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Media Studio 5.0 Adobe Premiere 4.2 Andover VideoCraft VidFun DDClip DDTitle WavinAVI SoftPEG

Media Studio 5.0
List Price: $725; upgrade $350; crossgrade from Premiere $460
Online: http://www.ulead.com or http://www.lakovision.com.au
Distributed by: Lako Vision (03) 9852 7444
Value Rating:

Ulead's Media Studio is at present the only significant competition to Adobe Premiere, and with this new version it is mighty stiff competition indeed. We tested a beta version of the product, the final version of which should be out by the time you read this.

The previous version was 2.5, there was no version 3.0 or 4.0. Why? Because this new release has been totally re-engineered so it seemed appropriate to skip two whole version numbers - it's also not a bad marketing ploy.

Media Studio is actually a suite of programs including Video Editor and Capture programs, Audio Editor, Video Paint program, and CG Infinity for rotoscoping and animation effects. Other programs provided with v 2.5 like the eminently useful Multimedia Converter, Image Editor and Morph program have been dropped since there are generally other programs that do this better (such as Ulead's own PhotoImpact). The focus is very much on Video Editing this time, and there just isn't enough space to detail all the improvements and new features in this suite; but here are some the more important.

Designed to run under Windows 95 or NT 4.0 the Video Editor and Capture utility have been totally re-engineered and you can see the difference in performance. Previews and general operation of the program is much faster- and this was just with the beta! It can control external VTR's for batch capture of your source footage, and the Capture program is one of the best we have seen.

The interface still follows the standard format of a timeline Construction Windows, with toolbars that can be customised or pulled away to float where you want., and there are Wizards to help you get started on a new project.. With 101 video and audio channels there is plenty of room for overlays and transparency effects. There are dozens of transitions categorised in twelve groups, with several new effects included. Video Filters have also been improved with greater control and flexibilty, and there is a much greater range of Audio filters than other programs offer. All of these as well as Moving Paths for clips or images are held in the production library where you can add comments to each effect, and simply drag and drop them into place on the timeline. You can also create your own custom versions of any of these and save these in the library as well.

Previews are much faster than the previous version and there are several quality settings you can choose to get the right quality/performance compromise while you work. Rolling titles can be created using any True-Type font with anti-aliasing and drop shadows.

There are also a few very new tools like the data-rate analyzer which can help you get the best quality clips for easy playback on CD-ROM or the Net, and output to MPEG-1 format..

CG Infinity takes the concept of adding titles much further. It is essentially a vector- based drawing and titling program. You can create 3D shapes, text and animations here with paths, sizing and textures and transfer these directly into the Video Editor to add as an overlay.

Video Paint is a specialised paint program for creating rotoscoping effects or retouching or applying other natural paint tools to a video clip. Premiere offers this kind of feature via a FilmStrip mode in Photoshop, though it isn't nearly as powerful, and the only other program at this level to offer anything similar was AutoCad's now rather dated Animator Studio.

Finally, the Audio Editor is quite useable allowing multiple files open at once, and with Normalise, Pitch, Speed, Reverb and other such DSP filters. It's no patch on Sound Forge or WaveLab for serious audio mangling, but is a handy companion that integrates well with the Video Editor.

Media Studio 5.0 is a great bundle for the price. There are some things in Premiere which I wish were here - like virtual clips and the transparency rubber-band on clips - yet it does many things Premiere can't - like built-in support for all the major Internet streaming CODECS, MMX capable, and support for the new DVCAM digital standard as used by the Fast DV master capture card. On balance, these easily outweigh the other inconveniences.

$1,195
Online: http://www.adobe.com
Distributed by: Adobe 1800 065 628
Value Rating:

Premiere is considered by many the only video editing application worth using, and with just cause. Version 4.2 is the most recent, designed for use in Windows 95.

Video clips can be sourced from a CD-ROM of clip media or more usually, via a video camera and capture card. Premiere integrates this process into the program.

Video and audio clips are stored in the project window, and you drag them from here onto the construction window. This is a timeline display that allows you to place clips relative to one another. You can add transitions between two clips, such as cross-fade, page turns, iris or any number of others (there are seventy-five in all); and overlay multiple images and sounds with varying transparency and volume levels. Titles using TrueType or Adobe Type Manager (ATM) fonts can be added, with full attributes including soft shadows and emboss. Graphic filters can be applied to still images or to an entire video sequence over time, and third party filters such as those from KPT and Final Effects are supported. If this isn't enough graphic power for you you can always turn to the limited edition of Photoshop 2.5 that is included in the package.

You create your video by placing clips in the A and B rolls with transitions between the two. You can superimpose up to ninety-seven further clips with full transparency and motions. Likewise there are two A/B audio tracks, and up to ninety-seven audio overlay tracks for further soundtrack elements. With clever use of Motion and Transparency you can create split screens, multiple insets and traveling mattes.

A right-click pop-up menu gives quick access to tools, and audio and video clips can be locked to one another so you don't lose synchronisation as you move them around.

Another important feature is virtual clips. These allow you to select an area of the Construction window, with clips, audio, transitions and overlayed images, and combine them into a single virtual clip. This can then be copied, moved and treated as if it were a regular clip. You can embed virtual clips into other virtual clips, up to sixteen deep.

There are some audio filters such as Backwards, Echo and Pan, though a Normalise filter would have been really handy here. Duration and Speed controls can apply to both video and audio clips. On audio it does a straight sample playback rate conversion, so the pitch and duration will change if you alter either of these options. No audio editor is provided.

Premiere 4.2 performs well, and is very fast and stable for a program of this kind at this level. It will output your final work to Video for Windows .AVI, Quicktime .MOV, FLI or FLC animation as well as image sequences in various file formats.

VideoCraft is not a full-featured video editor like those reviewed above, however it could serve as a very useful companion to any of these programs, producing effects not possible otherwise.

It works with still images in a wide range of formats (BMP, GIF, JPG, WMF and many more) and AVI video files. It comes from the same parentage as morphing and warping programs, and video special effect applications like After Effects.

Unlike many morph/warp programs you can apply up to three effects at a time with VideoCraft. There are seven categories of effects to choose from: Colorize, with 19 effects that can be used to adjust the colouring of the source material; Distort, which has 31 effects that twist, bend and contort; Morph, to create seamless image and video transformations; Warp which stretches images and videos as if they were on a sheet of rubber; Overlay, which allows superimpositions of text, video, graphics, and user defined textures; Stylize, with 30 different effects including blurs, media, and preset textures; and finally Transition, to create fades and wipes. Some of these effects are what you would find in a decent imaging application or indeed a video editor, but VideoCraft offers several features neither of these programs could do.

These effects can be mixed with up to three layers, so you can morph while you alter the colour with a filter and transition into a new shot all at once, for example. It will save still images in any of the common raster formats, including some uncommon ones like those used on Sun and SGI platforms. Animations can be saved as either an AVI video file, FLI animation, series of frames, or as a GIF89a animation for the Internet.

Bundled with VideoCraft is the latest Indeo 4.1 compression codec; SoundTrack, an audio recording and editing program; and Arena Design Pro, a very respectable 3D creation modeling and rendering program with support for the Internet's VRML. These two later programs appear to be 16-bit for Windows 3.1, though they worked fine in Win95.

Andover VideoCraft is not a rival to the major Video Editing applications, rather a companion to them. It could find a place in any desktop video setup.

VidFun is a great multimedia file viewer and image utility. It lets you open, view, and/or listen to 24 graphics, sound, and video formats. Images can be altered by adjusting colors, dithering, smoothing, resizing, and rotating. VidFun creates slide shows with audio, special effects, and video loops, with adjustments for speed and size. An impressive demo that uses multimedia elements from your Windows 95 CD-ROM is included. A variety of printing effects are also available. Even though this is a 16-bit program, long file names are supported, and you can set up the program to have a Win95 look and feel. Vidfun has many recent improvements and has added new interface elements and controls, image captures, thumbnail functions, and more. If you're looking for a versatile and powerful program to play, view, and manage your multimedia files, you definitely need to check out VidFun.

DDClip is the professional non-linear non-destructive multitrackreal-time audio and video editor for Windows95/NT. It allows to mix up to 16 CD quality audio tracks on your PC with any sound card. DDClip is especially effective for video clips scoring, creating audio commercials, synchronizing voice with music.

Two versions are available. the 'f' version is free and fully functional, but many features are disabled. The 'p' version is a demo of the full version 2.2 which costs US$199 and is fully working, but will only export the first 10 seconds of a clip.

DDTitle is designed to facilitate creation of titles. You can enter any text with any TrueType font that is available in your system and apply any sequence of parametrized effects to it. The effects include color fill, contouring, chamfer (straight or rounded), radiation, shadow (with fuzzy or clear-cut edge). You can combine and repeat those effects, creating different images. The effects can be applied not only to the text but to any other graphical element, like a circle, a square, a vertical/horizontal line. DDTitle provides a high speed title generation even when several complex 3D-effects are used.

This is a working demo. This is actually an alpha version of the program, which has all the effects there, but it has somewhat poorer user interface than the final version is going to have, and it has no animation.

This version can already successfully be used to create graphics for WWW design, still TV screens etc. And it is free.

A software driver that allows you to play MPEG-1 movie files of a CD or your hard disk, or off the Internet. This test drive version is limited to 5000 frames or approximately 3 minutes. It will work in either Windows 3.1 or Windows 95.