Review: Ulead DVD Moviefactory 5 software

With widespread high definition (HD) television just around the corner and affordable HD cameras coming onto the market, the average consumer needs a simple way to edit their video and produce standard and HD DVDs.

When we reviewed Sony's HDR-HC1E the major stumbling block was the lack of low-cost software to edit their HD video - enter Ulead Moviefactory 5.

Moviefactory 5 builds on a solid heritage; older versions are often bundled with video hardware to allow quick and easy use by home users. With a simple drag-and-drop interface, an abundance of free templates and samples and many automated functions, the once daunting pursuit of creating your own DVDs has been made both accessible and enjoyable.

The entire process, from capturing source material from your camcorder, TV tuner, or DVD to burning your finished disc is handled by Moviefactory. You can also add your own pre-recorded video clips and create slide-shows from saved photographs.

The software is able to automatically add fades and transition effects, or you can take over and apply your own.

If you just want to back up your video tapes, you can capture directly from your camcorder straight to disc without first copying your footage to your hard drive.

In addition to HD support, this new version adds new tools including more advanced video editing and automatic image enhancement of poorly-shot video, while the new Ad-Zapper function seeks out and removes ads from recorded TV programmes before burning to disc.

An enhanced menu editor achieves professional-looking menus with motion effects, animation and smooth transitions.

Although Moviefactory 5 touts HD-DVD support, Ulead say a free burner pack will need to be downloaded once the drives hit the market. Read more about this on Ulead's site.

Despite this, if you've never created a DVD before, you'll be amazed at home much you can do with Ulead MovieFactory 5 for only £29.99

UPDATE: Originally, Ulead indicated it would support Blu-ray burning as well. However, the BD DiscRecorder component has now been removed from the package. You can read more about this in our posting on the Testbed .

System requirements:
Pentium III 800MHz
512MB of Ram
900MB disk space
Windows 2000/XP