Ulead Videostudio 7

I agree with other reviews here that this is about the best under $100 package for editing video. Ive had my quibbles in the past with Ulead over their customer support, and I cant say if thats better now. Its been years since I called them (I stopped buying their software, essentially). But this software runs without freezing my PC, it works well, and its got most of the bells and whistles. The only thing Ill warn you about is that this is definitely not an intuitive process (editing video, that is). Or maybe its just me. However, you really need to get in there and start fooling around with this software to see what it can and cant do. With a single video track, youre going to have to leanr how to use their overlay track if you want to make your videos look professional. Its a steep learning curve for the novice, but once you play with this for a while, the curve with flatten out considerable... A quick tip I found helpful -- the voice and music tracks will both work for MP3s, so you can use both tracks and cross fade your music for those long nature videos you like to make. All in all, Id recommend this software, although Id also recommend you pick up a book or two on video editing...

I spent more than 50 hours trying to learn how to use this product and learning how to work around its bugs. I gave up and bought Sony Screenblast, which is working quite well for me. Here are some problems I had with the Ulead product: The user interface is wildly non-intuitive. Absolutely baffling. Even after 50 hours of intensive effort, I couldnt figure out its behaviors. Also, the help system was clearly tacked on as an afterthought; its in Adobe PDF format, so you cant search it, its hard to read, and the index is laughable. The text is completely inadequate. If you buy this product you will have to use the online web boards (which are actually quite good) to figure out how to use it. They say you can import media and edit it, but this is not actually true. It will edit mpegs captured by other tools, but when you try to burn a DVD it crashes with no diagnostics. A phone call to tech support established that you cannot render a file unless it was captured by VS (Video Studio). (There is a workaround, but the tech support guy didnt know about it.) The output audio is bad, with occasional clicks and pops inserted. On a larger project, it gets horrendously slow. (Other programs, like Screenblast, are slow to load but are quite quick once loaded.) I had one crash, after which VS was no longer able to start. I tried to uninstall so I could re-install, but that caused system errors. Fortunately the original installsheild .exe could uninstall. But this one crash cost me half a day of experimentation just to find the way to re-install. The feature set is not very rich compared to Screenblast at about the same price. Ive also used ArcSoft ShowBiz, which has a lovely interface but cannot render acceptable output. And Ive also used a few really low-end tools. Overall, the money I spent on VS was money flushed down the toilet. And my weeks of work were wasted -- I should have quit earlier. BTW, I have a degree in Computer Science from U.C. Berkeley and have been in the software development business for 20 years, so Im not easily intimidated by software.

I am back to Ulead Vis. Studio after having tried Pinnacle version 8 I got Ulead VS Version 5 free with a Firewire board and was getting tired of its limitations so when Pinnacle version 8 came out with great reviews I bought it and was disappointed. So I bought Ulead VisualStudio version 7. Pinnacle 8 wouldnt read some of my AVI or MPEG files (Windows Media Player, Realplayer, and Quicktime would) but would read others. I guess you have to load it with Pinnacle for it to read the AVIs and MPEGs. Video editing takes a lot of CPU power with either editor and my new AMD Athlon 2400 is about adequate - any less and I wouldnt try it. With VS version 7 I was able to make some VCDs (320x240 resolution), Super VCDs (640x480 resolution), and WMVs (higher compression than MPEG), and played them on my DVD player and emailed them to friends with good results. For example, in the Pinnacle product, you have a single brightness control but in VS 7 you have to apply a filter with confusing controls - the default is to start bright and end the clip on the brightest setting. Most of the time, you want the whole clip brighter but when you fool around with the controls you realize the VS filter allows you to set the brightness at any setting at any point in the clip so it can start at one setting, smoothly go to a higher setting 3 seconds into the clip and then smoothly back to a lower setting. There seem to be no real limits on the number of different points you can set in a clip. This works with all the transition settings of which there are a fair few. The many transitions available between clips are also quite nice, and reasonably flexible, though I think crossfade is the simplest and best - otherwise you distract the viewer with special effects instead of the video you are trying to show. When you load from your camcorder the software will automatically split it into scenes and load a transition (your choice or randomly selected). This is very handy. Some differences make you feel you need both software to get the best results. For slow or speeded up motion, Ulead lets you choose any %-age increase or decrease while Pinnacle limits you to specific settings, but Pinnacle allows you to opt for not smoothly interpolatig frames whch gives you a very nice effect for some sports actions. There are some other improvements I can think of but if you fool around with this you will find you can do most things pretty easily. Each filter degrades the video quality so you need to be careful with what you do. VS does some things very well, but in other cases the techniques take some getting used to. I cant afford to buy every video movie maker but Pinnacle 8 got the best reveiws in the magazines and I think Ulead VS 7 is better - for under $500 software.

Great price and easy to use. It comes with a tutorial disc that teaches you visually how to use this product. So anyone who says they are baffled must not have used this disc. Bottom line, its an easy product to use. Its not going to give you something that resembles what you see on TV, with all the great special effects you might see in a commercial, movie, or TV program, but for what its designed to do - create home DVDs - this product works great. I created a 45 DVD on my nephews first 5 years of life, added music, such as the theme to Superman and Ghostbusters (when showing clips from Halloweens of the past), along with graphics, and worth while transition effects. My family loved it. If you are looking for software to enhance your home movies, one word of warning however - you need to ensure you have a computer capable of handling this or any of these types of product. I have a very compatible computer (3.2 ghz, 200 gig, 512 mb ram, etc.) so I have no problem using this product. Lets put it this way, you computer might be in need of some costly upgrades if its older than 3 years and you want to use this product. Bottom line, I really like this product a lot and its very easy to use.

My projects are only simple: create photo slideshows with background music, titles, credits, and some interesting transition effects. I have Windows Movie Maker (WMV), but cant use it to burn AVI to DVD so I bought this VS7 primarily for that function and it works great. Its simple enough IMO to use although WMV feels easier for making photo slideshow projects. Got the software for $8.50 with S&H so its worth it for the simple projects.

I have been using Ulead Video Studio 6 for over a year for editing my videos and preparing them for burning to DVD, and it has given me 95% satisfaction, so I recently upgraded to 7. For video editing software under $100, I dont think you can beat UVS7. I agree that it does take some getting used to, but if youre not in a rush to do a perfect production the day you get it, and allow yourself some tinkering time, youll see that it works and works well. Mine has never dropped a frame during capture, which itself is worth a lot. The edit flow is natural and very flexible -- but, again, I agree that it takes some getting used to. And the quality of the final video or disk is very nice, which is what its all about. Personally, I think it could use more choices for title animations, which, right now, is the only negative thing I can say about it. If you get the download version, be sure to go back and get the 7.01 patch and the extra content, which is many more effects and filters. Youll be cheating yourself if you dont. Again, I dont think a home digital video buff can find better software for this price.

I have tried adobe premiere but its to complicated and the price its expensive. When I tried the Video studio 7, its so impress me. Easy to used event for the beginner. Its lot of feature also although it is the few additional video clips but you will satisfy to used that. You can make dubbing your vice or music with this video, edit your screenplay, add the text with 3D motion, add special effect and lot of feature with the simple click. When you finish your editing you just click share button and you have able to save your project to DVD, VCD or event in your miniDV format. Its wonderful for the beginner event for professionals video editor. To have the fastest editing process ypu need Pentium IV/ 2.4 Ghz, 512 Mb memory, 128 Mb Video card memory, at least 40 Gb Hard disk and I Link Card to connect your camcorder to your PC. You will enjoy your family video with this software

This product, while slightly expensive, is one of the better options out there. I have used ArcSoft Showbiz, Windows Movie Maker, and MGI Videowave. This software is quite comparable with them. While youll need a big hard drive to store all those movies (4 minutes=875 mb or more), it is quite easy to use. No frames are dropped {I use a Canon camcorder and Firewire (IEEE1394)}. I have not yet explored the VCD end of the software, but I suppose it works well. Adding audio is a snap, and there really isnt much you cant do with this. One thing, however: you cant take the audio track off and make an audio CD out of it. I have yet to find the software to do this...

I spent less than 5 hours to learn how to use this product, and afterward I understand the basics and start to edit my first DVD home movie with music background and everything runs smoothly. The user interface is intuitive. Even after 5 hours of studying, I am able to understand the flow. The PDF manual is quite good, if I have problems I can easily find out from this manual. You can import media and edit it, once you start your project, the software automatically goes to the capture mode, so if you have a firewire hooks up to a Sony/Cannon camorder, you will have total control of this camorder, and start downloading. One word of caution downloading takes a lot of CPU power. This step is very easy, and the software does it all for you. The output audio is very good, and put Rock, folk, easy listening, New age music and they all sound good. On a larger project, it may get slow,in my case I have a AMD 2200 system, 1 GB of Ram, and 200 GB of hard drive, so for me is a little slow while doing editing and previewing, but it still does it job well. So I think if I update my machine to more than 3 ghz, I think Ill be fine. I had one crash, and it probably runs out of virtual memory; all I did was just to reboot my system and I am fine. But one thing to remind is to save you file frequently. The feature sets are very rich for regular home users. I have no complaint for a product that is less than $89, for my case I got it with my capture card. Overall, the money for this product is wll spent, and I am very happy with it. Since I have no problems with it, I never call the tech support, so I have no comments on this. BTW, you dont need to be a rocket scientist to understand this product, this is a real good deal for home movie editing.

Ulead Videostudio 7 is an amazing product. Its one of the most powerful, easy-to-use video editing software that I ever came across. The interface does take a little to get used to, but once you are fluid in navigating around the various functions, editing becomes an absolute blast! I had no problems importing footage from my DV mini-camera (which the software came with!) as well as my DV camcorder. Under a firewire connection, I was able to record straight to the software with the nimblest of ease! Rendering, while it can be time-consuming, is equipped with a whole bunch of functions and settings to yield the kind of video file you want. You can also make a DVD or VCD. Since I dont have a DVD burner yet, I cant say if DVD creation is a seamless process, but it is VERY easy to make a VCD and a whole lot of fun too! Yes, it does have some flaws. It can crash at times when you least expect it so be sure to save your work often and upgrade to the latest patches. The transitional effects with text could also use some streamlining as you can have titles fade in and fade out but not crossfade. Aside from these small quirks, videostudio is phenomenal. Ive been using it for a few years and its met all my video editing needs. Now Im really curious as to how the later versions of this software perform. Perhaps I should upgrade?