Desktop video production has made what used to be limited to Hollywood studios the work of anyone with a mouse and enough hard drive space, but video software varies widely in capability and usability. Corel's Ulead VideoStudio offers a consumer-level product with lots of powerful features and add-ons.

To import video for use in the editor, VideoStudio offers several options: Capture video (in real time, most useful with webcams), DV Quick Scan (for importing from a digital camcorder), Import from DVD/DVD-VR (for non-copy-protected DVD's), and Import from Mobile Device, including any external devices that the PC sees as a disk drive. This part of the process is the simplest, and the multiple options greatly expand the usefulness of the application. (It can't import commercial DVD's with copy protection, but this is the fault of the DMCA, not the software.) During the import, the Plus version has an "Ad Zapper" in case you're importing a TV show and want to easily remove the commercials, great for moving them to your portable media player.

Once importing finishes, the fun begins, or should begin. The next step is actually grabbing the manual, because you'll need it. What should be a simple process of cutting, dragging, and dropping becomes a hassle due to the applications little quirks. (Note: these are not bugs. The software works as it's supposed to, but it was made to work with manual in hand instead of just doing what you would expect to work.)

While adding chapters is easy enough, the real power of video editing is cutting the video into segments and applying various effects and transitions to those segments. You should be able to go through, find the splitting points, chop, chop, chop, and you're done. Not so this software: you have to select the beginning and ending of each clip, even if you have consecutive clips with no space in between. While this allows for overlap, which is rarely needed in video editing and could be accomplished with a duplicate command, it makes for a tedious process.

Once the video is divided into clips, effects can be added via drag and drop. Note that you'll want to set your monitor to its maximum resolution, if it's not already. The editing area is split into multiple timelines, so you can easily see which effects go where, with titles on one line, overlays on another, extra audio on another, and so forth.

The number of available effects is staggering. Transitions especially are available in 15 different categories, plus custom additions, and each category has multiple options. Want to add some kind of text over your video? This software offers 31 different presets which can be tweaked and customized, or just start from scratch with everything from font to duration to animation. Adding audio offers a small collection of clips, but you can also add music from a CD or a music file on your hard drive.

Once you finish editing, the "Share" options are as numerous as the "Capture" options, creating a video or sound file, creating a VCD, DVD or Blu-ray disc, or moving it to a DV camera. A collection of customizable menu screens for DVD burning allows for fast, easy, and professional-looking discs.

The software comes in two versions, the regular and plus versions. The company site offers a comparison of the two.

With video software, you generally get affordability, power, and usability--choose any 2. Ulead Video Studio offers affordability and power but falls short on usability. That said, if you read the manual and spend some time with it, you'll get used to it, and once you finish your first project, the rest will be a breeze, and you'll have a lot of fun with this software, whether preserving your home movies or copying TV shows to iTunes.