Many semi-pro and pro editors will probably have never heard of ProDAD. And that would be a shame as this German company has been around for a few years and makes some fantastic plugins for all sorts of effects for host programs including Pinnacle Studio, Magix, Adobe Premiere, Sony Vegas, AVID, Corel Videostudio and Canopus. It can also run standalone.

Vitascene is one of the four products the company makes (the others are Adorage, Mercali and Heroglyph) and is specifically for effects, filters and transitions. In fact, there are more than 600 effects out of the box covering everything from light sources, light beams, gleams, glows and reflections, contrast and focus, colour and brightness as well as bevelling and text effects.

An added bonus is that all effects can be used as straight effect or called in to act as a very cool transition.

Keyframing is available allowing transitions and effects to be fine-tuned to the user’s whim.

A current favourite doing the rounds is the “tilt-shift” effect turning an image into a mini toy-like landscape and this is included as are various paint effects including watercolour, line drawing and even a pseudo 3D.

Rendering has been optimised taking advantage of the processor on your video card (GPU) and is very fast. To further speed this if you are running a 64bit version of Windows with say Adobe Premiere or Sony Vegas, you can install a 64bit version of Vitascene. And for the diehards who have stayed with Windows XP, Vitascene will still work with a minimum of 2GB memory, although at that level of RAM, your rendering speed will be somewhat compromised!

There are actually two versions of Vitascene; Vitascene V2 Pro contains all of the functionality detailed here (and sells for USD$499) but there is also a Vitascene V2 LE with around 100 effects and no support for Pinnacle or Magix for USD$199.

There is a free trial version that can be upgraded to either version and this is available via www.prodad.com. ProDAD is represented in Australia by Digital Planet Technologies Tel: 02 9734 7066 or www.dpt.net.au

Price:  $499.00

Auscam ratings    

Performance         9

Documentation     7

Features:                     8

Value for money:  7

We liked: Lots of effects, can be used as transitions, many hosts available

We didn’t like: Perhaps a bit pricey as an add-in for cheaper packages.

By David Hague

David is the owner and publisher of AusCam Online. He has a background in media dating back to 1979 when he first got involved with photojournalism in motorsport, and went from there into technology via a 5 year stint with Tandy Computers. Following that, he ran a software distribution company on the Gold Coast and was one of the first to recognise the potential of Microsoft Windows.

Moving back to WA, David wrote scripts for Computer Television for video training for the just released Windows and Office 95 among others, and was then lured to Sydney to create web sites for the newly commercial Internet in 1995, building hundreds of sites under contract to OzEmail including Coates Hire, Hertz Queensland, John Williamson, the NSW Board of Studies and many, many more.

He went back into full time journalism as the Managing Editor for Channel 7's 'Gadget Guy', Peter Blasina's publications VideoCamera and Pixelmag, before starting Australasian Camcorder magazine when these publications were shelved. He lives at Sydney's Avalon Beaches nearly on the ocean front with dog Budweiser and in his spare time is a nut for motor sport, road safety, fishing, science fiction - especially Dr Who - and technology.

David can be contacted via david@auscamonline.com