I’m a home video editing junkie, and while I like to think I’m a pro (though really far from it) I don’t have a pro’s budget. Thus, I’ve tolerated Microsoft’s Windows Movie Maker 2 for XP for a good long time. Recently, I was kicking the tires on tons of new editing packages, looking for something inexpensive that offered fast rendering and intuitive editing. Vegas and Premiere, while best-of-breed for Windows editing, were just too expensive and a bit scary, whereas the low-end stuff like Avid’s Free DV just didn’t offer the features. Thankfully, I was given a copy of Magix Movie Edit Pro 11 to try out, and well, I think I’ve found a winner. For $60, it’s tough to beat, especially if you’re hoping to get out of the basic-ness of Windows Movie Maker without having to earn an advanced degree in digital video just to edit some home movies or convert a few you’ve already got.
As with most modern video editing programs, MMEP 11 gives you the ability to capture video from analog and digital sources, so it’s a snap to snag footage from whatever camcorder you’ve got handy. Assuming that is, your camcorder has some way to connect to a PC (mine, fortunately, has a Firewire connector). The video import is fast and pretty effortless, leaving you with a nice, clean and stutter-free import, something you could never be guaranteed with Windows Movie Maker.
The editing tools are pretty amazing for a package coming in at under $50. You’ve got 16 tracks to play with, and editing in the track mode is simple — making light work of slipping in additional audio, images or other clips. In one instance, I took a video with a soundtrack I hated, yanked that audio and plugged mine in — all in less than three minutes. And the final rendered video was smooth as silk — no stuttering, good compression and perfectly synced audio.
The compression settings are well worth mentioning, especially if you’re making movies to share online, such as we often do with DailyGame. Magix has an outstanding number of export formats, including QuickTime, all of which can be tweaked to ensure optimal quality. I was impressed the other day when we were handed a 50 MB QuickTime file, which I imported into Magix and by tweaking the compression, cut down to 14 MB with no noticeable loss of quality. All with a few quick mouse clicks. If you’re looking to make DVD’s for home use, there are options to create films to burn into SVCD, DVD and VCD formats. If you’d rather make your video available online, but don’t have a web host, don’t worry, as Magix offers a free site to host videos on.
If you like to throw effects into your videos, Magix has quite a nice toolkit available. Lots of little fades, 3D visuals and other effects that you might pay for in other packages are included.
I could spend all day going into the nitpicky details of Magic Movie Edit Pro 11 (the editor with the really long name!), but let’s just say that for $60, you’re getting a lot more than you paid for. It’s fast, easy and works well on even some slower machines (like me 1.3Ghz laptop with 512MB RAM). If you’re looking for an inexpensive video editing solution that’s fast and friendly, this is a solid bet.
If you are looking for a full list of features, be sure to check out this section of the official site.
