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| Corel Ulead VideoStudio 11.5 Plus [OLD VERSION] | ![Corel Ulead VideoStudio 11.5 Plus [OLD VERSION]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/511Lco6ViyL._SL160_.jpg)
 enlarge | From: Corel
Category: Software
List Price: $129.99
Buy New: $59.98
You Save: $70.01 (54%)
New (9) from $59.98
Avg. Customer Rating:  103 reviews
Sales Rank: 893
Format: Cd-rom
Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows Xp
Media: CD-ROM
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 9.6 x 8 x 1.9
MPN: VS115PLENPC
Model: VS115PLENPC
UPC: 735163120202
EAN: 0735163120202
ASIN: B0013OAHTG
Release Date: March 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Direct to YouTube ... Best Choice for Parents ... June 26, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
This program is still the best program on the market for amateurs and other levels of the everyday user and maybe even a few `pro-sumers' like me. If you're a parent and your goal is to just very simply create some nice looking home movies to burn on DVD and distribute to other family members or even upload directly to Youtube (which is a very nice feature), then Ulead Video Studio is looking like the best program out there for doing so. It's also, by far, the easiest to use and understand while not forfeiting presentation quality and features doing so. The learning curve on this is very fast and dedicating a mere ten minutes to the manual will yield pretty impressive results.
Some folks might think that you'll have to invest thousands of dollars on a new Mac so you can have a new version of iLife and do all this without having an intimate knowledge of video editing or processing, but this really is a much better and a much cheaper alternative. While buying a Mac is always a cool prospect, you may not have to do that just yet.
The only drawback I could find was in using the built-in `Movie Wizard' which is a bit restrictive, even though it's `drag and drop'. Creating movies this way, renders your footage faster and gives you a much grainer, or lower resolution end result. If you can avoid using this feature, I would, as having the ability to fully control the output settings is an absolute must.
A wonderful mid-level product June 26, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
Video editing is one of those tasks I'd like to get better at but have never gotten around to actually getting better at. My experiences in this have been enduring constant frustration with Liquid Edition 6 and then some video editing solace with Sony Vegas. With my recent upgrade to Windows Vista I not only was one of the few absolutely delighted with the switch I also found a nice, extremely user-friendly video editing program in the new Windows Movie Maker. Of course, Windows Movie Maker is also rather limited. What it does it does well. But if a person wants to go beyond that they had to take a rather big leap to the next levels of programs.
With Corel Ulead VideoStudio I find an amazing progression from absolutely basic/entry level to highly functional and flexible. Again and again recently I have found Corel to be the master of designing programs that are both highly capable and highly oriented towards the user experience. Meaning their programs do a lot and are always surprising how easy they are to pick up and use. This video software is no exception. It has the user friendliness of Windows Movie Maker with substantially more capability and options.
The learning curve is very slight. Not because everything can be picked up quick but rather because Corel has approached this program understanding that not everyone can spend the hours and hours learning about software before getting to a real project. Instead, they have built in different modes of working. From the really basic Wizard that is a lot like movie maker to a more robust editing context that allows for a whole lot of creativity.
And within that more expansive creativity they have made for a very wonderful ease of use, with the layout and the functions quite easily recognizable and quite easily applied. The arcane qualities of most video software are pushed aside for very clear, very obvious tools.
At each step I found myself easing my way into more and more knowledge. And that's another quality I've noticed with Corel. The software itself is a teacher in a way. And not a boring one. Rather, unlike so much headache inducing software (Liquid Edition) this Corel was actually fun. Again the emphasis on the user came out.
No this is not as robust as some other programs. But it is also significantly less expensive and significantly less resource demanding. I used it on my high quality Dell XPS 710 quad processor, 4GB, up to date video card, Windows Vista desktop (noticing it was faster than other video programs). Of course it worked well on that. I also used it on my Dell e1405 XP laptop, bought for battery life, that has no video card, sound card, and only 1GB of memory. It didn't run as fast, of course, but it still worked great. Surprisingly great.
I'm absolutely pleased with VideoStudio and will be heartily recommending it to friends and family. I've not gotten even to the full extent of learning this program--I'm excited about applying Flash to future video projects--and yet I don't feel like I'm missing anything.
This is an ideal mid-level video software meant for people who want to step up in their production but don't want to, or need to, invest in the higher level programs. It's very user friendly, very processor/memory friendly, while offering a wonderful progression of capability for any level user--whether the absolute beginner or the master wanting to do something quick and without bother.
Love this and look forward to a lot more video work in coming months and years. Corel has made it actually fun. And that is a huge thing for those of us who don't particularly love sitting in front of the computer all the time.
 You get what you pay for. June 26, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This software has a nice interface and plenty of features for the home/consumer video enthusiast. There's also a great user support forum linked to the publisher's website.
Unfortunately, I found the program to be somewhat buggy and cannot recommend it. The most significant issue was that my PC's DVD drive wasn't recognized by the program when it was time to burn a disk. There were numerous, time consuming workarounds and fixes mentioned on the Video Studio forum. One user even solved his issue with the software by reinstalling his PC's operating system. But who wants to go through all that?
I downloaded the trial versions of Sony's Vegas Pro and DVD Architect Pro, as a previous reviewer suggested, and they worked just fine on the same PC. Those programs are definitely worth the extra money if you value your time.
Easy Wizard and works with DivX movies too! June 25, 2008
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
After reading the reviews where folks were saying that they found it easy to make home movies, I figured I'd test making a DVD from DivX movies.
DivX is a high-quality video compression format that makes a DVD movie about 700Mb, instead of the 4.7GB in size. This is currently the most popular format for converted Tivo recorded TV shows & movies to the computer.
I took 3 episodes of a TV show (approx 800Mb each in size) and added them to the create DVD wizard.
The only problem I had, was the program wanted to convert the videos from its original 2.8 Gigabytes to over 5 Gigabytes in size. Even with referring to the manual and the Help, I couldn't find how to compress the files to fit on a single DVD-R disc.
I tried single 700Mb movies and the system wanted to make it over 5GB.
I took five 350Mb TV episodes and it wanted to convert it to 12GB.
I finally stumbled upon the compression listed in one of the settings as aspect ratio. Aspect ratio normally refers to if the displayed screen is regular TV format or widescreen movie format etc. The aspect ratio settings also had the choice of these, but it had some additional settings that I played with and my 3 original files were now only 4Gb.
Also, when using multiple video files, the program wanted to automatically merge them into one large file. I didn't want this as I wouldn't know where the episode breaks were. I used the Video editing tools to add chapter breaks across the single merged file.
I burned my DVD. The conversion and burning took a full hour for a 4Gb DVD burn.
The end product was a "title page" with background music and the title of my project. Once I clicked PLAY it took me to a sub-title page, which listed the 3 episodes I added to the project. I could select them in any order and play them as if they were chapters on a regular DVD.
The only other problem the program seemed to have cut the breaks 15 seconds earlier than I had set them too. So each chapter started with 15 seconds from the end of the previous episode. No biggie.
OVERALL:
The combining videos, editing videos and burning of a DVD was fairly simple and all the tools are in this single box. I didn't need to read the manual to finish my first project, the wizards were very intuitive. Very good product!!
 Lot of power but not as intuitive to use as it could be June 24, 2008
the software has a lot of cool features, and if you are into video editing no doubt you will love this program. It is very feature rich. However I am not a big fan of the user interface. The wizards are the a bit clumsy and the regular interface, I don't find that intuitive. Having said that, I have been quite happy with the product after I overcame the steep learning curve.
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