Magix Edit Pro 15 Plus

[zoobie]

Has anyone tried this editor as of late?
The last review was a couple of years ago. All seemed well...just curious if it's good for HDV .m2t

Magix Edit Pro 15 Plus
http://www.magix.com/us/movie-edit-pro/plus/

I've noticed some over at Ulead (Corel) jumping the ship and calling it amazing...especially for a price that's less than VS

[filmboss80]

It sure promises a lot for that price! I'm also curious to hear from any users -- especially those who may have also had experience with programs like Vegas Pro, Premiere Pro, etc. How does it compare with editors that cost 6 to 8 times as much?

For now, I'm a bit skeptical.

[pepegot1]

Review from PC Magazine, for what it's worth.

Reading the box, you might think that the Magix Movie Edit Pro video-editing package has everything a hobbyist could want and more. And you'd be right, as far as the feature set goes. But when it comes to usability and output quality, MEP trails the leaders in the field (namely Adobe Premiere Elements, Pinnacle Studio, and Ulead Video Studio), making the package appropriate only for the most price-conscious buyer.

Our quality tests started with automatic color correction, where MEP performed well on a clip with bluish tones, besting Premiere Elements. But it produced garish results on a clip with pinkish tones. In tests to correct backlit videos, MEP couldn't compete with the results produced by Premiere Elements' Shadow/Highlight feature.

In chroma-key trials, we couldn't completely eliminate the background color without making the foreground image slightly transparent, which wasn't an issue with the other products we've tested. The popular still-image pan-and-zoom effect is overcomplicated and underdocumented, and produced flickering on our tests. Rendering in deinterlaced mode, as suggested by technical support, reduced but didn't eradicate the problem. Invoking the image-stabilization feature (to steady shaky video) was also more complicated than it should be and introduced motion artifacts into the video.

Regarding more standard features, MEP's titling utility trails those of Studio and Premiere Elements in usability, and it can't add boxes or ovals as text backgrounds (which help readability). While transitions were plentiful, using them was awkward. For example, drag a picture-in-picture transition onto your one-second dissolve, and MEP extends your transition to 3 seconds, throwing off your careful synchronization. On the audio front, MEP lacks a real-time, multitrack audio mixer (as does Premiere Elements), though you can adjust volume via rubber-band controls in real time. In addition, MEP's noise-removal tool proved effective at reducing background noise, though configuring the tool was complicated.

Rendering performance was quite strong, however, with Magix rendering a 3-minute test clip into MPEG-2 format in 3 minutes 58 seconds, compared with 5:17 for Studio and 7:57 for Premiere Elements. DVD authoring includes niceties like audio and video menus, and good menu configurability, but navigation is limited and the interface is confusing. For example, chapter names entered into the timeline sometimes show up as button labels, and sometimes they don't. Preview your video menu and all menu buttons disappear, leaving you to wonder what will happen during rendering.

Overall, most MEP users will end up wishing Magix had spent less time adding new features and more time polishing and documenting the ones already in the program.

[filmboss80]

Just what I suspected. Despite "Pro" in the name, and regardless of the glowing product claims in the ads, it appears that MEP can't even compete with the Elements version of Premiere.

Not worth the bother.

[Marvingj]

A friend of my had Magix Edit Pro 15 Plus has a lot of goodies for the buck but it crashes to often. Secondly, it needs to be more polished. Out 1 to 10, 10 beening excellent. I would rate it 6.8....

[zoobie]

agreed...the tin is amazing piece of marketing
I think Magix is known for their audio programs
you really can't trust magazine reviews
looking for user reviews
thx