VideoPad Video Editor 2.41

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET staff on March 14, 2011

NCH Software's VideoPad Video Editor Professional is a full-featured video-editing tool that is surprisingly easy to use. It can combine numerous clips and soundtracks in a wide range of video formats into movie projects, or build an entire production out of a single clip. It supports drag-and-drop editing, real-time effects previews, format conversion, importing and exporting files, captions, narration, and more. It can burn DVDs, HDs, and Blu-ray discs and output video to portable devices. It can also capture video from camcorders and other devices.

It's a rare video editor that you can just fire up and start making movies with, but that's what we did with VideoPad Pro. We browsed to a cartoon saved as an MPG file. VideoPad Pro scanned it and displayed it in the left half of the split main view, with its frames running sequentially along the bottom of a main preview window in a scrollable, time-marked view, and also displayed its information in the left-hand Media List panel. Pressing the Play button played the clip normally. Extracting clips from the main clip was incredibly simple; using the timeline, we selected an In Point and an Out Point and clicked the green down arrow. VideoPad extracted the clip and displayed it below in the Video Track section, which is just above the similar Audio Track. In this manner, we quickly cut up and rearranged the cartoon out of sequence, and then previewed it in the right-hand pane. The transitions between merged clips were seamless. We could save our finished clip or subject it to a wide range of processing and production tools. Toolbar icons let us quickly insert blank spaces or add narration, captions, and other effects. Clicking Build Movie called up a dialog that let us select the video format and whether to burn a disc, send it to a portable device, upload it to YouTube, and other choices.

With smartphones, video sharing sites, and Webcams everywhere, there's no lack of raw video resources, just a need for a powerful, easy-to-use tool like VideoPad Video Editor Professional to put your projects together, polish them up, and present them in the format of your choice. More than just fast and competent, though, we also found it fun to use.

Editors' note: This is a review of the full version of VideoPad Video Editor Professional 2.2.0. The trial version is limited to 14 days.

VideoPad Video Editor - Create stunning video projects - Download Video Previews:

Publisher's Description

From NCH Software:

VideoPad Plus is a video editing application which allows you to create movie projects from various video clips or a single video file. VideoPad allows you to import various file formats including .AVI, .WMV, .3GP, .WMV, .DIVX and many others and then apply effects, cut frames, add captions, voice-overs and soundtracks. Touch up or enhance your video clips with color and brightness effects. Stunning Transition Effects: Fade transition effect gives your movie that professional touch. Preview the effects in real time. Customize the duration of the effect. Complete Video Optimization: Fine tune brightness, saturation and color for your video. Add still photos and digital images with a click of a button. Apply effects such as black & white, sepia tone and negatives. Add text captions to individual clips. Amazing Audio Tools: Add up to 255 music tracks to your video project. Record narrations with the click of a button. Import pre-recorded narrations. Share With Your Family and Friends: Burn to DVD and watch in your living room on your TV. Show off your latest pics and clips on PSP, iPod, iPhone, 3GP mobile phone or Pocket PC. Explore the most advanced way to burn HD DVDs and Blu-Ray Discs. Output video files and share your creation with more friends on computer or through Internet. Input Formats: Video: avi, mpeg, wmv, divX, Xvid, mpeg1, mpeg2, mpeg4, mp4, mov, asf, vob, ogm, .3gp, H.264, RM and many more. Image: bmp, gif, jpg, jif, jiff, jpeg, exif, png, tif . Output Formats: Disc export: DVD, CD, Blu-ray Discs, HD-DVD. Video export: avi, wmv, asf, mpg, 3gp, mp4, mov, iPod, iPhone, PSP, Mobile Phone, Pocket PC. About NCH Software: NCH Software is a leader in audio, video, telephony, dictation, business, and computer utility software for Windows, Palm, Pocket PC and Mac. NCH has released over 80 products since 1993 and have received many awards for software excellence.

What's new in this version: Version 2.41 added overlay track with easier indication for adding text.