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Video

The next section up is the Video section. Let's see how this performs against the rest of the program.

Capture Video

Now let us take a look at the capture application

The video capture application is launched from the main Roxio Application launcher. As we can see from the screenshot below, several options are available. Including capture from CD/DVD drive, Scanner, hard drive, audio device and video capture device.

We will choose the capture video option as we felt this would be the most common use of this application.

From this screen we then choose the ATI Rage Theatre Capture option, this takes us to the main video capture settings screen. Here you can set the various options.

Since my graphics card has a built in TV Tuner I selected this input for the capture and decided to capture some live TV.

Now it's time to set the various options for the capture. These are set from the advanced settings tab. They allow you to select your country's TV system for example, being in the UK I selected PAL-I.

This screen also allows you to select the TV channel to be captured, the output format and preview format.

I captured some 11 segments of video from the TV card, ranging in duration from a few seconds to over 1 hour. As we can see from the screenshot below, the captured files appear as thumbnails.

After you have finished capturing files you are given the option of exiting the capture application and returning to the main Roxio Application Launcher or opening the main Video Editing Application 'Videowave 7" and various other options as we can see from the screenshot below.

The capture application worked very well and we found this application gave very good capture quality and was fairly simple to set up and use.

Edit Video

Now let us put the main Video Editing application through its paces.

The main video editing application is Videowave 7. This can be launched from the main application launcher or can be automatically launched from various other applications within the Roxio Media Creator suite.

When the program is first launched you a greeted with the screenshot below.

The two main parts of this application are Storyline and Timeline.

Storyline view gives an overview of all the video clips that has been entered in a thumbnail view, including transition effects. Video clips can be painlessly dragged and dropped into the Storyline editor and moved around to change the sequence in which the resulting video file will be played. This was very easy to achieve. Effects and transitions can be added as you please to give your finished video a personal touch.

The Timeline view works basically the same as Storyline, but displays the video clips in a Timeline, thus showing the duration of each video clip and the duration of the whole project.

Once we had completed editing our video clips the application gives various options on how to save the project. The project can be saved for later editing or the user can choose to build a DVD or VCD at this time. Choosing to build a DVD/VCD opens the DVD/VCD builder application which we will cover later in this review.

As well as supporting the two main formats DVD and VCD. Videowave 7 can also output the data in other formats. For example, SVCD, DV and DIVX are also supported.

Videowave 7 should provide users with all the necessary tools for video editing as there are a myriad of options to choose from, all available in an easy to use interface.

Auto Edit With CineMagic

Cinemagic is basically a wizard which opens the main Videowave 7 application and guides you through the process of compiling your own custom video and music DVD. You can add your video camera clips or captured video and add music and effects to the compilation.

Let us say for example you want a custom opening sequence to your compilation. This can be anything from a few seconds to a complete DVD. You can add your own audio and choose video effects, but beware. Should you choose a large clip and audio file this will take several hours too render.

The wizard is very easy to use, you basically select the video clips and sound clips to add, and the wizard will guide you through the rest.

Below is the add video clip screen. You simply drag and drop your video clips into the clips window.

In the next screen we get to add our audio clips. The audio clips can be a few seconds or several minutes in length, but a limit is set of the maximum length which must be no greater than 50% of the duration of your video clips.

In the next screen we can choose a style to use for our masterpiece.

Now its time to select the export method, at this stage you can return to do some further fine tuning by selecting the 'edit production" option or in this case selecting the 'output to" function will take you to the output options screen.

Now we have to choose the output format for your compilation. In this case we selected the 'video file" option.

Having selected the quality of your output from the various options, you finally select the 'render" button. Now it's time to go and make some coffee and allow the application to render your masterpiece. Once this completes you have the option to view the rendered video clip. I was quite impressed with the results of this wizard. Although as I said before, choosing a very big audio file will require a good deal of time too render.

Assuming we only rendered a short opening sequence to our masterpiece, once the render has finished and you quit the Cinemagic wizard, your video clip will be opened in Videowave 7 once more so you can add your main video and have the application complete your video.

Guide Edit With StoryBuilder

StoryBuilder is another wizard which opens the main Videowave 7 application.

In this wizard we can select a template and 'Intro Text" to use in our compilation. We can also add some text at the end of our compilation using this wizard.

We will start by selecting a template to use.

In the next screen we can add some text we wish to appear in the opening sequence of our compilation. The text size and position can be changed at this stage, by selecting a font size, entering some text and then dragging the text around the screen to a suitable position.

In the next screen we can add our video clip into the compilation. Since this is done in exactly the same method as Cinemagic we will skip the screenshot.

After adding your video, the next screen allows us to add some text which will appear at the end of our compilation.

Finally we once again choose the export option for our compilation. This time we selected the email option. The output was then rendered and output in WMV format.

We were then given the option of sending the email to a recipient. Having selected this option the default Windows email client was opened with our video already attached, all we had to do was enter a message and recipient for the email.

Once again this wizard completed the set task with ease and good quality results.

Our fifth section is Data

Photo

DVD