Review by Patrick O

Video editing is one of those tasks I’d like to get better at but have never gotten around to actually getting better at. My experiences in this have been enduring constant frustration with Liquid Edition 6 and then some video editing solace with Sony Vegas. With my recent upgrade to Windows Vista I not only was one of the few absolutely delighted with the switch I also found a nice, extremely user-friendly video editing program in the new Windows Movie Maker. Of course, Windows Movie Maker is also rather limited. What it does it does well. But if a person wants to go beyond that they had to take a rather big leap to the next levels of programs.

With Corel Ulead VideoStudio I find an amazing progression from absolutely basic/entry level to highly functional and flexible. Again and again recently I have found Corel to be the master of designing programs that are both highly capable and highly oriented towards the user experience. Meaning their programs do a lot and are always surprising how easy they are to pick up and use. This video software is no exception. It has the user friendliness of Windows Movie Maker with substantially more capability and options.

The learning curve is very slight. Not because everything can be picked up quick but rather because Corel has approached this program understanding that not everyone can spend the hours and hours learning about software before getting to a real project. Instead, they have built in different modes of working. From the really basic Wizard that is a lot like movie maker to a more robust editing context that allows for a whole lot of creativity.

And within that more expansive creativity they have made for a very wonderful ease of use, with the layout and the functions quite easily recognizable and quite easily applied. The arcane qualities of most video software are pushed aside for very clear, very obvious tools.

At each step I found myself easing my way into more and more knowledge. And that’s another quality I’ve noticed with Corel. The software itself is a teacher in a way. And not a boring one. Rather, unlike so much headache inducing software (Liquid Edition) this Corel was actually fun. Again the emphasis on the user came out.

No this is not as robust as some other programs. But it is also significantly less expensive and significantly less resource demanding. I used it on my high quality Dell XPS 710 quad processor, 4GB, up to date video card, Windows Vista desktop (noticing it was faster than other video programs). Of course it worked well on that. I also used it on my Dell e1405 XP laptop, bought for battery life, that has no video card, sound card, and only 1GB of memory. It didn’t run as fast, of course, but it still worked great. Surprisingly great.

I’m absolutely pleased with VideoStudio and will be heartily recommending it to friends and family. I’ve not gotten even to the full extent of learning this program–I’m excited about applying Flash to future video projects–and yet I don’t feel like I’m missing anything.

This is an ideal mid-level video software meant for people who want to step up in their production but don’t want to, or need to, invest in the higher level programs. It’s very user friendly, very processor/memory friendly, while offering a wonderful progression of capability for any level user–whether the absolute beginner or the master wanting to do something quick and without bother.

Love this and look forward to a lot more video work in coming months and years. Corel has made it actually fun. And that is a huge thing for those of us who don’t particularly love sitting in front of the computer all the time.