Review by Brian A. Wolters

I’ve been in the Adobe Premiere elements world for a long time, mainly because I am used to it and for me, it has been stable. But I’ve tried Corel VideoStudio Ultimate for a few years now and it keeps getting better and it becomes a compelling option for my main video editing suite.

The one thing I like best about VideoStudio is the options and add on’s, especially the creative options. I tend to be cut, edit, trim, title and render. I used to be much more creative. But these creative options make all the difference. From the very simple editable intros with stock music. Makes editing a quick video a lot of fun and adds style to it. I also like NewBlue FX Essentials IV that gives you options to either touch up video or totally transform it. The best thing, all of this is pretty straight forward.

The interface is a little messy looking initially but once you get in and find how to use it and what you need, it isn’t bad at all.

One thing I’ve battled with video editors (yes, even iMovie had problems for me) is stability. From the early days of Pinnacle Studio through early versions of Corel and Adobe, I would have performance issues once in a while. I don’t see as many these days on Adobe and I am happy to say, in my testing of VideoStudio Ultimate X8, it never once crashed or had performance issues. It rendered video as quickly as expected on my Core i7 system with 16GB RAM and 4GB graphics card.

Finally, I will say this is one of the esiest to learn and use video editors for Windows. While programs like Sony’s may offer some more professional power, it is just too hard to use if you want to dive right in and get to work. This may be the best option load and go.