Magix Movie Edit Pro 2016 Premium review

Magix Movie Edit Pro 2016 is the latest incarnation of the capable video editing software from Magix. I have been playing around with this kit for a while, so let’s dive in and see how it performs.

Movie Edit Pro’s list of features is certainly impressive and promises professional-level tools but through a consumer-level application. This year’s Premium version builds on that with special attention paid to usability and stability. So, have they come up with the goods?

Magix Movie Edit Pro 2016 Premium overview

Movie Edit Pro 2016 appears to offer everything you need to edit videos and create your own movie masterpieces.

There’s support for all standard camcorders, high-quality editing tools, native 64-bit support, and the list goes on.

Movie Edit Pro 2016 boasts a multitude of unique features, ranging from H.265 support and high-quality image stabilisation through to working with footage from 360° cameras and action cams.

There’s also support for the new video standard AVCHD Progressive (60p). The new technology delivers twice as many full frames as before which means you get smoother moving objects and even more detailed pictures.

Hardware-accelerated decoding allows H.264 videos to be decoded by the graphics card, thus freeing up the processor and greatly improving performance while editing 4K/UHD material

Also in the bundle are some impressive special effects, background music, and interactive menus. AVCHD recordings can be imported and edited in Magix Movie Edit without any recalculation. Simply import the AVCHD material with one click, edit video, burn to Blu-ray Disc complete with animated menu all ready for your big screen TV.

The editing software can handle 99 tracks in this Premium version (33 in the Pro) and plays nice with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio mixing.

Magix Movie Edit Pro 2016 performance

When you open up the Magix application a dialogue box appears offering choices for what you wish to do. You can either start a new project and set the preferences right there, open an existing project or select a movie template if you want to use the wizard system.

The layout is pretty straightforward with tabs at the top of the screen covering each stage of the production process from Import though to Effects.

In every other video editing application I’ve tinkered with, each kind of element has dedicated tracks on the timeline. For example, video goes on one track, audio on another and so on. The tracks in this application does things differently in that you can put any kind of media on any track and, if there’s space, use different media on the same track.

This took me by surprise a little but, once I got used to the idea, I realised that this does seem to streamline the workflow and also means that 33 tracks, let alone the 99 offered in Premium, should be plenty for most users.

A neat function is that the software can automatically sync audio and video files that are taken on separate devices. For example, if you’ve captured video footage with a camera that can’t take a shotgun mic, for instance, and supplemented audio with a HD audio recorder, you’ll have two files of the same audio. Usually you would have to synchronise these elements up by comparing waveforms and lining them up manually. This video editing program will analyse the waveforms for you and automatically synchronise the audio. Lovely.

The editing suite will even beat match and set things up so you can remix the audio.

The audio editing felt very natural to use, me being from a more music background, and this element of the Movie Edit Pro suite seems to have everything I need.

Magix Movie Edit Pro has two main editing modes for users to choose from. The simplest to use is the storyboard mode. This sets out all of your story’s elements in the order in which they will be used. This is different from the more traditional timeline in that each element is given equal room in the workspace, regardless of how long they run. This makes it much easier for you to rearrange your footage, effects and transitions in the order you want them to appear.

The timeline-editing mode is where more experienced editors will find all the intricate granular tools that professionals use.

I really like the added effects, intro/outro, captioning options that can be dropped in to the mix.

High-quality effects, transitions and templates, as well as animated menu templates, thematic intros/outros, and deco elements, all add to your movie mix. You can get quite slick flicks in no time or just drop them in for a bit of fun.

You can even create impressive slow motion effects with smooth speed transitions should you want to emphasise some action sequences.

Are you editing holiday footage or shots taken on a roadtrip or world tour? Then the Travel Route tool will be a handy addition for you. With this you are able to pin where you’ve been and add it in to your video.

When you’re finished building your video project, you have a number of options for sharing your creation with an audience. Creating a stand-alone video file is as simple as selecting the quality and size of your video. But you also have granular controls that allow you to fine-tune aspects of your video such as frame rate, aspect ratio and resolution. Magix Movie Edit Pro handles both simplicity and advanced control nicely.

You also have the ability to burn your videos onto a disc. This software comes with the ability to author DVDs, Blu-ray discs and AVCHD discs. It also allows you to upload videos directly to online sharing sites such as Facebook and YouTube.

Here’s the little video clip I created using one of the 16mm film look from the styles bank of effects and overlying some captions. The clip even ends with a simple fade out.

[youtube id=”ZmgbBCM7Nqs” ]

Magix Movie Edit Pro 2016 Premium conclusion

Magix Movie Edit Pro 2016 Premium is one of the easiest video editing applications I have used thus far and I am pretty sure that I have only just scratched the surface of what this editing suite is capable of.

Being compatible with such a wide range of devices, including 360 cams should certainly prove useful and the support for AVCHD and H.265 brings it up above a lot of consumer tools. As does the power to edit 4K/UHD footage.

I challenge anyone to find such a potent package at this price point.

Magix Movie Edit Pro 2016 Premium availability and price

Magix Movie Edit Pro 2016 Premium is available right now for £89.99 direct from Magix or Amazon.co.uk.