One thing I look for in a media editing app like this – since you work with still images and audio as well as video clips – is an easy way to filter the source view to just photos or just video files. You can also just capture a single frame from these sources.
Record options include AVCHD, HDV camera, DV camera, analogue TV input, Audio, and even the screen – this last is a nice extra, saving you the cost of a separate screen cam program.
The source panel's Import tab just shows PC folders to import from a device, you hit the Record button under the video preview panel.
Another preview window peeve is that there's no clear way to switch between previewing the current source clip and the movie. A Show Time context menu choice lets you overlay the preview with a big red timecode. The preview window does show the time value for the playhead position and total clip time along its top border this took me a while to find, but these programs have to show so much information that I can't mark it down because I was expecting this info to be near the playback controls. I do wish the video preview pane had a pause button, since hitting stop takes you to the beginning of the clip.
You can also easily drag-and-drop clips to different tracks and positions. Moving around in and zooming the timeline seems natural using the mouse wheel. The timeline area can alternatively display a storyboard of your movie's clips, and this view offers more than most competitors' equivalents: Icons for text, sound volume, and transitions let you perform those actions. Buttons on the far top right, however, do offer Edit, Burn, and Export options. Movie Edit Pro is less modal than Corel and Adobe's competing apps, which take you through the workflow from import to output. It's a flexible interface, in that you can pull out each panel into its own window by dragging its top border, and each can be full-screened. The standard three panel interface has video preview and source areas on the top, and a timeline area extending along the whole bottom half of the window. An Options dropdown adds choices for directory location, and video and audio formats. The Welcome dialog is less extensive compared to competitors like Corel VideoStudio, with simple options to watch an intro video, create a new project either from scratch or from a template, or open an existing video project. The pleasing dark look of Movie Edit's main window hasn't changed much since I last used the program.
If you want to try it out for yourself, it’s £69.99 from the Magix site, or you can download a trial version.I was disappointed to see that the installer added a browser toolbar and a system cleaning utility to my PC by default you can only deselect these extras if you choose a custom installation, so bear this in mind if you don’t want them (I sure didn’t). This is only really scratching the surface of what Movie Edit Pro 16 Plus can do, though. And if you’re using more than one camera, you can easily edit together the footage from two different cameras. You can use up to 99 multimedia tracks, and it supports Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound.
It has more than 1500 special effects, cinematic transitions and templates, and it has full HD support for HDV and AVCHD camcorders.
It’s had a lot of improvements, like making the design more intuitive and adding some new features, including: The newest program from MAGIX, Movie Edit Pro 16 Plus, is a lot like Movie Edit Pro 16, but with loads more options for your videos.