Adobe Premiere Pro CS3

CS3 and Friends

The next big upgrade to Adobe's Premiere Pro is out and it's not alone. Premiere Pro CS3 represents a major move toward providing a total video production workflow solution (Adobe Creative Suite 3 Production Premium) by including copies of Encore, OnLocation, Device Central and Bridge.

While there are certainly some welcomed improvements to Premiere, the real news of this upgrade is what surrounds it. Adobe clearly wants us to now think in terms of a unified software system. But since the fundamental component of this bundle is still the timeline editor, we're going to start our review with a look at what's new in Premiere.
Premiere Proper

Compared to the jump from Adobe Premiere CS to CS2 (see July 2006 Videomaker), the number of improvements Adobe has made to the core Premiere program in CS3 is rather low. The quality of those improvements, however, is very high. The big ones include Mac compatibility, variable-rate slow motion that produces an incredibly fluid effect, multiple project panels with improved search and organizing functions, and several editing and audio refinements.

It's been a long time coming, but Mac users can now slice and dice with Mac OS X v.10.4.9 and newer, as long as it is running on a multi-core Intel processor. Boot Camp is required only for OnLocation.

The new slow motion capabilities are easy to use and produce stellar results. You simply place a clip on the timeline, select Time Remapping from the Clip Effect menu and, by adding keyframes, you can smoothly increase or slow a clip's frame rate, even to the point of freezing a frame or reversing direction. The clip automatically gets larger or smaller on the timeline. Results from our first test looked similar to video shot with a high-speed camcorder and post processed with dedicated hardware. Sure, it's true that overall sharpness isn't comparable to that achieved with a dedicated high-speed system, but the new way Premiere is handling temporal interpolation is incredible. Can you tell that we were impressed?

As projects get larger, finding and organizing assets quickly become more challenging. You can now search for a file or effect by simply starting to type in the name, and the assets matching that text string will become narrowed as you continue to enter text. This will not be a surprise for Mac users; however, PC editors will quickly wonder how they ever lived without it. You can now organize your assets by views by separating out panels, each displaying clip information differently, say, both as a list and thumbnails.

Working with audio and video in Premiere is now a little faster. Tracks nested in various sequences can now be played back without rendering. If you get Premiere as part of the Production Premium Bundle, you'll also have direct integration with Adobe's new audio editing program, Soundbooth. Look for more about Soundbooth in an upcoming issue of Videomaker.

Replacing a video clip in your timeline, while retaining that file's properties, is now just a drag-and-drop operation. Very handy if you want to experiment with a few different takes.

We ran Premiere through both simple and complex editing sessions. No sweat for the simple cuts-only session. We then loaded a 17-minute project that had dozens of various transitions, motion effects, graphics, titles and audio, some layered 7 deep. Again, no problems in either the creation or rendering once we got the kinks out of our hardware. We compared the render times with CS3 with the identical project in CS2 and did not see any marked difference in speed.
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WinDVD Creator 3

WinDVD Creator includes all the standard video editing features, yet lacks some of the additional functions that higher ranked products contain. This program is complex to navigate and offers insufficient product support, but the editing functions are easy to understand.

When you first open the program, you can choose from a variety of options. Some of the projects include Archive Video to DVD, Start New Project, Open Existing Project, Smart Movie and more.

WinDVD Creator provides adequate features for titles, transitions and effects, and can capture video and publish it to a wide variety of formats. It also has the ability to split, divide and delete scenes.

Unfortunately, this software does not have the option of setting the picture display times in the slideshow. Futhermore, there are no photo editing features available with this product.

When we initially imported footage, the audio didn’t work. There was no sound whatsoever. We experienced a similar problem the first time we reviewed WinDVD.

WinDVD Creator includes a good selection of video editing features and supports multiple file formats. However, to compete with the best, it needs additional advanced features and more comprehensive product support.
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MoviePlus X3

MoviePlus is similar to Vegas Movie Studio DVD from Sony. It includes a timeline view and you can view video in the same screen as the timeline. Their interface is a bit difficult to navigate because everything is represented by an icon instead of drop-down menus. As a result, you have to learn what the icons mean before you can quickly move through the edits.

Some of the features missing from this product or that are hard to find include the ability to cut and trim pieces of video, adjust the look of the video (contrast, brightness, hue, saturation and sharpness), title templates and text animation.

We had no problems during the installation and setup of this product and MoviePlus offers excellent product support. They provide support by email, live chat, updates and downloads, help documentation and a FAQs section on their website.
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Nero 8

This program is a complete media package—with Nero you can make videos, burn DVDs and CDs, backup data, make labels, erase disks and produce audio disks. The program captures video and audio flawlessly and creates slideshows.

We didn’t have any problems during the installation and setup of the software. After Nero is successfully installed, the program guides you through a brief setup process. You simply answer questions that specify how you want the program to operate. Additionally, all of the buttons have a pop-up window with the button’s name and a short explanation of what it does. These features are especially helpful while you are getting the hang of the program and exploring various aspects.

Nero provides many good editing tools, supports storyboard and timeline format, and has quick cut, paste and delete buttons. You can also drag and drop transitions, effects and text into your final product. However, this program includes few audio and photo editing tools.
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DVD Movie Factory 6 Plus

DVD Movie Factory, from Ulead, is a good product; however, it is more of a video producing than a video editing product. Ulead’s flagship video editing program is Video Studio. Nevertheless, we included DVD Movie Factory in our review because this software makes it easy to capture video, add a few edits and burn a disc.

This product has the ability to trim video, add chapters, effects, text and audio. The program will only let you view the video in storyboard format instead of in a timeline, which makes it difficult to add transitions, text, audio files, styles and more.

DVD Movie Factory could be more user-friendly, but the setup is quick and the product support is adequate. You will find an email address and phone number for technical support on their homepage, but they do not offer live chat.
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Easy Media Creator 10

The Easy Media Creator Suite is a full media editing solution that includes video, audio and photo editing tools. This version can work with numerous video formats including HD–V, Windows Media Center recordings, DivX, TiVo, Blu–ray and MP4s.

This program has a good collection of video editing tools, transitions, special effects and audio mixing. However, it does not have the ability to stabilize or refocus video.

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ShowBiz DVD 2.1

Create professional appearing and sounding movies with smooth transitions, functional menus and unique sound tracks with ShowBiz.

ShowBiz is easy to use, even the first time, and you can quickly copy and burn videos. The only downside is it does not offer a good variety of publishing formats beyond DVDs.

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Adobe Premiere Elements 7

Premiere Elements 7, Adobe's most user-friendly video editing software, continues to help less tech savvy users edit and share their videos. Windows veterans might find Premiere Elements 7's interface a little strange at first, given Adobe's penchant for designing for their own brand of simple, effective user interfaces, but it doesn't take long to figure things out and quickly get to editing your videos

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Pinnacle Studio 12 Plus

Pinnacle Studio Plus from Avid is high-end consumer video editing software. The program comes with all of the standard editing features, as well as some unique perks, such as the ability to work with HDTV video format and original transitions and sound effects.

Even with a user-friendly interface, Pinnacle Studio Plus is still a complex program. Because it offers so many features, options and is so customizable, it will take some time and practice to feel comfortable using the software to its capacity.

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Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9

When you see the name Sony next to a product, especially when near anything video-related, it inspires a feeling of quality and safety, as in “choose Sony, and they’ll back you up.” Yes, it’s corny and even mushy, but when Sony decides to make software, the end result is usually a solid, stable, well-designed and “deep” product. What do we mean by that?

Sony Vegas Studio 9 Platinum is what we call “deep” because its features number in the hundreds and flexibility is at a peak for the price point. This means you can do more with Sony Vegas than most entry-level video editing software, but it also means Vegas 9 Platinum takes more effort to learn.

Fortunately, Vegas Studio 9 has an amazing interactive tutorial system that not only tells you what to do, but highlights the buttons you need to press and continues only when you’ve completed a step. It’s a great way for new users to become familiar with basic tasks, and we recommend that every new user spend a good hour using the tutorials before capturing a single video
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Corel Video Studio X2

Corel VideoStudio X2 Standard earned the “TopTenREVIEWS Silver Award” with its exceptionally clean interface, smooth playback, ease-of-use, and options tailored to both video editing beginners and experienced techies. Where other video editing products hide common functions behind menus, masked within a cluster of icons, and in less than ideal stages of the editing process, VideoStudio keeps them up front and easily accessible due its well-designed interface.

To aid first-time video editors, VideoStudio X2 launches with a splash screen where you’re given three options: the VideoStudio Editor, the Movie Wizard, and the DV-to-DVD Wizard.

The DV-to-DVD Wizard will take video directly from your DV camcorder and burn it to a DVD. It’s a simple two step process with a few editing options like scene detection and marking, and perfect when you just need to capture and produce a video quickly.

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CyberLink Power Director 7 Deluxe

Video editing software is something most people will turn to if they’ve ever been subjected to hours upon hours of Aunt Betty’s Disneyland vacation footage. While her video’s thoroughness can’t be argued, it certainly could have easily been condensed into a more compact presentation. What we really want to see are the highlights and lowlights, no matter how embarrassing.

Enter PowerDirector 7 Deluxe, with an effective, easy to use interface and a boatload of useful effects, transitions, and “magic” tools to clean up your videos and steady some of your shaky camera work. You can’t get any better than PowerDirector 7 Deluxe, which is why it’s the “TopTenREVIEWS Gold Award” winner.

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