Can the successor to Ulead VideoStudio 6 improve on what is currently the best all-round budget video editing and DVD authoring application?

It certainly makes some grand claims, the boldest of which is the holy grail of real-time performance, but all too often such claims turn to dust when put to the test.

Less ambitiously, but perhaps more practically, other new features include wider format support, content-based scene detection and on-the-fly mpeg transcoding during DV capture.

The VideoStudio interface hasn't changed much, but then it didn't really need to. Its strong points are a huge preview window which can be expanded to fill the screen and a dual mode storyboard/timeline strip running beneath it.

An options panel which provides extra editing tools and effects controls is on the left, and on the right a library panel provides drag-and-drop access to a comprehensive selection of video clips, stills, effects and transitions.

VideoStudio 6 provided the option of directly transcoding captured clips to mpeg-2 format and version 7 goes a step further, providing on-the-fly transcoding to mpeg-1, mpeg-2, and wmv formats.

You can also capture and edit mpeg-2 files from Sony's MicroMV format camcorders.

There is plenty of opportunity to tweak the transcoding settings, though most users will probably stick to the presets for VCD, SVCD and DVD recording.

On-the-fly transcoding is swift and certainly less hassle than having to wait several hours for an entire DVD's worth of material.

Both mpeg-1 and mpeg-2 captured clips took about the same time to transcode as to capture, effectively doubling the capture time. In other words a 20-second clip took 20 seconds to capture and a further 20 seconds to transcode.

As for real-time preview, let's just say that, having started out with a large dose of scepticism, we weren't all that surprised by the performance, or rather lack of it.

While the efficiency of its real-time previewing, which Ulead calls Instaview, will very much depend on your hardware, we couldn't see a great deal of difference between this and VideoStudio 6's 'instant preview' mode. This was the case both with native DV clips and mpeg.

The Playback button is now clearly labelled so you can toggle between clip and project preview. For previewing effects and transitions as well as the entire timeline, you're better off turning off the instant preview and electing for high-quality playback.

Of course, you'll have to wait while rendering takes place - typically around 15 seconds to a couple of minutes for transitions and effects filters on a short clip - but at least you can see what you're getting.

One new feature you'll definitely need to render to appreciate is the slow/fast motion effect, which ranges from 10 per cent to 1,000 per cent of the original clip speed. Likewise the five new video filters - old film, lighting, lens flare, comic and bubble.

In addition to a number of presets, these and many other filters now provide keyframable customisation. Adding keyframes and adjusting effects parameters is easy enough, but some of the presets would benefit from a description of some sort, rather than a tiny icon which tells you nothing.

One aspect of VideoStudio that would benefit from keyframes but doesn't get them is the title editor.

To be fair though, VideoStudio's titling facilities are better than most low-end applications provide, with a good selection of titling templates and customisable animation options including rolling and crawling, flying, fading and zooming.

Two new animation types, pop-up and turn, have been added to these and Cool 3D SE is also included.

A new extract video feature provides a quick and simple way of cutting several sections from a long clip by marking in and out points as it plays.

The unwanted bits are trimmed and the remaining clips added to the timeline in a single step.

The process can be inverted, so that the marked sections are retained rather than trimmed and editing is non-destructive, so you can reinstate the trimmings if you want, alternatively you can save the trimmed version to create a new clip.

Other significant improvements in this version include seamless capture that overcomes the Fat 32 4GB file size limit and post-capture content-based scene detection.

Contact: Ulead 01327 844 880
www.ulead.co.uk

System requirements:

• 800MHz PIII
• 128MB of Ram
• Windows 98SE, ME, 2000, XP
• 500MB of free hard disk space
• 4GB for video files