Muvee Reveal - video editing for the rest of us - part II

October 30, 1:10 PMGadgets ExaminerDan Appleman

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Muvee Reveal offers a unique approach to video editing, using its own intelligent algorithms to attempt to identify the most important parts of your video clips, then assemble a video without the tedious editing common with traditional video editing programs (See Muvee Reveal – video editing for the rest of us).

This is not a program for a serious video editor who wants flexibility and accurate control over the final video. It is a great program for a casual video editor who wants to create something that looks pretty good, very quickly.

When you install Muvee Reveal (our test system was Windows 7 x 64), it first asks you if you want to install Yahoo Toolbar. This is not uncommon with free software, but is most annoying in an application you paid for. Hopefully they will remove this “benefit” in future versions. Otherwise the installation was smooth.

Your next step after creating a new project might be to import videos. Avoid the temptation to use videos from a media server or network share. You really need the performance of a local or USB drive for the software to work effectively.

Muvee has possibly the best crash recovery capability I’ve seen. When the software crashed on the initial version tested, it was able to quickly recover the project with no data loss. Even better, it offered to send in a support request asking only for an Email address. A couple of days later I received a link to updated software that was considerably more stable – it has not crashed yet.

The main Muvee Reveal window displays your clips along the top of the window, and a list of available themes and music on the left. On the right you can view the created video.

By default, the software will attempt to edit the video to fit the soundtrack that you’ve specified. But you can perform a variety of adjustments to override the judgment of the software. The Magic Moments feature allows you to specify portions of a video clip that are relatively more important or less important.

More important areas (marked in green) are guaranteed to appear in the final video. Unimportant areas (marked in red) are removed. The rest of the video may or may not appear, depending on the timing and needs of the video.

Previous - Muvee Reveal: Video editing for the rest of us.
Review continued - Muvee Reveal video editing for the rest of us - part III
Buy Muvee Reveal on Amazon.com