Ulead MediaStudio Pro 6.5

Apple has recently been bragging about how easy it is to download and edit digital movies on its G4 Macs, and the company has a point.

The machines come fitted with FireWire sockets as standard and there are several easy-to-use software packages available for capturing, editing and adding effects to your home movies. Newer Macs can even burn your finished product to a shiny DVD with a special drive and software combination.

PC owners, however, are not so lucky. There are precious few models of home PCs that come with built-in support for connecting a digital video camcorder, let alone a DVD-R drive. To get editing on our Desktops, most of us have to go out and buy lots of extra hardware, then choose the right editing software to finish off the package.

Many first timers will immediately head for easy-to-use programs such as MGI VideoWave 4 or Pinnacle's new Studio 7 and quite rightly too: video editing is a complicated process and these two excellent applications help break the novice in gently. But if you want something a little meatier, take a look at either Adobe Premiere or Ulead MediaStudio Pro.

The less glamorous of the two heavyweight editors, MediaStudio Pro, can often be caught snapping at Premiere's heels. Whenever there's a new version of Premiere, an updated MediaStudio Pro is sure to follow.

Hot on the heels of Premiere 6 comes the latest version of Ulead's rival movie making package, and the word package is particularly apt here. Premiere may have souped-up its range of add-on features this time around but MediaStudio still outdoes the old favourite in terms of extras.

In fact, the video editing side of things is only part of the equation. A broad palette of different tools and standalone programs includes CG Infinity, an application for creating titles, and a capture program for hauling footage across from your digital video camcorder to your hard disk.

There is also a nifty audio editor so that you can work on the soundtracks for your movies too, with the Video Paint image editing software rounding off the package.

The central component of this multimedia suite is the video editing application. All greenhorn video editors beware: there is very little hand holding here and Video Editor makes no apologies for being a powerful, professional level editing suite.

Those who have just started to learn this craft might be better off sticking with products from MGI or Pinnacle - even Ulead's own much simpler VideoStudio - until they are more adept.

Advanced users will coo at this valiant attempt to steal Adobe's crown. The facts are undeniable: MediaStudio Pro just has more features than Premiere. This new version of MediaStudio offers even more than its old rival.

It can capture, edit and store movies in MPEG-2 format, which is something that Premiere cannot do without a special plug-in. This saves dramatically on hard disk space and means that you can make your own mini-DVDs.

MediaStudio's final trump card is a little authoring plug-in that allows you to build and output your movie straight to a CD-R like a shrunk-down DVD. DVD-R/RW drives are very expensive at the moment but prices are likely to fall soon. When they do, Ulead promises that an update for MediaStudio Pro will allow you to make full-blown DVD movies, too.

Contact: Ulead +31 030 6594600 www.ulead.co.uk

Also consider Pinnacle Studio 7.
Easy to use, good value video editing package
£80. Worth it. Computeractive issue 90.