Corel Videostudio Pro X4 video-editing software

Corel Videostudio Pro X4 is a video-editing program that has three clear sections for capturing, editing and rendering video, with a tab for each.

It impressed us immediately with its quick and easy installation process. The program looked sleek and modern, with adjustable windows that allow users to configure it precisely.

It sticks to the standard video-editing software layout with a timeline at the bottom and preview window above, as well as a window for effects, transitions and text.

The video on this page was edited using Corel Videostudio Pro X4 - it's a sneak preview of our visit to the Taiwanese factory of PC component company Gigabyte. Video editing by Jack Pickles.

Users of other video-editing programs such as Sony Vegas will feel at home here. One flaw was that only one video track is allowed: video clips can be added into other layers but it would have made more sense to allow more video tracks.

The software was quite slow: the preview window tended to lag even on our fairly powerful test PC, and buttons were often slow to respond. Importing clips was also drawn-out.

Effects were slightly disappointing. They didn't look professional and not much customisation was permitted, with no clear way to edit effects or make adjustments.

However, we were impressed with the array of effective-looking text presets that could be customised in lots of ways, including their animation. This was a step up from Sony and Adobe products in which it was harder to animate text well.

The program's design seemed unnecessarily complicated with irrelevant icons and buttons placed in strange places. We also struggled to change the resolution of our project.

The quality of finished videos was good, and it can output all sorts of formats from one suitable for a Blu-ray disc, all the way down to types suitable for mobile phones.

It can't edit videos in 3D but it will convert a standard video to a kind of fake-3D – a pair of red-blue glasses is included – which gave quite reasonable results. A neat stop-motion animation tool also worked well.

Overall, although Videostudio Pro X4 was a bit slow, it is a decent, competitively priced video-editing program.

If you're used to having more control over editing, it might get annoying, but for beginners it's worth a try.