One last consideration is re-editing, which can be a major chore for many programs, depending on how you archive your completed projects. The project file will invariably look for media clips in their original locations, not your new archive location. SpeedEDIT does speed up the process of making these new location associations by using the Spreadsheet tab. Simply highlight all the clips needing a new location association, right-click on the Drive icon, and click Edit Drive to type in a new drive location.

Finally, we output our test project in several formats, including directly back to tape and various high-compression settings, such as MP4 and Flash, with no problems.

We did, however, run into a few speed bumps. We discovered SpeedEDIT doesn't show drive names, only letters, in the Filebin. The drive name is even missing in the drive properties. This posed a challenge for us, as we often have eight or more drives, internal and external, physical and logical, each named for their different media types and functions. Dropdown dialog boxes are semi-transparent, making some properties hard to read. And while SpeedEDIT comes with a useful manual, it does not include a centralized Help.

So is SpeedEDIT the "World's Fastest Video Editor?" Key features like the dynamically linked Storyboard and Timeline panes, ease of incorporating multiple formats, no transcoding of different clip resolutions, inheriting functions, and plenty of real-time DVE, title and color effects do go a long way in supporting this claim. We would certainly agree that, with the right editor at the controls, there's a good chance it could be among the quickest ways for you to tell your story.

Trial Version Available: No
Operating System: Windows XP (SP 2)
Minimum CPU: Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon processor that supports SSE2 (dual-core CPU recommended for HD/HDV editing)
Minimum RAM: 1GB
Capture Formats: DV, HDV
Batch Capture: No (will be available in future release)
Automatic Scene Detection: Yes
Number of Video Tracks: Unlimited
Number of Audio Tracks: Unlimited
Audio Scrub: Yes
Keyframe Animation: Yes
Number of Video Transitions: 500+ real-time
Number of Video Filters: 10 real-time filters, 175 pre-designed, CG pages
Background Rendering: Yes
Realtime Software Previews: Yes
Optimized for Dual Processor/HyperThreading: Yes
Third-party Plug-in Support: Yes

• Innovative combination of storyboard and timeline editing.
• Compatible withmultiple formats with resolution independence.
• And yes, it is indeed fast.

• No drive names shown in file manager.
• No centralized Help menu.
• Simplified but non-standard layout may take some getting used to.

SpeedEDIT gives you an easily-navigated interface that can provide greater storytelling flexibility, using mixed resolutions and formats with little to no rendering.

Contributing editor Brian Peterson is a video production consultant, trainer and lecturer.

NewTek
5131 Beckwith Blvd.
San Antonio, TX 78249
www.newtek.com
$495