Review by Terry

I’ve used CorelDRAW for years - since CorelDraw 3 - so I was very excited to get the chance to use Corel VideoStudio Ultimate x7.

I’m a complete novice at video editing. Prior to getting VideoStudio, my video was whatever I recorded at the time. I had no idea how to edit out unintended stuff or add titles or add music, etc. Even though it has plenty of very sophisticated and complex editing options available to the user, this software makes it easy to get started.

In the box is two discs. That’s it. The user’s manual is included in the installation and there are loads of video tutorials you can access from inside program.

Installation was easy and straightforward. Note: the EULA states that you are licensed to have VideoStudio installed on only one computer at a time so if you have multiple computers in your home, choose wisely or you will have to uninstall from one computer in order to install it on another one.

The software places 3 icons on your desktop - VideoStudio, FastFlick and ScreenCap. If you are new to video editing, FastFlick is an amazing tool. Download your videos and pictures that you wish to edit to your computer and then FastFlick will let even a novice produce a surprisingly professional bit of video. Through the use of templates you can add titles, music, add additional video clips, apply effects like pan and zoom and lots of other things. Even if, like me, you’ve never edited video before, you can use FastFlick.

Corel also makes it easy for you to upload your finished videos to places like YouTube and Facebook, as well as burning your video to a DVD- all from within the software!nnVideoStudio is a full-fledged video editing program that gives you a myriad of different ways to edit your raw video. If you’ve never used video editing software before, there will be a learning curve when it comes to VideoStudio. Don’t expect to be able to edit a video immediately. Corel knows this, which is why they created and included FastFlick. It acts as kind of an intro to video editing and at the same time, give you immediate gratification by helping you produce a very attractively edited video right out of the box.

The user’s guide, which you can find under the Help tab in VideoStudio, is refreshingly well written and easy to search. It’s in .PDF format and you can download it to your computer. It’s worth reading even if you aren’t normally the type to read the manual. ;-)nnFor the current price of under $80, I think this software is a bargain! It’s easy enough, thanks to FastFlick, that even a newbie can create a respectable video, but powerful enough that someone familiar with this kind of software will be very pleased. (I confirmed this with a friend, whose job it is to edit advertising video. He couldn’t believe how powerful it was - even compared to the commercial editing software he uses at work.)nnIf you want or need to edit your videos to make them something special, Corel made this software for you!