PC Video Editing Made Easy

Ulead's VideoStudio 4 offers video editing for novices--provided your PC has FireWire and enough memory.

Cameron Crouch, PC World

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For $99, Ulead Systems' new VideoStudio 4 might be a good place to start. Announced Wednesday, VideoStudio 4 edits both DV (digital video) and MPEG-2 (compressed video format). It has a wizard to guide you through video editing, and is scheduled to ship in early November.

VideoStudio 4 supports IEEE-1394, also known as FireWire. Developed by Apple and Texas Instruments, FireWire is a high-speed serial bus protocol used to transfer data to the PC from video cameras, scanners, and other devices that require large bandwidth. Sony has its own version of 1394 called i.LINK.

Universal Serial Bus lacks the bandwidth to transfer high-quality video data, says Michael Downs, director of product marketing at Ulead Systems.

Easy Interface for a Complex Task

Video editing is difficult, and most software tools are high end. Targeting small business, home office, and family video users, VideoStudio 4 emphasizes ease of use.

VideoStudio 4 "can highlight things novices need to pay attention to and offers a step-by-step process that connotes workflow," Downs says.

One of its biggest enhancements is support for MPEG-2, the format used in DVDs. MPEG is difficult to edit because of its compressed format, meaning that each frame doesn't contain all the data, Downs explains.

In an MPEG clip of, say, a talking head, several frames contain only changes to the data, such as the mouth's movement and the audio. These incomplete frames can make editing very difficult.

VideoStudio 4 integrates the software MPEG codec (compressor/decompressor) GoMotion from Ligos Technology. GoMotion lets a 450-MHz Pentium III PC capture full-size and full-frame-rate video in MPEG-2; this operation previously required dedicated chips for MPEG compression.

For quick and accurate MPEG-2 and DV editing, Ulead includes its own Smart Render editing tool.

"Smart Render does not decompress and recompress all the frames for edits," Downs says. "It only decompresses the frames that need to be changed."

Still Bandwidth-Hungry

While VideoStudio 4 targets consumers, it still has hefty system requirements.

USB is the focus in consumer markets, says Ron Glaz, a senior analyst with International Data Corporation. "Apple and Sony are the only [consumer PC makers] including FireWire [and i.LINK] in PCs. With the memory system requirements for video, FireWire is more in the high end than regular consumer PCs."

Downs says Compaq also sells FireWire PCs, and that adding a FireWire board costs between $100 and $150.

Apple includes FireWire and iMovie software with its iMacs. Sony features i.LINK in VAIO PCs that target video and multimedia enthusiasts.

Overall, Glaz expects more consumers will use video editing tools because digital cameras and imaging input technology are becoming mainstream.

"VideoStudio is inexpensive versus buying Adobe Premiere, so you can get into [digital video editing] without a big expenditure," Glaz says.

But while some consumers will find video editing interesting, it will never be as simple as enhancing a still image, he notes.

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