Bruce Von Stiers

Ever downloaded a cool video file and wished that you could do something like that? Well, have I got a program for you. The program is called Ulead Video Studio 3.0. This software program comes from Ulead Systems. It is a complete video capturing and editing program.

There are two main components of Video Studio. The first is the Video Wizard. This is a digital editing program that takes the work away from you and streamlines it for a quick, easy way to make movies. The second component is the Ulead VideoStudio, which is the workhorse of the program. Here you will go step by step to create an extraordinary video file.

Some of the things that you can add to your video are sound effects, music and transitions. Got a cool soundtrack that you'd like to see in a video clip? Easily add it to the clip in this program. Add special effects and transitions like one scene burning away to reveal the next.

Installing the program is easy. You will end up installing QuickTime 3 and NetShow Tools as part of the complete package. The installation places icons in your Windows Start/Programs menu. You can also place a shortcut to the program on your desktop.

Using the Video Wizard takes the sting out of learning the program because it does all of the work for you. It has you give your project a name and then moves on to the next step, Get Video. With this step, Video Wizard grabs video from a source device and places it in the Preview window. Add more clips the same way.

From there the Video Wizard arranges the clips any way that you want. Add special effects to ease the transitions between clips. You can also trim the length of a clip using the Trim Video feature. You can add an audio file and put a title or opening credits on the movie. From there, click on the Create button and Video Wizard puts everything together in a video file for you. The last step is to play the video to see how it came out.

The main component, Video Studio, has all sorts of buttons to push and things to drag and drop. The main screen has the various areas of the program put together in a user-friendly interface. There is an Options panel that has all of the buttons and controls for the video clips. This area is where you determine the length of each clip. There is the Preview window and the Library window. The preview lets you see what you've accomplished before the final output. The Library window contains all of the clips you're using for your movie. Beneath the Preview window are vcr type buttons to view the video. There is a Trim bar to slim down a clip.

At the bottom of the interface are the visual timeline tracks. There are four different tracks in the timeline. The top track is for adding either a video clip or an image. The second track is for adding text to a video frame. The third and fourth tracks are for adding sound to the movie.

When it's all said and done, you can create a really cool video file that you can send to other people. The file can be saved in several formats including avi, mov and rm. You can add the video to a Web page or put together an electronic greeting card. The video can also be exported into an e-mail message.

How easy is Video Studio to use? Very easy. Does it really work well? Yes, but the compiling takes a little bit of time if you've added a ton of stuff to the video and your computer is old and clunky like the one I used to test the program on (a Pentium 200 without MMX).

How does Video Studio stack up to other programs like Adobe Systems' Premiere? That?s kind of like apples and oranges. Both products do the same thing but Video Studio is aimed at the general consumer market whereas Premiere is more for the professional user.

The system requirements are as follows: Pentium PC (MMX recommended). Windows 95, 98 or NT 4. 32 MB of RAM and 80 MB of free hard drive space. A CD-ROM drive is needed along with a pointing device such as a mouse. A soundcard is recommended along with a video capture board.

For a good program that lets you put together videos in just minutes, Ulead Video Studio is hard to beat. It's fast, user friendly and inexpensive.

You can pick up a copy of Ulead Video Studio at your local retailer for about $ 70 to $ 80. If you can't find it locally or want to know more about the product, visit the Ulead Systems web site. The site can be found at www.ulead.com.