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High-definition (HD) is the flavour of the month right now, so the latest version of Ulead’s DVD MovieFactory kicks off with a number of HD-oriented features.
It's now possible to import and edit high-definition video from HD camcorders, or create high-definition photo slideshows.
MovieFactory 5 is also equipped to work with next-generation high-definition HD-DVD drives, which provide the enormous storage capacity required for high-definition video files. It had to drop support for the Blu-Ray standard until it has resolved licensing issues.
Mind you, all this HD kit is pretty expensive – and the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD drives aren’t even in the shops yet. Fortunately, Ulead has kept its eye on the basics as well.
MovieFactory is primarily designed for creating DVD discs and menus, but Ulead has added a Video Toolbox that provides a number of useful video-editing features.
Video clips can be adjusted using brightness and contrast settings, the merge tool that can join clips together to form one, or the voice-recording tool for adding audio narration.
There’s also a sneaky little feature called the Ad-Zapper, which can scan through TV programmes that you’ve recorded and help you delete adverts from the recording.
The DVD design tools have been improved as well. The ‘smartscene’ templates help you get started and allow multiple video clips to be added to a menu.
This lets you create a kind of video jukebox effect, where different buttons can be clicked to get a preview of each clip. We also liked the ability to add transition effects to menus, so that menus fade in or out smoothly, or appear on screen using a variety of fades and wipes.
Even so, we would still like to see a wider selection of templates than the measly 16 that are currently included in the program.
We also found that the program’s preview function was rather slow, even on a PC with a pretty fast processor and graphics card. Speeding this up would make it easier to check your work as you go along.
Still, for just £30, DVD MovieFactory is pretty good value for money, and is a good choice for novices who are experimenting with their DVD recorder for the first time. A 30 day-trial version is also available.
Also consider
Pinnacle Studio Plus
10
5/5 – One of the best-value video-editing packages, now with support for HD
See also:
Burning those home movies onto DVD has never been easier or cheaper 11 Jul 2005All Video Recording, Editing & Mixing
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