Ulead Media Studio Pro
I began using Ulead's Media Studio Pro with my first editing setup based around the Miro DC30 capture card. At the time, Media Studio Pro version 2.5 was the bundled software but it didn't take long for version 5 to be released. With the release of version 5 came a true competitor to Adobe's stronghold in the world of computer-based video editing (which was Premiere version 4.2 at the time). The decision was made to upgrade.
Media Studio version 5 struck me as being an excellent product and it was packed with several featuresâ€"many more than I have managed to use. This application can be thought of more as a -suite" of programs as opposed to a single application. As well as the video editing package, Media Studio comes bundled with an audio editing application, a paint program, and a dedicated titling package.
When first run, Media Studio is similar to Premiere in that the user is presented with a timeline view of the project. Once again, a certain amount of customisation is possible, allowing the individual to set up the interface to their liking. As mentioned earlier, however, the placement of overlay tracks below the main A&B edit tracks doesn't make for an intuitive understanding of their function. In addition, Premiere has a much better system of controlling transparency of the overlay tracks by providing a visual guide of opacity when the video tracks are expanded. Media Studio allows this to be achieved as well, but the process is a little more involved, requiring a window to be accessed and cue points to be placed at the relevant location. Then the transparency options can be customised at the appropriate cue points.
Like Premiere, Media Studio allows the user to have a large number of tracks (up to 99 overlay tracks in addition to the A&B tracks). However, for each video track added, an accompanying audio track is also added. Premiere offers a little more flexibility in this instance, since video and audio tracks can be added independently.
Adding clips to the Media Studio timeline is a simple matter of double-clicking on an available track and an import requestor appearsâ€"much simpler than having to load a file and then drag it onto the timeline from a project window. The other thing I liked about the way files behaved was that a video track and its corresponding audio track behave in unison so that if the video track was deleted, its audio track went with it. In Premiere, while the tracks moved together when positioned on the timeline, deleting one track does not remove its accompanying trackâ€"something it took me a little time to get used to. Media studio does allow you to break the link between an audio track and its accompanying video track so that you may delete one without affecting the other.
When precise edits have to be made, a monitor window can be open up by double-clicking on a video file. This allows in, out and cue points to be set. Generally, however, Media Studio does not implement this feature as well as Premiere does.
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