Ulead MediaStudio Pro 7

Ulead MediaStudio Pro 7
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(Click image for enlargement) Video Editor module of MSP7

Launch the Video Editor module of MSP7 and you'll see a familiar-looking timeline, with a source/record layout (see graphic at left). A mini version of the Windows Explorer holds all your clips, transitions, filters, 3D moves and everything else. The file management is nice, too, giving you the ability to import and export an entire production library into another project. These are all just thumbnails, of course, calling to another place on your hard disk where the actual data is stored. You can change those thumbnails however you like, and there are also some great search features, too. Another idea I haven't seen elsewhere is the ability to show a folder containing only the shots you've used -- at a glance, you can see the meat of what you've done so far. Neat. And here's another innovation that I wonder why nobody has thought of yet: It's called a Summary Timeline. What this does is throws out time relationships and changes every element on your timeline to a clickable size. Say you're doing a sequence with ten five-frame clips in a row, and then the rest are 10-second clips. Select the summary timeline icon, and all the clips, even those sliver-sized quick cuts, are all at least a square shape and of clickable size, no matter how short or long they really are. Although this might get confusing if you set up your timeline this way and then the phone rings, still, I could use this in a variety of situations where there are tons of shots of wildly varying lengths. This is even better for MSP7 because zooming in and out of the timeline isn't as convenient as I'd like. Lately, I've gotten accustomed to using the mouse wheel to zoom in and out. MSP has this tiny magnifying glass icon, whose cursor changes from a plus to a minus by hitting the Shift key, and you can zoom in and out by hitting the + and - keys, but I don't think even that is as easy to use as that mouse wheel. It would be easier if you could just modify the magnifying glass to a select cursor with the Control key, for example, but no dice there, either. I'm so used to having the ability to zoom in and out of the timeline with the scroll wheel (ok, ok, in Sonic Foundry's Vegas) -- something I wish every NLE on the planet would do -- that anything else just isn't as good.

If you're not a big mouse user, the keyboard holds special speed tricks for you in MediaStudio Pro 7. Keyboard shortcuts have proliferated throughout, and they make your editing chores go faster. For example, I like the way the M key toggles through the trim modes, letting you make changes with a few quick movements. And, a context-sensitive right click gets you to almost anywhere in the software you need to go. If you don't like that, use the toolbar that includes many of the most often-used commands. I just wish the toolbar were a bit more customizable, but if you need different often-used commands at your fingertips, you can always put them on the Quick Command Toolbar, inside which they will sit wherever you want them to be. Another convenient feature happens when you double-click on the FX track, and it invokes the transitions in the production library -- no hunting around, it's there instantly.
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Unfortunately MSP7's color correction controls are rather crude by today's standards. There are no color wheels from which to pick your colors -- just an eye dropper where you can choose a color within the shot, and the rest of the frame is changed to match that color. On the plus side, you can see all your changes in an NTSC or PAL monitor, a crucial feature if you want to know what you're really getting. And, you can globally change the color of all your clips with one swoop, or just adjust each individual shot. Sure, you can adjust the highs, midtones and shadows of the clip, but I would like to see Ulead expand its color correction controls in a subsequent version of MSP, an area where most other pro-level NLEs like Final Cut Pro and Vegas have far surpassed it. So if you have a lot of color correction to do, this is not the application for you.

Looking at MSP's effects, there are hundreds of filters, transitions and lots more, adding to the already bountiful collection of effects in earlier versions of this software. An entire book could be written about all these effects, but suffice to say that they are all keyframeable and you can tweak each one to your heart's content. A new filter I especially like is the old film effect, and another standout in the new batch o' fun is a smart blur that can maintain edges (like Photoshop's Unsharp Mask) but softens skin tones at the same time. And, like the color correction (which is itself a filter), you can see results of your adjustments on an NTSC or PAL monitor.

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