Review: Corel Videostudio Pro X2 video editing

Videostudio has never had quite the same depth or power as video-editing rivals such as Pinnacle Studio or Adobe’s Premiere Elements. It does, however, have a well-designed and easy-to-use interface that makes it a good choice for beginners who are just getting started with video-editing work.

That tradition continues with this latest version, which adds some more powerful features to its armoury. The basic interface design remains unchanged, presenting you with three different options for preparing your video projects. You can use the DVD Wizard to copy video clips straight from your camcorder onto a blank DVD, or the Movie Wizard to assemble a series of clips and then let the program automatically apply transitions and other effects for you. Alternatively, you can enter the full Editor mode, which gives you complete control over the process.

Like all upgraded video-editing programs, Videostudio Pro X2 warms up with a few new technology updates, such as preset options for quickly exporting video to an iPhone or iPod Touch, to mobile phones that use the 3GP video format, or to the Flash Video (FLV) format used by websites such as Youtube. The program also adds support for Intel’s latest quad-core processors, which should provide some quite significant performance improvements for owners of shiny new quad-core PCs.

These features are all welcome, but they’re primarily under-the-bonnet changes that don’t add anything to the program’s main editing tools. So, to speed up editing, Corel has added a new ‘single clip trim’ option. You can just right-click on any clip in the program’s Library panel to open a new editing window where you can trim a clip to the required length without having to first drag it down into the main Timeline window. And, when you do drag clips into the Timeline, you can automatically make the program add a crossfade transition effect simply by using the mouse to place the clips so that they overlap on the Timeline. If you want to change the transition you can just click on the overlapping area between the clips to see other transition options displayed in the Library panel.

Another area where Videostudio has lagged behind its rivals is with its weak selection of special effects filters. However, this version adds a new set of filters called New Blue, which allow you to simulate the effect of using a variety of old-fashioned film cameras.

There’s also a new Paint Creator that allows you to draw your own artwork and animations, and then add them to your video projects, either as self-contained video clips or as special effects that can be superimposed over other clips. This is a very powerful tool – a kind of digital update of the old-fashioned ‘rotoscoping’ technique in which artists painstakingly painted effects onto film one frame at a time. However, you’ll need a bit of time and some artistic talent to use the Paint Creator properly.

Even so, we still admire Videostudio’s ease of use, and would recommend it to people who want an easy introduction to video-editing. There’s also an ‘Ultimate’ version of Videostudio Pro X2 that costs an extra £20 and throws in a few additional utilities, such as the Steinberg audio editor and Corel’s own DVD Copy program for duplicating (non-copy-protected) DVD disks. However, more experienced or ambitious home movie buffs who want more precise editing control will probably still prefer to opt for Premiere Elements or Pinnacle Studio.