Any time I open a software package and find a substantial paper manual that software leaps up a good ten Brownie points and Video Pro X has just that. The wire bound flat-opening manual, with English translated with only occasional minor glitches from the original German, is detailed, informative, well indexed and easy to use. Along with the single program DVD that is pretty much all that is in the largish box. Given what this package has to offer, it draws immediate comparison with other programs that fill their box with a heavy collection of useless detritus to counterbalance the light weight of the program.

Installation is straight forward but depending on what you wish to do, best check out the system requirements before you commit. Not surprisingly, the needs rise as you move from standard definition through HDV and then to AVCHD where a quad core CPU and max'd out RAM of 3 GB under 32 bit Windows is suggested.

A serial number is needed to get up and running and later on, to activate the licences for some of the codecs that come with the package. It is also needed for registration which opens up the way for updates, patches and suchlike.

Double click here.

If you are upgrading to Video Pro X from its little sibling, Magix Movie Edit, you have the option of staying with the Movie Edit interface or going with the suggested new Video Pro X front end. Having settled that, you then go on to open the program proper.

It is at this stage you are asked, via an options box, to choose from an existing or new project, as well as nominating the settings and a location for the various assets for your project. After that, the source and program monitors - a nice touch which alone takes it above most entry level applications - along with a multi-track 'arranger' (aka timeline) take up most of the screen real estate.  In the area that is left live the Media Pool (the asset container) along with the Fades (transitions), Title area and Effects (filters) all hiding being their own entry tab. The various windows are dockable, using either preset or customisable arrangements, so that if you have the luxury of two monitors, you can move things around to take advantage of the extra viewing area.

All assets from external sources can be assembled or captured from the 'File/Record audio/image/video' or through 'File/Import media files into project folder' commands. MVP can accommodate video files from most sources, including DV, HDV and AVCHD cameras, as well as MPEG 1, 2 and 4 files, QuickTime, WMV and XDCam formats. It will also directly import VOB streams from unencoded DVDs so pretty much all bases are covered. It should be noted - but not be a surprise - that MVP can only import but not export AVCHD files.

Let's go edit!

All tracks in the arranger are equivalent in appearance and function until you load the first video or audio item onto it at which time it becomes an audio or video track. Initially I found this a bit confusing but soon got comfortable with it but I never liked what seems to be becoming the norm - the drab rather depressing dark green-grey 'skin'. It might be petty, but I would have liked to be able to change this to suit my well-known delicate personality. However, I didn't find that option.

There is a selection of different commands, cursors and tools on the tool bar above the arranger for manipulating tracks. Most of these have an associated keyboard shortcut displayed along with their name in a tool-tip bubble when you hover over the icon. Unusually, these icons change depending on which option is selected from the drop-down menu associated with each respective icon. As an example, there are six choices under what could be called cursor selection but Magix labels this 'Mouse. One choice that is a bit different is the so-called 'Intelligent Mouse' which in reality is the ripple edit tool. It moves all contiguous (I like at least one pompous word per article!) items as one, thus preserving crossfades and the spatial relativity of all assets to the right of the cursor in the arranger. To move one item in isolation, select the Object mouse cursor.

The arranger can display 99 tracks. Because all the tracks are the same and not paired, effectively this means there is half the number of tracks as on other programs such as Adobe's Premier Pro and Grass Valley's Edius. (Golly gosh! ! I surely don't know how I would cope with 'only' 49 pairs of tracks!)

Working with the tracks on the arranger is pretty standard, with 'drag and drop' being the easiest way to add single clips and by holding down the Shift key, selected multiple clips. This last, of course, adds all the clips to the same track. The track box at the extreme left of the track has some track controls - solo, mute and lock - as well as a variety of function switches relating to multicam editing and audio track selection for DVD output.

Most fancy transitions between clips (aka 'fades' in MVP) are simply dragged onto the junction of two clips. For example, the crossfade is simply achieved by overlapping the end and beginning of two adjacent clips. The extent of that overlap - shown by crossed white lines in the arranger - indicates the length in time of the action and dragging the 'handle' at one corner of the overlapped area changes this timing. Fading to a chosen colour is done using the Fades/Standard/Color Fade effect, double clicking on that effect and choosing your preferred colour with the colour picking chart.

Video and audio effects, including some free plugins from the Magix website give the user all the controls normally required. There is quite a range, in particular for templates for collages and an assortment of picture-in-picture arrangements that can be simply applied. Of course, chroma keying offers blue, green and a variety of other transparency controls that should meet most needs.

As to the audio, the mixing 'desk' is visually informative and right clicking on an audio asset in the arranger brings up a whole lot of control options that would do some audio editing programs proud.

Titles are applied by default to Track 3, and the Title editor will object if there is an asset under the playhead on Track 3 when you try to call it up. While you can put titles elsewhere, this can result in some later loss of flexibility. The title editor is easy to use and largely icon driven. It comes with a rather flash 3D plug-in that does add some nice eye-catching features and no doubt would get a good deal of use.

In the far right hand corner of the screen, there are two icons which allow you to switch between the editing and burning screens. In the burning screen, you get to chose the type of disk output you want, the menu template, structure and controls you wish to assign for navigation through your (usually) DVD. While you would need to read the instructions carefully for this, this really is a DVD authoring program thrown in for free and with a lot more achievable flexibility in design than some.

Summary

Magix Video Pro X is a bit of a sleeper. It seems not to have the following in Australia that it deserves. It is a bit like an onion with many layers that aren't at first obvious and in terms of bang for the buck, I can't see past it for the keen amateur or event videographer looking for an all-in-one package.

Vendor

Magix AG (German company)

www.magix.com/us

Australian Distributor

QV Software
www.qvsoftware.com.au

Price:    AUD$350 approximately

AusCam Ratings

• Performance:                   8
• Documentation:                8
• Features:                        8
• Installation:                     9
• Value:                             9
• Help:                               7

We liked: Simple four camera editing facility, multi-track ability, audio controls, DVD authoring, 3D title plugin and the audio mixing and cleaning tools 

We didn't like: (Petty and miserable, I know) the interface colour, the Help index (due to language translation issues and naming conventions only) and (Guess who is resistant to change?) the 'all the same' tracks.

By Frank McLeod

Dr Frank McLeod is a specialist physician who in his ‘day job' works in the area of Addiction Medicine. Frank reckons he ‘dribbled' into video as a way to get information across to his patients and their families in an accessible way that avoided information overload. From there, the monster just grew. With a long-time interest in things technical and gadgetry of all kinds, he had been writing tech review-type-articles on a casual basis for a medical publication for some time, when an introduction to David Hague led to his continuing this level of activity in the field of video.

Frank says that one of the parts he likes best about his involvement with Australasian Camcorder is the opportunity to play with other people's toys. The downside, he says, is having to give them back at the end of ‘playtime' that precedes publication of the resulting review.

"I suppose I want to present information from the non-professional point of view, which is not difficult, given that I am the only amateur punter in the camp," he says. With a strong commitment to the amateur video club movement, he is the Secretary of his local video club. In part because of this, and with a long time history as an avid DIY-er behind him, Frank has an interest in the do-it-yourself construction of devices for the amateur videographer and strongly wishes to continue this type of contribution as part of his future involvement with auscam