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October 15, 2002

The New Cinema Ecole

By Carol S. Holzberg, Ph.D.

Five digital editing programs for middle and high school students bring moviemaking to a desktop near you.

Students and teachers ready to graduate from Apple's iMovie or Microsoft's Movie Maker now have an array of sophisticated video editing options. In this review, we examine a broad spectrum of programs, ranging from relatively inexpensive basic applications, such as Ulead's VideoStudio 6 and Pinnacle Systems' Studio DV 7, that put a premium on user-friendly video creation, to pricier professional products, such as Adobe Premiere, Apple's Final Cut Pro, and Avid Xpress DV, that transform the desktop into a versatile moviemaking studio.

All programs reviewed here allow users to control a connected video camera's input and output. They also support nonlinear editing, enabling users to cut and paste video clips and adjust video sequences frame by frame in much the same way a word processor manages text. Additional features in common include standard Storyboard and Timeline areas, where you can shuffle video clips, still image frames, sounds, special effects, and other elements to make your movie. Each program supports drag-and-drop tools that let you move images, sounds, and transition effects from a clip library to the Storyboard and insert these objects between two others to modify an existing clip sequence. The more versatile video editors incorporate options for exporting video footage to tape or another medium so that video playback is not limited to a desktop computer monitor.

VideoStudio 6 (Ulead)

Ulead's VideoStudio 6 features a tabbed interface to guide moviemaking novices step by step through the video production process.

As with all programs included here, VideoStudio 6 captures digital video source files directly from a camcorder connected to a computer either through a FireWire adapter or a video capture card.

Launch the program, and the interface displays tasks as tabbed menus at the top of the screen. Each tab represents another step in the video capture and editing process. Initially, this tab structure is very helpful because tab headings (Start, Capture, Storyboard, Effect, Overlay, Title, Audio, and Finish) structure the moviemaking process. However, some users may find the program frustrating because it doesn't use a standard Windows interface. That is, there are no conventional drop-down menus, and the taskbar is hidden, so you can't easily switch from one application to another. Despite its departure from convention, novice moviemakers will find the interface helpful for automating the editing process.

VideoStudio features standard Storyboard and Timeline workspaces. In Storyboard mode, you can use the simple drag-and-drop functions to arrange your movie's video clips, add voice narration or background music, insert transition effects, apply colored backgrounds, or add captions and titles.

In Timeline mode, movie elements display as short, time-based sequences. A timecode across the top of the screen enables you to position clips exactly as needed and zoom in to examine a frame. The Timeline consists of five different tracks: Video, Overlay, Title, Voice, and Music. The Music track allows you to record a track directly from a CD and have it automatically insert into the Voice Track.

Like the other video editors included here, VideoStudio has special templates with pre-configured settings to match several video capture cards and final movie output requirements. For example, the software allows you to capture digital video from your camcorder using software controls and to record video back to camcorder tape once your movie is complete. Output options include MPEG-1 for Video CD and MPEG-2 for DVD. You can also send video as an e-mail attachment, a multimedia greeting card, or save as a self-playing EXE file so viewers wonęt need a copy of VideoStudio to watch it.

Studio DV 7 (Pinnacle Systems)

Storyboard areas, such as that pictured here from Pinnacle System's Studio DV, are the standard palettes for arranging video clips into a desired sequence.

Studio DV is the only product included here to bundle a FireWire PCI adapter that supports full-screen and full-motion video. The application itself has a wide range of features, including a SmartCapture option that allows you to import an hour-long digital video in 150MB of disk space for quick preview purposes, albeit at reduced quality. The program also lets you capture almost 18 minutes of film in a single full-quality capture. As with all editors reviewed here, Studio DV's scene detection feature (via Smart Start and Smart Stop) automatically determines where scenes start and stop (the point where the camera was stopped or paused during shooting), then creates a separate clip and thumbnail in its video album, enabling users to better control the editing process.

Studio DV offers a variety of distinct features in its editing bay. The program provides three separate movie views: Timeline, Storyboard, and Text. You arrange titles, clips, and transitions in Storyboard and fine-tune adjustments in Timeline. The list in Text view shows clip start, end, and duration times. Storyboard and Timeline views both feature WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) movie previews. Timeline view also offers five editing tracks to add titles, music, narration, special effects, scene transitions, and more. This is where you can fine-tune movie settings or grab still video images and insert them in greeting cards, invitations, posters, or e-mail messages. You can superimpose titles or graphics over video scenes, choose from a wide range of text styles and effects, and take advantage of multiple levels of Undo and Redo. You can even mute the audio track on imported video.

Studio DV compares favorably with Ulead's VideoStudio in terms of features and price, but unlike Premiere, Final Cut Pro, and Xpress DV, it does not support keyframes, and it has limited Web output options. It was also the only program to crash during testing on a Windows XP Home Edition system. Nevertheless, it's the best low-cost, all-in-one PC editing solution reviewed here.

Adobe Premiere 6.5 (Adobe)

Adobe Premiere offers a sophisticated audio mixer, as well as a battery of advanced editing options, for the experienced user.

Designed for professional Web page builders, multimedia developers, and broadcast authors, Premiere has found its way into the classroom because of its robust tool set and familiar Adobe interface. Outfitted with the same standard menus, tabbed palettes, and keyboard shortcuts as Illustrator and Photoshop, Premiere is also optimized to work with special effects found in After Effects and source files created in Photoshop.

If your goal is to take a finished video and turn it into streaming Web media, you'll appreciate Premiere's friendly Save for Web option because it supports output to QuickTime, as well as a variety of streaming media formats. Other useful features include a professional-level Audio Mixer, which allows you to combine several audio tracks into one by mixing them together (e.g., an audio clip recorded with both music from a CD and voice-over narration).

Also included in Premiere is support for keyframes, a feature that lets you control a special effect and determine how it changes over time, and batch capture, which allows you to capture multiple DV clips from a videotape recorded with timecode. With multiple keyframes, you can apply audio and video filters to only a portion of a video clip. Additionally, sophisticated audio editing capabilities split the audio and video In/Out points for special sound effects. For example, you can position the video out later than the audio out, and then add other audio to enhance the remaining video.

The upside to Premiere 6.5 is that you can preview a video without rendering it first. This not only saves time, it makes for much easier final edits. Learning your way around the program will take time, however. Be sure you take advantage of the bundled training CD and work through the Overview chapter in the Premiere User Guide to master production techniques.

Final Cut Pro, Academic Lab Version 3.02 (Apple)

With Apple's Final Cut Pro, young directors can preview their edits using a timesaving QuickView feature.

Apple's Final Cut Pro combines advanced digital video editing features with several robust post-production tools. For new users, working through the Getting Started Tutorial is the best way to optimize this program's powerful digital editing tool kit. The program's multiple window interface helps you manage clips and edit digital sequences. Other program tools include a Media Manager where you can archive clips for later use or move, copy, and recompress clips.

A key feature of Final Cut Pro is three-point editing, which means you don't have to specify both In and Out points for a clip in the Viewer and In and Out points for the clip's destination in the Canvas or Timeline. Just specify three of the four edit points and let Final Cut Pro gauge the fourth one. When you're working with thousands of frames, this is a real time-saver, since this feature lets you cut down on the number of frames you have to specify for an editing sequence. Additional features new to this version of Final Cut Pro include G4 real-time effects for instant playback of transitions, such as dissolves and wipes.

A QuickView preview in the Canvas lets you see applied effects before you render your movie. QuickView is to rendering what low-resolution quick scans are to scanning. QuickView gives you a sense of what your movie will look like so you can fine-tune a film or sequence before finalizing it. Since rendering is very time-consuming (even more so than scanning), if there were no QuickView, you'd spend a lot of time fixing your movie's flaws after it's fully rendered.

Xpress DV, EduPack 3.5 (Avid)

This package is a video editing production powerhouse, regarded as the DV industry standard. Offering dual processor support and six customizable editing tool sets for sound, color, and special effects, Xpress DV brings professional-quality movie production to the desktop.

An ordinary but high-powered computer is a must for taking advantage of Xpress DV's rich special effect and compression features. Support for dual processors enables the program to divide tasks, so the overall job completes more quickly. Xpress DV also takes advantage of Avid Codecs. Since video consumes a lot of disk space, it must be compressed for storage. Avid's Codecs are high-quality compressor/decompressor tools for exporting to QuickTime or Windows-only AVI, or importing into Avid Xpress. Xpress DV also offers composition layering for simultaneous scrolling titles and keyframable picture-in-picture overlays. Additional features include real-time architecture for effects, compositing (layering 2 or more images), titling, color correction, chromakeying, and audio mixing.

Xpress DV was the only program in this round-up to spell out what I needed to do to fix an incorrect audio import setting during DV import, advising me that the program's Audio Project Settings did not match my movie's ASR (Audio Sample Rate). With step-by-step instructions, I was able to easily adjust the project's audio settings. Nevertheless, the program is not easy to learn, especially for movie production novices. Mastering its features will require working through the tutorial, taking the tour, and lots of patience.

Carol S. Holzberg, Ph.D., is an anthropologist, educational technology specialist, and computer journalist who also works as technology coordinator at three western Massachusetts schools.

Editor's note: T&L's staff and editors evaluate only those products we can endorse for educational use. Web site reviews are based on content and tools that are available and accurate at the date of publication.

We'd like to thank Apple Computer and Gateway for loaning us the equipment to perform in-house evaluations.

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