Video Edit Magic Review

Editing home movies with a PC is possibly one of the greatest achievements of modern computing. Over the years, families across the globe have collected untold hours of video footage. Until digital editing became affordable, an easy way to share those movies didn't exist.

Only a few years ago, the software and hardware required for video editing cost thousands of dollars, which didn't include additional costs for training. Prices for entry level video editing apps are now well under $100, but product quality varies greatly. One of the best and most affordable video editing apps for beginners is called Video Edit Magic.

What is Video Edit Magic?

Video Edit Magic is a comprehensive application for editing digital videos. The application assists in the entire video editing process, starting with importing video footage from a camcorder (with proper cables), adding audio to the project, editing scenes, adding special effects and transitions, and outputting a finished movie to the computer or another media format.

Video Edit Magic: Features

• Capture videos using virtually any input device: Support for digital video camcorders, VCRs, Hi-8 camcorders, VHS-C camcorders, and Webcams make it possible to edit video from most of the common recording devices.
   
• Edit audio and video independently: Extract audio from your video and modify either one in parallel. This is great feature when it comes to creating video segments that aren't directly synchronized with the audio track.
   
• Add effects to your video: Video Edit Magic includes special effects such as Fade In, Fade Out, Pixelate, Blur, Wave, Emboss, Engrave, Image Transform, Color Balance, Posterize, Color Channel, and Threshold. Experimenting with each effect is a great way to 'learn the ropes' when creating digital movies.
   
• 150 Custom scene changes with transitions: Transitions are possibly my least favorite feature of any video editing application because they tend to make videos look amateurish, despite the ability to make scenes change with the turn of a page or make a split of the screen. Video Edit Magic makes adding effects super easy -- and I guarantee you'll use them until your family members heads are spinning!
   
• Overlay multiple video files: The right combination of video clips looks great when you stack two of them on top of each other. This is type of feature is commonly seen as a "watermark" on popular television shows, like the spinning globe from Comedy Central's 'The Daily Show'.
   
• Add background music and voiceovers: Adding supplemental audio can make the even worst video project tolerable. When the audio track from the last family gathering sounds garbled with the sound of everyone talking at once, Video Edit Magic allows you to delete the original audio track and replace it with soothing holiday-themed music instead.
   
• Dynamic volume adjustment: Once again, the importance of proper audio editing can make or break a film. With Video Edit Magic, you can gently increase volume at the beginning of scenes and fade it out while the credits roll -- and even adjust awkwardly loud moments in-between!
   
• Join multiple video files together: Create a montage of family moments, or a chronological order of events by importing and joining multiple files for editing.
   
• Add titles and credits: Is this a video of Johnny's first birthday? Let everyone know by creating a title for the beginning of the video; at the end, list everyone in attendance, including who was behind the camera and any other relevant details.
   
• DeskShare Media Converter: Some compressed video* formats, like QuickTime movies, need to be converted to the uncompressed AVI format before editing. Video Edit Magic includes this converter, allowing users to convert WAV, WMA, WMV, ASF, MPEG, QuickTime, AIFF, AU, and SND to AVI for editing purposes. Side Note: Digital video files are made up of frames (usually 29 per second for full motion). Because there are only slight differences between some frames of a video, video compression technologies like MPEG, QuickTime, and Windows Media are able to encode the starting frame of a sequence and changes in each subsequent frame, which help to save hard drive space.
   
• Import many different file types: Sometimes still photos are an important piece of movie making. With Video Edit Magic, you can add GIF, JPEG, and BMP image files to video footage with a few simple mouse clicks.
   
• Output video in multiple formats: Different video formats are useful for different circumstances. DVD quality movies are usually quite large in size; however, sharing a DVD video over the web isn't practical, so you may want to save the file format in a highly compressed format such as Windows Media or QuickTime.

Video Edit Magic: Using it on My Own Computer

It takes lots of practice to become fluent in the art of digital video editing. Video Edit Magic makes editing videos as straight forward as possible, and includes an outstanding tutorial to get you started on your first video project.

One of the things I like best about Video Edit Magic is the fact that it uses a timeline. Audio and video can be dragged onto the movie timeline, which helps to explain the flow of your production. Video can be added or removed from the timeline making your movie longer or shorter.

Conclusion

I've used many different video editing applications, from pro applications like Adobe Premiere to beginner programs like Ulead VideoStudio and Roxio VideoWave. Video Edit Magic is much easier to use than any of the other editing applications I've tried.

Video Edit Magic includes all the features necessary for creating digital home movies. Effects and transitions are included for customization. Audio editing is independent of video editing, making it easy to eliminate or improve the audio from a video recording.

At half the price of other beginning video editors, the only real competition for Video Edit Magic is Windows Movie Maker 2, which requires Windows XP. On the other hand, Video Edit Magic works with Windows 98, ME, 2000, and XP.

Video Edit Magic: Download

Save 10% on Video Edit Magic version v3 [below] by using the coupon code INFOPACKETS when you click the "checkout" button.

http://www.infopackets.com/articles/video+edit+magic.htm

Update 2005/05/24: Video Edit Magic v4 has just been released. Click here to read the review and to download a free trial copy of v4!