Magix Movie Edit Pro 16 Plus HD

Movie Edit Pro 16 Plus HD is certainly a good value video editor and includes some powerful tools. However, it’s not as intuitive or easy to use as it could have been, so you will need to spend time poring over the manual in order to master the program fully.

Initially, Movie Edit Pro looks similar to most of its video-editing rivals. The upper-half of the screen is split into two separate areas: the Media Pool, which allows the user to select video clips, transitions and other effects, and the Monitor window where clips are previewed. The lower-half of the screen contains the Timeline, where you arrange clips in sequence in order to create a complete movie project.

That is straightforward enough, but things get more complicated as you start to delve deeper into the program. One example of this is the redesigned Title tool. Instead of having to create titles in a separate window, Movie Edit Pro 16 allows users to type text straight onto any video clip that is displayed in the Monitor window.

That is nice and easy, but when we tried to add an extra animation effect to make the text scroll down the screen, we quickly found ourselves flicking through the manual for help.

A similar problem arose with the new colour-correction feature. This is an impressive tool that can alter the colour of a specific object or an area within a video image – perhaps changing the colour of a flower to make it look more vibrant.

Again, though, we found the manual and the online help files provided with the program rather unhelpful and it took some time for us to perform even simple adjustments with this feature.

Other features were more straightforward. We liked the ‘scrubbing’ option that allows the user to select editing points in the Timeline by listening to the audio playback while quickly skimming through video clips. The ability to zoom in on a specific clip in the Timeline also makes it easier to perform very precise and accurate edits.

Even so, it can be hard work ploughing through the 200-page manual and there are other video-editing programs that do a better job of helping newcomers get results quickly and easily.