Nero's software makes it simple to make your own. Nero Video Premium HD and Nero Multimedia Suite 10 Platinum HD include a powerful yet easy-to use video editor that makes it easy to create your own DVDs or Blu-ray discs. Nero Vision can import video from a camcorder and break it into chapters automatically, so you simply drag-and-drop them into place and add transitions and titles. But it also makes advanced video effects easier: here we've overlaid one high-definition video over another, using one of the 65 new picture-in-picture effects, all with just a couple of clicks. Working with high-definition videos used to be a chore, with every change taking a long time to ‘render’ before you could preview it. Nero Vision makes things quicker and easier with a new background rendering option that lets your computer get on with this invisibly and without fuss.

 

Create HD home movies with DVD and Blu-ray menus
Whether you are creating a home movie or editing photos into a slideshow to share with family and friends, you want the results to look both personalised and professional. Nero's new tools make this easy, as they both include 50 brand new transition effects for video editing as well as 25 new high-quality movie themes and 25 new designs for DVD and Blu-ray disc menus: in this example we've used one of the animated 3D menus, which includes our own high-definition video clip and custom text. The new themes are also ideal for when showing off your digital photos. When creating a photo slideshow Nero MediaHub can automatically insert your own photos into the ready-made themes, giving them a personal touch. Or, if making a DVD or Blu-ray disc you can customise the themes to use your own photos, or even video, as a background.

 

Organise HD video and other media easily
Nero MediaHub is included with both Nero Video Premium HD and Nero Multimedia Suite 10 Platinum HD, and makes it easy to browse, play and do more with the music and video files on your computer. If you're adding music to your computer for the first time it'll make the process of importing CDs to MP3 files easy, but if you've already created a library of music there's no need to worry about doing that again. If you're using Windows 7 and have created a Music Library, MediaHub will automatically show any media files that are stored in it, ready to play. And if you're using Apple's iTunes software, or Microsoft's Windows Media Player, you can use those libraries, too: simply tick one box to include them in the MediaHub library. All the albums shown in MediaHub here were imported automatically from Windows 7's Library settings.

 

Convert video and transfer it to an Apple or Android device
Today many of us own a portable device that can play video files: an iPod, perhaps, or MP3 player or mobile phone. The problem is that if you simply copy a video file to one of these products it normally won't play, as each device works with just one type of file and will reject anything else. Working out which one is required, and how to convert your movies to it, can be frustratingly difficult. Unless, that is, you're using Nero Multimedia Suite 10 Platinum HD. The Nero Move It tool makes transferring files to just about any portable device quick and easy: it can analyse the files already on the device to find out what type they are, and once that's done you simply drag-and-drop files to add them. If you connect an Apple device such as an iPod it will convert the files and add them to iTunes automatically, ready to sync. Here we've simply dragged and dropped a video to this Android smartphone.

 

Burn movies to DVD or Blu-ray
Nero Multimedia Suite 10 Platinum HD also includes all the expert disc burning tools that you'd expect from Nero. And with more types of disc now available than ever before, the software makes it easy to pick the right one: here we've added too many photos to our disc, so they'll no longer fit on a standard single-sided DVD. Rather than having to start a new project, though, we can select a higher-capacity disc type from the dropdown menu and carry on with our photo backup. And speaking of backups, the suite also includes a complete copy of Nero's BackItUp tool to make keeping your precious files safe as simple as possible. It can perform a fully automatic backup, and allows you to store backup files on DVD, external storage or even online.

 

Click here to learn more about Nero Video Premium HD.