The CD/DVD tab at the top of the screen brings you to the DVD authoring screen, which offers a simple, elegant way to create your own simple DVD menus or use one of the numerous menu templates provided. It's not the most sophisticated DVD authoring tool around, but as an added feature for a low-cost video editing package, it's very impressive.

The list of features that Magix Movie Maker 10 includes goes on, but there are only so many words we can devote to this product. Suffice it to say that no video editing software has ever offered so many features for so little money, period. It can't compete with professional video editing products, but in the realm of the hobbyist, Magix Movie Maker 10 is a winner, no doubt about it.

Trial Version Available: No
Operating System: Windows 98/SE/Me/2000/XP
Minimum CPU: 450 MHz
Minimum RAM: 128 GB
Minimum Hard Drive Space for Installation: 1 GB
Batch Capture: Yes
Automatic Scene Detection: Yes
User Interface: Timeline or Storyboard
Number of Video Tracks: 16 (shared with audio)
Number of Audio Tracks: 16 (shared with video)
Nesting Tracks: No
Audio/Video Level Envelopes: No
Audio Scrub: No
Keyframe Animation: No
Number of Video Transitions: 170
Number of Video Filters: 25
Background Rendering: Yes
Realtime Software Previews: Yes
Optimized for Dual Processor HyperThreading: No
Third-party Plug-in Support: No
Encoding Formats: AVI, DV AVI (type 1 and 2),MPEG 1 and 2, WMV 9, WMVHD, MOV, MXV; DivX and MPEG-4 with installed codec only. Imports VOB, HDV, HDTV, DVB and MJPEG streams.
Batch Render: No
DVD Authoring Software Included: Yes

• Many features for the money
• Nice interface
• More video/audio tracks than most low-cost editors

• Crashed once on install

A very impressive set of features for $60; a great deal for video hobbyists.

Joe McCleskey is a multimedia producer and freelance writer.

$60 boxed price
$49 ESD price
MAGIX
1680 Michigan Ave., Suite 900
Miami Beach, FL 33130
(888) 326-2449
www.magix.com