Being that I had some experience with PhotoSuite II, I thought of trying my luck with VideoWave III being that I enjoyed the previous program.

First of all, let me say that this program is usually not for the ordinary computer novice unless they have had some experience with video photography. After installing VideoWave III, I turned to the manual for instructions and found it to be a bit of a chore.

Although video photography is mainly telling a story by piecing together moving pictures, still photos with sound, music and narration it becomes a powerful tool for todays communication. Producing video on a computer requires expensive hardware which only an experienced or technical person would find the program a bit easy.

For the purpose of this review, think it best to try and give an example of creating a video production rather then attempt explaining the in and out of this program. Installation used 45 MB of it's hardware, leaving the two (2) CDs with more information you can copy to your hard drive as needed. The Content disk contains a tutorial proving basic editing features in the software and special hardware for MMX.

Storyline is where you assemble your video production, combining video clips, graphics, and transitions as only a few panels can be viewed at one time and saves your Storyline in the hard disk as work in progress. The library is a holding place for easy access to your clips, and then you can drag the image or video to the Storyline or Viewscreen. The cutting room is used to create a panel, set thumbnails and trim and split your scenes.Darkroom can adjust brightness, color or give a filter to your graphic or scene. You can capture video, images and audio from your TV/VCR, Camcorder or CD player.Also, MGI allows windows to publish in AVI, MPEG, or DV movie. It also includesSmartDV and can speed up production of DV movie for the final movie.

MMX technology loads five software components which are:

• RMX (Realistic Display Mixer)--This component manages real time display of text and video clips which makes features run faster and smoother.
• RSX (Realistic Sound Experience)--- Processes all audio, playback and mixing having multiple sound tracks running at the same time.
• IPL (Image Processing Libraries )-- Which smoothes out scaling, sequence, and text animation. Also brightness and color controls in a clip.
• Intel Indeo Video Interactive--Produces or creates the final video file. A faster processor and MMX technology reduces production time immensely.
• SFX (Special Effects) MGI VideoWave 111, like ripple, effects water oscillating over a clip much quicker.

Creating a video production involves the following basic steps:

• Selecting a source material.
• Editing the source material to create scenes.
• Assembling the scenes and incorporating transitions.
• Producing the final video file.

MGI has done a fairly good presentation and I enjoyed trying to make a video presentation. With time it can become a very useful program.