Multimedia Corner

Drag and Drop Video Editing

At one time the specialized equipment needed for video editing was so rare and expensive you could only find it in such media mega-cities as New York and Hollywood. Now you can edit video from your desktop Windows-based PC and have the latest tools only dreamed of five years ago. Asymetrix's Digital Video Producer brings full drag and drop video editing to the 80836 33 MHz or better personal computer.

The package includes a video capture utility that allows you to bring video images to your hard disk from many sources. The input source can be a VCR, video player, or any Microsoft Video for Windows device. Special capture support is supplied for Sony and VISCA VCRs. The system supports a special compression technique called SmartEDIT that allows the video to take the smallest possible space on your hard disk.

The comprehensive set of editing tools supplied should make most experts happy. Beginners will also find the learning curve is not steep or imposing. The user can use two fully functional video windows to view and mark edit points for video clips being processed. The dazzling effects include a large collection of transitions, dissolves, wipes, irises, blizzards, blurs, ripples, and embosses.

Using the chroma key feature you can overlay video, bit-mapped graphics, and titles. The software also supports what the industry calls image processing, so you can manipulate the color, brightness, tint, and saturation of image. There are two video and audio tracks, an overlay track, and a transitions track to manage all the control features of the package. Titling is fully font, size, and color selectable.

The package includes a Startup Assistant and sample video clips for the new user. Using the tutorial, you can position the elements of the video, establish a time line, make decisions on transitions, and add titles in less than thirty minutes. This is an excellent package with many features and complicated concepts.

To smoothly blend multiple video and audio clips into a single project, start by selecting the files of the component element. They will automatically appear in an active window. The screen will include up to two audio and two video windows, and an overlay track. By simply dragging a sound or video to a location on the overlay track, the components are placed on the final product's time line. Special effects such as fades to black or white, color inversion, tile, blur, or ripple are added as needed. Titles or internal text can be added. Lastly, the transitions are added before the system compiles the final video show.

Although the Digital Video Producer box suggests that an 80386 33 MHz CPU is sufficient, the reality is that the performance is glacial. I would not recommend less than an 80386 66 MHz. The product will operate with 4 Mb of RAM, but I would suggest 8 Mb if you want to finish a day's work before the late news. The system needs a SVGA video card capable of 256 colors or more.

A sound card is supported, but needed only if you are integrating audio input into the presentation. The system works on either Windows 3.1 or Windows 95, although we did find a couple of ways to freeze the mouse icon while using the system.

Contributed by C. W. Mann, who also writes the syndicated computer column, BuzzBytes.

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