14 DAY TRIAL // Cutting and trimming video used to be an operation reserved only to video experts. But technology today has made it possible for every user to be able to cut movie files and stitch them up into a hilarious result or a very serious one. Everyone now has the possibility to create his or her own movie out of multiple videos or put together a slideshow with custom audio tracks in the background.
Super LoiLoScope MARS is such an application, designed as a cool and easy-to-use movie editing program you can use to create your own videos nice and easy. The regular price for the software is $88 but until May 17th all users benefit from a 33% discount, showing only $59 on the price tag. The purpose of SuperLoiLoScope MARS is to offer a simple way to edit and handle high-definition video, music files and images.
Built with the average Joe in mind, all the complicated stuff has been avoided or translated into something any user can comprehend without getting a headache in return. Given that the creators of LoiLoScope come from a gaming background, it is easy to understand the playful interface that is both fun to work with and extremely handy and easy to maneuver.
There is nothing classic about the screen of SuperLoiLoScope MARS as everything is flexible and the level of user-friendliness is off the chart. Clicking, dragging, dropping, mouse wheel use are about all the things you need to be familiar with in order to get around.
Drag-and-drop support is a feature that you'll hold in high appreciation as it is the easiest way to add media to the application. A set of three video files is available by default for you to play around with while testing the application.
Working with the elements of the SuperLoiLoScope MARS desktop does not require any particular skills because all the actions are done with the mouse by clicking, tossing the objects around, zooming in and out with the wheel or dragging them around. What is beautiful in this Microsoft Surface-like interface is that you can have as many elements present on the desktop and still have an easy time organizing all of them because of the magnet bars included in the app.
The magnet bar practically attracts all the objects on the desktop as you move it around. At the same time you can switch the order of the thumbnails attached to the magnet bar with a simple drag and drop. More organizing skills are revealed the moment you use the mouse wheel, which stands for zooming in/out, providing you with a general view of all the elements on the application desktop. Even more, all thumbs can be tossed around to whatever direction you wish without any fear that you won't be able to find it again, because clicking anywhere on the desktop will adjust the zoom level so that all the objects are in view.
Working with many elements can be quite difficult as sometimes you can lose track of the files they stand for. In the case of videos and music files recognizing them is pretty simple in SuperLoiLoScope MARS thanks to its ability to play the file the moment you hover your mouse over it. No clicks, no third-party software is required, just keep your mouse for a few seconds over a thumbnail and if it is a movie or audio file it'll come to life.
Home menu is where you get to save your desktop so that at the next launch of the software it will load the same objects and maintain their position on the screen. Here is where you can launch magnet bars to help organizing stuff. These come in different colors and you can rename them to whatever suits you with no problem by double clicking on their name. A single click brings it to full focus and lets you copy it together with the elements it holds. Changing the color is achieved by clicking once on the colored ring. Resizing is not a tough job given that the arrow at the end of the bar is self-explanatory.
Joining the files together can be done easily with a timeline that can be activated from Home folder. As scary as it may be presented in other apps, the software timeline here is created by dropping the thumbnails of the media you want inside. Organize the files so that they succeed each other in the order you want them to be displayed and start playing.
Joining videos together is just a matter of placing the files one after another. With trimming them down the effort is not much greater. All there is to the task is select the file and drag by the “in” and “out” fencing the file bar at both ends to the desired part of the movie. A more elaborate option available for each file is setting fade in and out effects. You get to set the position of the file where fade in should end and where fade out should begin.
The best part is that you don't have to work with any sort of values at this. Preview for your work is instant because the application plays the video in a loop until you pause it, a thing that may be a bit confusing to some users as well as resource hungry. Additional play tools at your disposal include resizing the video and changing the angle. Thus you can turn a movie upside down or on the side easily, using just your mouse.
For the best behavior on your system, SuperLoiLoScope MARS requires some special hardware components, mainly the graphics card. It is built to provide the best encoding times on systems with CUDA-enabled NVIDIA cards because in order to lift the load off the CPU the software appeals to the GPU. Aided by CUDA technology SuperLoiLoScope MARS is capable of outputting the movie result up to ten times faster than when using only the CPU.
Movie editing options are not limited to the above, and the software makes available a set of effects you can apply to videos and images. These are in the same spirit as the entire software and no complicated stuff is present. More than this, as you hover the mouse over each of the effects (blur, brightness, color change, deinterlace, edge detection and threshold) you will get a preview of what it's going to do to the file. Finer control over them is available with a single drag of a slider in most cases. The preview is visible instantly regardless of whether the file is in “play” or “pause” mode.
We could not tell if it's a bug or a feature, but the program allows you to open several control panels for the same effect. As we fell short of the utility of multiple settings of the same effect, we tend to label this as a bug, although maxing out multiple sliders of the same effect does produce a visual aspect.
Adding your personal stamp to the movie is yet another feature of the application. Under Art menu you'll find a text adding feature as well as a text frame plugin. They both allow you the marking of the video with text, which can be customized in terms of color, font type, size, style and alignment. It will appear just like any other file bar in the timeline, with the difference that this one can be stretched for as long as the movie lasts.
With all production finished, you can export the movie to the computer or convert it directly for special devices such as iPod, PSP, PS3, AppleTV, iPhone or Mobile 3G. Also, the output result can be uploaded to YouTube! directly from the application. When proceeding to exporting the movie the hardware difference is really noticeable. With CUDA on your system SuperLoiLoScope MARS will move extremely fast as it will use the GPU cores. This way, if a different job requires your attention the CPU is free to deal with it. Otherwise the entire load falls into the hands of the CPU and the process will definitely take longer to finish.
Your newly created video can be uploaded directly to YouTube straight from the application by typing in your credentials and a brief description of the file. If you do not have an account, there's no problem because the YouTube upload screen in LoiLoScope provides you with a link to the registration page.
Yet another advantage of the application is the little time required for configuring it. There's not much to tinker with and most of the options are of little importance, but if you have a CUDA-enabled NVIDIA graphics card the settings panel is where you can make a difference in performance. Also, given that you can take pictures of the videos you have to set a storage location for the snapshots.
With SuperLoiLoScope MARS movie editing and creating your own stitch-up videos or slideshows are no longer jobs for computer savvys, but a task fit for anyone. However, there won't be state-of-the-art effects or options at your disposal, but a very minimalistic range of choices that may not be sufficient even for an average user. The price is also playing against the software.
On the bright side, the application comes with a last-generation interface that, once you learn how to harness it, will dazzle you with its ease of use and fun way of handling the items. The unique features of the interface allow you easy management of the elements on the desktop, regardless of their number. Also, the ease and speed in handling high-definition video (especially with CUDA enabled) is truly astounding. The list of supported media includes AVCHD, animated GIF, images, standard video and even audio tracks; these can all be mixed together to create the movie you want.
The Good
The magnet bars designed to help you gather thumbs together just like in folders are innovative and extremely handy when you have a larger number of files to deal with.
The timeline in SuperLoiLoScope MARS is one of the easiest ways to sew together multiple files (video, music, images) and create a movie of your own. You can join media together, trim it down, add fade effects or add background music easily.
The Bad
Not including in the installer all the necessary components (Visual C++ 2008 runtime, .NET Framework 3.5 and DirectX), although not extraordinarily bothersome, may add to software's list of shortcomings for some users.
The Truth
As it is now the interface with its intuitive features and its amazing organizational skills is the cornerstone of the entire software. However, the developers are still at the beginning and with a little more focus on the editing part it will definitely get the attention is deserves. It supports both HD and SD video as well as both animated and static images and music files, and this is a possibility you do not have in many editing pieces of software.
