muvee Reveal 8: Video Editing Software Review

An extremely useful way to design a piece of software is to think of it as an onion, with a smooth and simple outside layer; peel it back a layer at a time to reveal new features and power. This is the way muvee Reveal is designed.

The first thing you might want to do is try the "Personalize" button, before you save your movie. This brings up a tabbed dialog with lots of different modifications and adjustments you can make. Start with the "Title" tab to create an opening title for your movie, and perhaps move on to the "Credits" tab, to add some closing credits. The "Settings" tab lets you make lots of different choices about how pictures and videos are presented, the relative levels of the video sound and soundtrack, and so on. A "Duration" tab lets you decide how to sync up your video with your music. For example, you can drop video to fit the music, or repeat the music to fit the video. There is even a tab that gives you a voice recorder, so you can plug in a microphone, watch the movie, and add your own narrative to the action. There are numerous other settings you can make, but all start with sensible defaults, so you can explore them as you gain confidence.

Another feature that deserves exploration is the "Styles" panel on the main screen. Picking a style determines the kind of transitions used between the elements (photos and/or videos) of your movie, including some very fancy motion effects that are difficult to describe, but impressive to watch. The muvee website allows you to see samples of different styles in use, and offers additional styles that you can download for free. It's probably best to begin with the "Classic Vanilla" style, which provides simple fade transitions, and use other styles to achieve different moods appropriate to the material.

In addition to those aspects already mentioned, there are a number of other features that set this program apart from others:

• Accepts virtually any photo, video, or music file type you throw at it. When first installed, it accepts .MP4 files exported from Flip camcorders. I tried incorporating AVCHD files (.MTS) from my Canon camcorder, and found that this requires that you download a plug-in from the website, and you can't do this with the trial version.
• Tries to select the most interesting pieces of your video, and cuts them on the beat of the music. With some effort, you can make your own decisions about trimming the video.
• Allows you to sequence video and photos randomly -- which I found attractive with our family vacation shots -- or to simply drag them around to your own preferred sequence.
• You can add captions to a specific clip or photo by right clicking on it and selecting "Caption" from the context menu
• Preview specific clips or an entire movie in different styles. When muvee Reveal first displays a clip or movie, it displays an "Analyzing..." message. Subsequently, the video can be watched at full speed.
• Lots of interesting output and sharing options:
  • Burn a DVD.
  • Upload directly to YouTube or Facebook.
  • Upload to a private "shwup" album, which can only be seen by people you specifically invite.
  • Save in HD as a Windows Media File or QuickTime movie that you can watch on your computer, or as an AVCHD file that can be burned to a Blu-ray disc with suitable hardware and software.
  • Choose between 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios, depending on the material and/or the device you want to view it on.

Splitting and trimming video segments aren't as easy to do as in timeline-based editors. This editor was designed to automate those procedures, but you may or may not like the choices it makes. Effects and transitions are also automated -- in this case, by the style selection -- and you have no ability to modify individual effects or transitions.

When I attempted to use the "shwup" online sharing service, I found that it limits you to a file size of 100 megabytes, which can be quite small if your movie uses video. Uploading was very slow, also.

There is the usual "Help" menu item on the main window, which gives you access to a help file, Live Chat and Online support, a link to the "muvee Community" called "muvee Maniacs," and a check for Program Updates. In addition to this selection, muvee Reveal offers tips on the main screen at different stages, suggesting for example that you should add more music, video, or photos to optimize the movie. I also thought it helpful that in many places, pressing the F1 key gives you context-sensitive help, opening up the help file to the appropriate location. The only thing I wished for that wasn't there was searchability in the help file. The topic organization is useful, however.

The muvee Reveal software can be found for less than the list price, if you shop around. Click for price of muvee Reveal 8 at Amazon.com.