There are many excellent video editing software packages on the market and most of them work pretty darn good, have tons of cool transitions, exciting special effects and allow to create wonderful looking videos. It’s hard to stand out nowadays.
However, one that consistently impresses us is Magix Movie Edit Pro. They just released the latest version, Magic Movie Edit Pro 10, and it now comes with even more great features and capabilities. And even better, it only costs $49.95.
As you would expect, MAGIX Movie Edit Pro 10 allows you to capture video from any DV camcorder, provides an easy to understand editing interface, and offers the ability to author and burn CDs and DVDs. It also includes a Surround Sound music capability and as well as an automatic editing feature. By using one of the 15 themes, you can quickly create a tightly edited music video with effects and corresponding soundtrack.
Other cool functions include the New MAGIX Story Maker function designed to improve image quality, add captions, apply fade effects, virtual camera pans and zooms as well as “fly-in” effects and transitions. For those who shoot without a tripod, the new Anti-Shake Filter takes the blur out of handheld shots and Comment Feature lets the ‘producer’ add Scorsese-like background commentary to any movie.
So what do you need?
You need a Windows computer (No Macs or Linux machines). Magix gives minimum requirements but I’d recommend at least a 2.0 GHZ processor and 254 MB of RAM. Unlike many new programs, Magix will run on almost any flavor of Windows, including 98, ME, 2000 and XP. To use Magix to the max you need at least a 3.0 GHz Pentium.
Obviously you will need speakers, CD or a DVD burner, lots of empty space on a big fast hard drive, video inputs – 1394 and/or a analog video digitizing card, etc., etc.
Let’s take it for a spin and do a project
After you install Movie Edit 10, and open it up for the first time, you get to watch a brief nitro movie that explains some of the most common functions and capabilities. If you want to start working, you are greeted by a clean looking GUI with a viewer windows on the top left, a media pool window on the top right, and an editing window stretching across the entire bottom half of the screen.
Across the top of the Media Pool window are eight tabs which enable you to access various audio and video effects, your computer’s files and directories, your stored and captured videos, pre-made title and text effects and rolls, as well as your projects.
I am going to walk you through using Move Edit Pro 10 to create a short documentary that celebrates by daughter’s seventh birthday. The first step, after connecting the DV camcorder to the computer of course, is to capture video from your camcorder. You can access the capture functions from the FILE menu – Record Audio/Picture/Video or from the Tasks menu. By using the file menu you get the Select Recording Source Window that displays the various common capture options.
In this case, we are going to capture from DV camcorder. You have two choices – you can capture as DV-AVI, which is better for editing and fine-tuning, or you can capture as MPEG2, which is better for directly burning to a DVD with minimal editing.
In this case, we want the first option, capturing as DV-AVI. The capture window is pretty standard and emulates a typical VCR with its stop, pause, fast-forward, rewind and display buttons. You can manually record various segments or you can opt to record the entire tape. Like many programs on the market, Movie Edit Pro includes a scene detection feature that examines the captured video for changes in angles, lighting and time code and then breaks the long recording into a series of shorter video clips. This makes it a lot easier to edit your videos.
You can opt to do scene detection during the initial video and audio capture or you can do it later during the editing phase. By the way, if you opt to capture an entire tape and then cut it later, remember you will need LOTS of empty hard drive space as DVD video requires about 220 MB per minute.
Once the capture process is done, you can switch to editing mode. Movie Edit Pro automatically dumps all of the captured clips from Auto Scene Detection onto the editing storyboard window. If you prefer to edit using timeline mode, you can simply click on the timeline icon on the far right and the storyboard coverts to timeline mode, with all the clips already inserted.
When the clips are inserted, you’ll notice a transition icon for them inserted between the clips. The default is a straight cut. However, by clicking on the icon, it opens up a window where you select from a nice variety of wipes and dissolves. If those are not cool enough, you could pick out other creative or unique transitions from the Trans-FX menu.
Editing the Video
Depending on what you want to do, you can do all the editing on the storyboard or you can use the timeline mode. For example, it is easy to add effects and transitions in the storyboard mode. But if you want to trim individual clips, it is much easier to use the timeline mode. Right click on the clip you want to trim and then click Trim Object. The Trim window opens up and enables you to pick the start and stop points for the clip. You could also do it on the timeline itself by clicking and dragging the ends of the each specific clip to create the appropriate edit.
For this birthday party video, I planned on staying simple, with a chronological format starting at the beginning of the party and finishing at the end. I started by capturing all the video at the party in one piece and then let Magix Movie Pro 10 automatically cut it into a lot of a shorter standalone clips. The software automatically laid the generated clips down on the story line. And as I planned to stay with a basic chronological approach – this happened, and this happened and then this happened, that worked out just fine.
I started with the scenes on the storyboard mode to get the basic plot and sequence of the shots. The next step is to clean them up and trim off the bad parts. As I had let my six year old shoot a bunch of video at the party, I discovered that I needed to get rid of bunch video in which the camera was jumping all over as well as shots of people’s feet and backs.
I started with about eleven minutes of raw video and then cut it down to about three minutes or so of just the highlights. As mentioned earlier, there are a couple way to trim shots using Magix Pro 10. I opted to use the timeline and then trim each clip down to its essence. Some of the shots I ended up using bits and pieces of. A bit here, a bit there and then some from the ending. Maybe the beginning and ends were good but the middle had some issues.
Even though I had originally planned to begin when people started arriving for the party, as I started playing with the scenes, I decided to do a little creative manipulation to spice it up. Like most video editing programs, you can use Magix Movie Edit Pro 10 to move the scenes around and shorten them without damaging or affecting the original footage.
In the storyboard mode, you simply select and move them. In the timeline mode, you left click on them and then drag them to the new location.
One of the cool features is that if you drag a clip and make it overlap another clip, the software automatically creates a transition dissolve between the two. You can then customize the effect by moving the two clips or by using the transition editor.
After I got things re-arranged a bit and shortened the entire movie, I then started spicing it up a bit. I decided to create an opening title sequence, using still shots that I collected from the movie by using Magix’s Snapshot mode. I re-connected my camcorder and as it ran through the original 11 minutes of tape, I hit the snapshot button over and over again, capturing a bunch of cool stills.
Later, I found out I could have used the video export menu to do the same thing. You can grab an individual frame from the video clips and then export it as either a jpeg or a bmp.
Then I went back to the time line and inserted one of the snap shots at the very beginning of the movie and ended a fade in wipe to start the entire movie. I then opened up the title window and picked a cool title to start the movie with. Using the NewsTicker Title effect, I typed in the words I wanted. The next step was to pick a font, letter size and colors. Once I had all that, I played with it on the timeline to make sure it came in after the fade in ended.
I then clicked on the effect icon that the beginning of the next scene and selected an appropriate effect. In this case I picked a dynamic looking “Turn The Page” effect. The next step was to use the Set Transition Duration control to make sure the transition timing was just right. You can control the duration of that specific transition or you can use that control to automatically set the duration of all the transitions within your movie.
After I had the opening title set, I then used the media pool window to explore my digital music files on my hard drive. I found a MP3 of Frank Sinatra singing Happy Birthday and then dropped it onto an empty track below the title sequence. The music flowed throughout the track and then cross-faded into the sound of the party. I tweaked it a little and it was perfect.
I then went through the video again and did some more fine tuning, shortening scenes and making them blend a bit smoother. It would have been easier if the audio scrub function worked but Magix promised it will be functioning in the next version.
At the end I inserted a bunch of the still shots I had earlier captured and re-used the Happy Birthday song.
Once I was happy with it, I then saved it again and used the Export movie command to convert the raw video and effects to a MPEG file for sharing and burning to a DVD.
Later that night, my daughter came over and I showed it to her. Of course, she wanted me to make copies and send it to all of her friends. So, I opened up the program, reloaded her movie project, and then exported it again, this time as a compressed QuickTime file that she could email out.
Is Magix Movie Edit Pro 10 for You?
This is an amazing program. For the price of just $49.95, you get an incredibly powerful video editing and DVD authoring program. This program can do almost anything the 500-dollar programs can do.
My only issue is that it is not easy to learn. The commands are not as intuitive and as obvious as I would prefer for a product, at least price-wise, that is targeted to beginners and hobbyists. It took me days of playing with it until I started feeling comfortable with the commands and features.
Yes, Movie Edit Pro 10 includes tools that make it a bit easier to start editing. The new built-in Task Assistants provide instant project help. Users simply select the task they wish to perform and an onscreen video shows them how. Magix also provides a nice 120 page or so paper manual as well as an electronic PDF instructional manual that provides even more details. But they need a bit more.
In my opinion, Magix needs to spend the time to create a better manual or to hire someone to write an instructional guide. However, if you have the time to devote to learning and mastering the program, you will be very happy with Magix Movie Edit Pro 10
There are many excellent video editing software packages on the market and most of them work pretty darn good, have tons of cool transitions, exciting special effects and allow to create wonderful looking videos. It’s hard to stand out nowadays.
Even though I had originally planned to begin when people started arriving for the party, as I started playing with the scenes, I decided to do a little creative manipulation to spice it up. Like most video editing programs, you can use Magix Movie Edit Pro 10 to move the scenes around and shorten them without damaging or affecting the original footage. 
to start the entire movie. I then opened up the title window and picked a cool title to start the movie with. Using the NewsTicker Title effect, I typed in the words I wanted. The next step was to pick a font, letter size and colors. Once I had all that, I played with it on the timeline to make sure it came in after the fade in ended.