AVIedit

1.0 stars

"A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma"

March 1, 2010  |   By TravelingExecutioner

Version: AVIedit 3.01

Pros

The fact that it's easily deleted, on top of which it inspired me to seek out other, less bunglesome and time-wasting software.

Cons

Cryptic, confusing and complicated

Summary

AM Software's website describes AVIedit as a video editor and capture utility of 'unlimited power' that creates filtering effects 'on the fly' using algorithms and a fast JIT compiler instead of redundant binary code that would otherwise clog up the hard drive. Alleged features allow the user to capture and digitize video in a variety of ways including one-frame-per-minute (for webcams), to join and split AVI files, compress videos for webpages, and to change framerate, duration, frame size, and color depth without recompression and without loss of video quality. Among the slew of claimed functionalities are chromakey, the splitting of interlaced screens to achieve slow-motion, and the conversion of AVI clips to enumerated GIF images.

I've done professional editing work with Vegas and Final Cut, and am familiar with most of the more popular prosumer NL editing programs such as ULead and Premiere, however I'm not sure what to make of AVIedit. The software apparently can do quite a lot, but as Winston Churchill once said of its country of origin (Russia), AVIedit is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Good luck trying to figure out how it works. The stark, bare-lightbulb interface is as deceptively cryptic as a KGB interrogator. Selecting the usual file options results in the appearance of various bars, boxes and fields, the purposes of which aren't readily apparent. Whatever their function, the mysterious objects are undemarcated by the usual labels, buttons, and time increments one normally finds in a video editing suite, leading one to wonder whether AVIedit mightn't have been developed as part of a Soviet ESP experiment. The find-the-hidden-easter-egg help menu was of little actual help, and the online forums at AM Software's website contained hundreds of questions and answers about everything except that which I needed to know in order to use the software. After a couple of hours of futile effort, I was still unable to import or open--let alone play or edit--any of the AVI files I used to test the program. AVIedit expects the user to pay for this software after 30 days, however would-be users will likely give up in disgust long before the trial period expires.

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