So now that we have officially entered into 2012 I thought it might be a good time to present a little round up of exactly where I think we are as far as consumer video editing software choices go for this year.

Given that none of the major players will be upgrading their products until at least September the information and ranking here should stay the same for the majority of the year.

Overall 2011 was a pretty good year for the consumer as far as editing software goes. The competition within the market kept everyone on their toes and did what it should do by pushing innovation and providing a bigger bang for your buck for you, the user.

If you are familiar with this blog or my other site MyEasyData.com you will know that my overriding purpose is to help cut through the information overload that the average person hits when trying to decide on video editing software.

The same goes for that murky swamp of marketing hype that also seems to come with the territory.

Sometimes I look at it all and think that most people must be just taking a guess and hoping for the best!

That’s why I don’t cover a wide range of software brands, once you cut through the crap you soon find that there is a little group of frontrunners and a huge mass of mediocrity following along.

It is my firm policy to only deal with the frontrunners… provided of course, they are worthy of inclusion.

So here is my take on the best video editing software programs for the consumer as it stands at the beginning of 2012.

As I already mentioned, anything you read here will hold true until at least September when the new round of updates will begin to roll out.

First up we have CyberLink PowerDirector 10

This one has been my number one choice for about three years now and for 2012 it remains at the top of the heap.

They had every opportunity to take a holiday on their latest version, safe in the knowledge that the competition would most likely not do enough in one year to catch them.

Two things became apparent on all of this:
1. The competition didn’t do anything to catch up and,
2. Cyberlink didn’t take a holiday.

In version 10 of PowerDirector Cyberlink put their foot down and pulled away even further.

With a feature set only rivaled by the number two, Magix, they expanded the software’s capability, enhanced it’s stability and added even more speed to what was already the clear leader in the processing speed stakes.

CyberLink PowerDirector 10 Review
CyberLink PowerDirector 10 Product Details

Number Two: Magix Movie Edit Pro MX

I have, over the years, had a soft spot for the Magix editor. This was mainly due to the fact that it has always offered an incredible array of features and functionality to the user.

Just about everything you could ever wish for seems to be included in the program as well as a bunch of stuff you probably never thought of.

The problem with Magix up until now has been twofold:
1. The sheer complexity of the program resulted in the early versions being buggy and unstable.
2. Due to the fact that they are European based company their online support presence was lacking.

Happily these two problems seem well under control as of the latest version, Magix Movie Edit Pro MX.

Although they have to some degree benefitted from better general computer performance on the average consumer computer, I also know they have done a great deal of work on the internals of the software as well.

This has resulted in the software actually being able to deliver what they have been promising for some time now.

They have also been steadily building their forums and online knowledge bases for English support so this year I have elevated them in my ranking to the number two position.

Magix Movie Edit Pro MX Review
Magix Movie Edit Pro MX Product Details

Number Three: Corel Video Studio Pro X4

Relegated to number three this year not because they did anything particularly wrong but because Magix did more right.

I have had a copy of VideoStudio on my computer for nearly 7 years now from back in the day when it was a Ulead product.

Corel inherited the program about three versions ago and have made great inroads on making the software more user friendly and much more stable.

They have had their trials and tribulations but as it stands today VideoStudio is an excellent video editor with a good feature set that would serve the average enthusiast very well.

Corel Video Studio Pro X4 Review
Corel Video Studio Pro X4 Product Details

Number Four: Adobe Premiere Elements 10

I find it kind of hard to get enthused by Premiere Elements at the best of times and with version 10 of Adobe’s take on a consumer level editor nothing has changed.

Let me be blunt here:

Premiere Elements 10 has an average set of tools and functionality for the home user. The software is stable and is reasonably easy to learn and use.

The vast majority of people could safely buy this software, have absolutely no problem with it at all and be quite satisfied. That’s why I have it at number four ahead of at least a hundred other products!

So what’s my beef with Premiere Elements 10?

In a word… laziness. I find it hard to get past the fact that this is a product made by Adobe.

They are one of the biggest software companies on the planet and the resources available to them would most likely make the developers at CyberLink, Corel and Magix collectively cry themselves to sleep every night.

Yet despite all of that, they can only come up with a “reasonably good” piece of software that has an “average” set of features and still manages to run slower than the top three!

It is not that I don’t like Adobe Premiere Elements 10… I do! It’s just that I really don’t like Adobe’s attitude towards their customers.

Adobe Premiere Elements 10 Review
Adobe Premiere Elements 10 Product Details

Ok! Well that about it for this short round up of this years video editing software choices which I think I will leave here as my top four choices.

If your video editing software needs are more specialized and the programs mentioned here are not exactly what you want take a look through the sidebar menu and see if there is anything that catches your eye!

As always, if you have any specific questions regarding your situation just hit the Contact button or leave a Comment and I’ll help out as best I can.

With the recent release of Adobe Premiere Elements 10 I figured it was time to go back and see where we are with this venerable consumer video editing software.

By way of a little background, if you check out my more permanent video editing software review site, MyEasyData.com you will notice that the Adobe reviews go from version 7 to 8 then nothing until now with version 10.

Why is this so I hear you ask… I could have sworn I heard someone ask but then again it may have been that pesky little voice in my head. However I digress.

When version 9 was released I took a look at it and all seemed well even though it was hardly any world beating addition to man’s relentless pursuit of all things home video.

Then the complaints started regarding the program being sluggish with some functions and downright uncooperative on others. So I figured I’d wait a while to see if Adobe would sort it out… they didn’t.

As a result I never bothered with a review.

The latest version has emphatically addressed those and other issues being experienced with version 9 so I once again feel safe in recommending it to others… BUT!

Let’s be clear here. It is a good video editor, it is stable and easy to use but I still don’t think that Adobe should be standing and taking a bow on it.

Fixing the problems in the previous version by issuing a new version hardly qualifies as groundbreaking action on their part.

It is difficult to garner consumer confidence when your catchphrase could very well be: “Buy Premiere Elements 10 because it’s a whole lot better than that piece of crap 9 we tried to foist on you last year.”

So Premiere Elements 10 seems to be the exception to the rule that zombies can’t be cured.

Adobe Premiere Elements 10 Review Here

Click Here to see Adobe Premiere Elements for Yourself

Over a month ago Corel released the latest version of their consumer level video editing software, VideoStudio Pro X4.

Of course I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it so I could have a play with all the new shiny stuff that usually accompanies such releases.

Before I could actually do anything about it the lovely Jessica Gould from the PR department of Corel was in contact and sent me a copy of the new release.

Unfortunately Jessica is so much better at her job than I am!

The software has since been sitting on my desktop waiting for me to simply unpack, install and go crazy ever since.

Finally last week I did the unimaginable and actually installed it and started having a play.

You can read the full results of my adventures in VideoStudio here: Corel Video Studio Pro X4 review… but!

To cut a long story short (I do tend to ramble on my reviews… I admit it) this is a very good release from Corel.

The majority of the totally new features are very welcome and useful additions to what is, let’s face it, a very good consumer level video editor.

It even includes some fancy-pants, not really all that useful but great eye candy type bells and whistle features to keep us all distracted from our mundane day to day existences… ok, maybe that’s just me.

They have really re-worked the way the software handles all available computer resources making the editing of AVCHD and MPEG4 HD type files much faster and smoother.

The already pretty good user interface has been further enhanced to be fully customizable and allows for up to three custom preset configurations. This is great for when you are working with different tool sets within the software in that you can minimize what you don’t need and maximize what you do.

But hey! Don’t take my word for it here… take my word for it over on the full review… trust me!

Click Here to See the Full Corel Video Studio Pro X4 review

An often overlooked video editing software choice for Mac users is ScreenFlow.

In fact a number of friends of mine who produce a lot of informational, “How to” and “Do It Yourself” type videos swear by it.

Most of these people started with far more complex video editors and ended up using Screenflow because of it’s elegant design and very good editing features.

ScreenFlow was originally designed as a screen capture program and there really is nothing close to it for Mac users in that department. However regarding it today as simply a screen capture program is it ignore considerable development that has gone into the back end of the software with regards to editing your final product.

You can check out my full take on it here: ScreenFlow Review, and while you are at it check out their growing number of video tutorials on using the program.

Video Editing Software Company Has Major Meltdown. Listens to Users and Tries to Make Video Editing Fast.

After a few years of following the sometimes sloth-like progress of the consumer video editing software market one tends to get lulled (not lol’d) into a kind of hypnotic trance.

The steady to and fro of the various players in the game swapping back and forth between each other trading features and minor oneupmanships (OK, if that isn’t a word it now is cos’ it’s my blog and I say so!) settles into a steady, rhythmic pattern.

It’s like watching a prize fight between two octogenarians… in slow motion.

One adds Dolby then the others add Dolby, one adds transitions in the overlay tracks then the others follow and on it goes.

I have another website where I list my choices for best video editing software at the consumer level. The actual order of the list has not changed for two years now!

They all keep improving but it seems that they do it at exactly the same rate. I keep waiting for one of them to do something outrageous, something unexpected… in word something intelligent! They never do.

In the background throughout all of this operating systems have been fighting tooth and nail to get ahead, hardware has been aggressively improved and changed and video file types have been transformed completely.

So too have the expectations and needs of the consumers.

All this time the video editing software makers have just kept plodding along tweaking and polishing the same old products built on the same old architecture.

Why? Because it’s cheaper and easier to keep on flogging that same old dead horse rather than burying the poor thing and getting another horse.

The truth is that even I hadn’t noticed this happening until just the other day and what alerted me to it was discovering an upgrade to program where they actually did it.

CyberLink PowerDirector 9 Ultra is not just a bit of spit’n'polish applied to PowerDirector 8 and packaged in a new box.

It is a major rework of the software and with it they went for something that consumers have been wanting for ages… speed.

This is not a review but in the trials I ran on this software it simply smoked everything else in its category.

They have added a bunch of other stuff as well and you can click here to see the full CyberLink PowerDirector 9 Review or the link below to take the trial version for a spin around the block yourself.

CyberLink PowerDirector 9