Test Bench: Ulead MediaStudio Pro 7.0 Editing Software (page 2)

MSP7 pumps out real-time full-resolution, full frame-rate video in many real-world situations. Not just previews, mind you, but finished video without a special hardware card. Certainly part of this is courtesy of MSP7's own internal rendering tricks and technology, but fast modern hardware is also partially responsible. When we ran our tests on a dual-Xeon 3.06GHz machine with a Matrox Parhelia card, just about all everyday tasks (titles, crossfades and motion paths) happened in real time. MSP7 worked extremely well with the Parhelia card, which spanned the workspace across two monitors and sent previews to a third.

Strangely, we found that real-time performance increased when we disabled the HT (HyperThreading) technology on the Intel CPUs. Ulead sent us a patch (which should be public when you read this) that solved the problem. Still, even with only a single CPU and no HT, MSP7 was able to output real-time DV in almost all everyday situations. MSP7 has a clever rendering system of pre-fetching rendered frames as needed during playback and a Complexity indicator (a familiar red render bar that gets darker red as segments get more complex) that will tell you when your project is too demanding for real time, but you'll need to learn this system to use it properly. There are so many hardware and preview options in MSP7 that it can be, quite frankly, baffling to figure out how to get the best performance, but we were still happy that these options were exposed to the power users who want to tweak their systems. When configured correctly on a fast enough machine (and "fast enough" might mean a P4 3.06GHz CPU), MSP7 can output real-time, final-quality DV without any special hardware.

MSP7 is a technologically advanced editor (with seventh generation stability) that has a number of killer features that we expect competitors will incorporate (if they want to remain competitive) sometime in the future.

Platform: PC
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 98SE, Me, 2000, XP
Processor: PIII 500MHz (or equivalent)
RAM: 128MB RAM (256 or higher recommended)
Hard Disk: 300MB
Other Hardware: CD-ROM drive, Windows-compatible sound card, OHCI-compliant FireWire (IEEE 1394)
Demo Version: 30-day time limited

• Excellent video capture/logging tool
• Real-time full-res, full-frame DV out
• AC3 audio encoding

• Small effects dialogs
• Complex real-time configuration

A technologically advanced editor (with seventh generation stability) that has a number of killer features.

$475
Ulead Systems
20000 Mariner Ave, Suite 200
Torrance, CA 90503
(310) 896-6388
www.ulead.com

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