Review: Magix Xtreme Photo Video Graphic Suite

A multimedia suite that goes for the bigger picture

Magix is best known as the seller of budget applications such as Magix Movies on CD and DVD or Magix Audio Cleaning Lab.

Indeed Magix has, it’s probably fair to say, something of a ‘cheap and cheerful’ reputation, which is why it’s perhaps a surprise to find Magix Xtreme Photo Video Graphic Suite lumbered with the rather lofty pricetag of £120.

The clue is, of course, right there in the product’s grammatically dubious title. This is no standalone program, but rather a conglomeration of multimedia applications for image and movie editing as well as drawing and desktop publishing tools.

And this leads us neatly to our first problem with the product. It might make sense for professional-level packages – such as Adobe’s Creative Suite – to group video and vector graphics apps together. But, while the freehand drawing tools on offer here are certainly not unwelcome, for home users it might have made more sense for Magix to have included some of its audio-editing software alongside the photo and video programs.

There’s certainly no shortage of software to play with, however. The main applications comprise Xtreme Photo & Video Manager, Xtreme Movies on CD and DVD, Xtreme Photo & Video Slideshow Deluxe, Xtreme Photo & Graphic Designer and Magix TV & Media Center.

Interestingly, these aren’t presented as separate applications. Launch the suite from its desktop icon and a splash screen asks you what task you want to carry out rather than which program you’d like to open.

In fact, many of these choices result in launching the same application. Choose the ‘Watch videos and movies’, ‘Digitally archive VHS videos’, ‘Import from your DVD recorder’ or ‘Optimise camcorder recordings’ options and the same program – Xtreme Movies on CD & DVD – will open every time.

The programs themselves are fairly easy to use, but aren’t anywhere near as polished or intuitive as, say, Ulead Photoimpact or Pinnacle Studio. Confusing and contradictory warning messages don’t particularly help matters, and while there are plenty of useful quick-fix photo tools and lots of templates, it turns out that the video side of things is actually pretty limited. Movies on CD and DVD is okay for capturing, roughly assembling and outputting home movies or other recordings, but that's about the extent of its usefulness.

Magix also says you can use the suite to ‘legally’ copy DVD movies. It turns out that all this really means is that you can record DVDs via an analogue connection (if you have one) - quite how this is any less illegal than ripping them is not explained.

Format compatibility is a bit patchy too. The video playback/editing tools had problems with some MPEG files we imported and AVCHD isn’t supported at all. On top of that, the tantalising promise of producing mini HD DVDs on DVD discs proved to be a disappointment – for reasons we failed to fathom, HD burning spontaneously aborted itself every time we tried it.

Elsewhere, we weren’t particularly impressed by the way that Xtreme Suite installed a ‘bonus’ Music Manager application even when we specifically selected not to install this from the custom options. The uninstall process is equally uncooperative, and the fact that the Suite asks you to enter your product code every time you launch it until you agree to register it online is simply annoying in the extreme.

We’re not sure who would really benefit from this suite. Its editing tools aren’t as easy to use as equivalent products and it doesn’t cover anything like the ground that the Roxio or Nero media suites do, while simultaneously managing to cost more than twice the price.