Movavi Video Suite 18

£59.95
https://www.movavi.com/

There are so many well-known video editing packages ranging from the fairly expensive ones such as Adobe Premiere (about £20 per month) to cheaper ones such as Cyberlink PowerDirector (from around £80). Movavi Video Suite is not one of the best known packages but it is one of the least expensive. But can it really compete with all those better established products?

I recorded this at my desk in front of a green screen then used Movavi's Chroma Key to remove the green and let me pretend to be sitting in a jungle!

In fact, since first using the last edition (v 17) of Movavi Video Studio (see my review), I have found myself coming back to it again and again. At first glance, this might seem odd. Because, if you judge it purely in terms of its range of features, there is nothing obvious that sets it apart from other video editing packages.

But what I’ve found is that there are some things that are simply faster and easier to do with Movavi Video Suite. Converting file formats, for example, or doing a quick Chroma Key recording (with a green-screen backdrop that is removed by the software) is just so quick and easy. I’ve found its green-screen removal works better than many more expensive products when recordings have been made using imperfect backdrop lighting (and that’s the sort of lighting that is probably typical of a lone video maker like me, doing impromptu recordings in my home office).

In brief, it is a simple-to-use video recording and editing package that lets you create videos from clips on a timeline, apply transitions and effects, zoom, pan, add titles and annotations, and produce your final video in a large range of alternative formats.

This new release adds on a few new features, the most useful of which is probably the expansion of the timeline. Previously you were limited to just two video tracks and two sound tracks. In the new version, you can add unlimited tracks to the timeline.

Finally, more video tracks!!!

Other changes are mainly related to improved efficiency and usability. You can edit 4K videos without lagging; visual guides have been added to make cropping, panning and zooming more easily controllable and various improvements have been made to trimming, rotation, intros , outros and so on. A list of the main new features can be found here: https://www.movavi.com/suite/whats-new.html

The provision of a decent screen recorder is definitely a bonus for anyone who needs to do software videos or tutorials. You can not only record the entire monitor (or even the screen of a secondary monitor) but you can also mark out a portion of the screen to record. You can record simultaneously from both the screen and a webcam so that you can include a ‘picture in picture’ of yourself talking to camera while also showing screen activity. Incidentally, while the webcam video is, by default, recorded at a fixed size and position, you can move and resize the webcam video independently of the screen capture by right-clicking it in the timeline and selecting ‘Edit as Overlay’. Bearing in mind that the Camtasia screen recorder costs over £230, and lacks many of the other video editing features of Movavi Video Suite, this alone could easily justify the price of this package.

The screen recorder lets you record portions of a screen along with a simultaneous webcam recording

Now, I have to admit that I do not use Movavi Video Suite as my main video editor. Personally, I generally use Camtasia for screencasts (computer screen recordings) and PowerDirector for live video editing. For my own use, I tend to use Movavi Video Suite as a toolkit that provides a set of utilities for special-purpose tasks. That isn’t to say that it is not up to the job of recording, editing and publishing videos from start to finish. It certainly is. Its combination of screen and video recording tools, and its newly extended multi-track editor, make it a great value all-rounder if you are on a tight budget. But I just know those other packages so well now that I am reluctant to use others.

That said, if I was looking for a good all-round video capture/edit and screencast suite to make videos, I can’t think of any other product that gives you so much for such a low cost. It really is rather good.