Magix Movie Edit Pro MX Plus review

There’s a generous helping of other new features, and it’s some of the simpler ones that we’re most impressed with. It’s now possible to apply and adjust effects to a group of clips simply by selecting them on the timeline before heading to the Effects tab. The height of tracks on the timeline can be adjusted individually, and thumbnails in the media pool can be resized for easier browsing. The slow motion effect now benefits from interpolation to generate additional frames for smoother motion, and we love the way you can create keyframes for variable playback speed – something other consumer editors lack.

Movie Edit Pro isn’t short of power, but the quality of its effects falls a little short of the competition

The revamped travel route animation feature generates videos of maps with animated planes, trains, cars and flying saucers, although it’s not significantly better than the old version it replaces. There’s also a set of 15 movie templates, complete with titles, transitions, effects and music, ready for you to drop your video clips into. It’s an interesting spin on the automatic editing concept, but the templates aren’t generic enough for repeated use, and don’t encourage the user to find the best bits of a clip.

Various features that we’d have liked to see improved remain unchanged. We don’t understand the logic of the ripple editing mode, whereby clips shuffle along automatically when earlier clips are moved but not when their length is adjusted. It’s great to have some control over ripple editing – most consumer editors leave it permanently on – but none of the options are in keeping with our expectations. We also found that many of the new features were tricky to locate in the dense interface. Magix gave Movie Edit Pro a thorough spring clean in version 15, but the interface is beginning to sprawl once again.

This is an ambitious update, but it leaves us feeling indifferent. The performance improvements didn’t have much bearing on everyday use in our tests, and the other new features aren’t exactly game-changers. Movie Edit Pro is hard to fault for breadth of features, but while it beats the likes of Vegas Movie Studio for quantity, it falls short for quality. For us, Vegas Movie Studio’s elegant interface and more attractive effects are more rewarding.