Review by Jennifer A. Ray

As the happy owner of a new digital camera, it seemed natural to install some video editing software so I could play with my home videos a bit. Having used Corel’s software in the past, I looked forward to trying VideoStudio Pro X6.

I’ve never edited video before and I’ve also never had a video camera before. I am very proficient with technology and computers, as my career is in IT. Based on past experience with other Corel products, I expected VideoStudio Pro X6 to be a bit more intuitive than it has been so far. Again, I am a complete novice at video editing, so perhaps this is part of a learning curve for me. Until I’ve had more time to learn and experiment, I’m giving the software a neutral rating while I tell you what I have experienced already.

The install went very smoothly. I put it on my laptop running Windows 7 Ultimate with 16 GB of Ram and an i7 processor. Launching the software is also smooth and the software doesn’t take long to load on my PC.

Corel presents you with a mini help window when you first launch the software. The Home' tab has information and links to helpful items, including a link to check for software updates. TheLearn’ tab has helpful training videos. The Do More' tab has a number of downloadable add-ons, many of which are free. And the last tab is forMessages’.

There are also very thorough user guides you can download from their website. Normally, I find most software easy to figure out and refer to such manuals for extra tips and information I couldn’t figure out on my own. It is apparent I will need to go through this one page by page to learn how to use this software. It would be nice if they had some tutorials that took you through various tasks step by step. There may be such but I haven’t found them yet if there are.

So far, I’ve been able to get video clips into a project, although that took quite a bit of time for me to learn. The import function I found in the `Capture’ area does not work as I had expected it to. Now that I have a video clip in the software to work with, I’m working on learning how to edit it and in what ways it can be modified.

As I said before, I am granting it a neutral 3-star rating for now. I had expected this software to be more intuitive - I’ve had no trouble learning Corel’s photo editing software. Once I’ve worked with the software a bit more, I will adjust my rating however it is warranted and add the new experiences to my review. I do have to say, so far I find it disappointing that it has not been easier and more user friendly. I had expected to have been able to accomplish more in the few weeks I’ve been using it.