October 26, 2005

autoProducer 4 (*** out of four) is the lazy person’s way out of slaving over a movie editor, trying to get all the video clips, photos and music just right for your video or photo creation. Just tell autoProducer 4 where to find the video clips, photos and music or download your video clips directly from your digital video camera into the program, choose a style that suits you and/or the event you want to create a slide show for. Then the program grinds away for minutes to seconds doing its editing thing on the video clips and pictures while matching the music to the video–-and out comes the finished creation--worthy of a pop-style editor. That easy.

The program works by using its own intelligent editor, which has been created by muvee (pronounced "moovie") Technologies’ interviews with many award-winning real-life video editors, to gather information about how they edit. The various techniques were then incorporated into algorithms used by the program in analyzing each video clip or photo. Analysis takes into consideration shot boundaries, action (or lack thereof) in a clip, identifiable closeups, over-all brightness, coloring of the clips and tempo and mood of the music. The program will automatically trim each clip to an appropriate length, depending on content, apply fades and effects according to its editing rules and the style you’ve chosen, arrange your clips and photos and more.

Included with the program are 25 styles, each of which uses a different look and feel for your final creation. Styles include: Pro fast, medium or slow-paced, using simple cuts and dissolves; Black & White or Sepia-toned for that old-fashioned TV or movie look; Flower Power, with psychedelic color and trippy effects; Music Video, using high energy up-tempo cuts and fades timed to the music beat; Fire, using a red/orange color tint with moderate pacing; Slideshow, Black and White, Fast, Slow or Sepia, using single framed stills created from the video clips; Kids, decorated with cute clipart and moving cartoon characters; or Cool Moon, with blue tint and slight smearing effect. There’s a style to suit almost every taste, and you can preview any style using your own media easily and quickly to see if it’s "you." If not, several other optional Style Packs are available from muvee’s Web site. Something there is sure to do the job.

Although you can use the program in fully automatic default mode, you can exert some control in the duration of the show, audio and video effects. For example, for video, you can mark specific video clips or parts of clips that you want the program to keep or parts that must be excluded. For photos, you can also select the range, type and pan effect used. Other optional settings allow you to select the duration of the show by optimizing a combination of the video and music length or have the program force the video length to match the music or set a specific time duration for the video. Some styles will randomize your clips and photos, but you can select to keep your clips and photos in the sequence you’ve set in the Media window--or shuffle them less or more if the style selected uses random or patterned sequence. For audio you can instruct the program to use every song, and the program will trim parts of each selection and cross fade the parts to match the length of the video. You can also set the degree of blending of the volume of the original video soundtrack with the music, choose to use music only or soundtrack only.

Once you’re satisfied with your production, you’ll have several options for saving it. The program can save in avi, divX, MPG-1 or MPG-2, WMV, Quicktime or export as DV directly back to your camcorder. Using whatever format you think is the most appropriate, you can e-mail your show or put it on your Web site. You can burn your show to DVD, SVCD or VCD formats directly from the program.

Help is available from tool tips and online help that explains most of the features of the program and how to use them.

We have to say that when we first heard about autoProducer 4 we were skeptical – how can a program do in minutes what it usually takes us hours of editing to accomplish? Well, we found that it can--with more flair, imagination and creativeness than we usually apply. And with surprisingly good results. Now you’ll know what to do with those hours of video from your children’s sports, recitals, concerts and videos of parties, reunions weddings, anniversaries and such. Just "muvee" them – it’s quick and easy and we know you’ll be pleased.

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