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CyberLink MediaShow 4
Price: £29.99

Features
Performance
Ease of use
Value for money
Overall

Reviewed By: Andy Shaw

This review updated: 10/04/2008
Featured in magazine:
Issue 185
Manufacturer Contacts:
Supplier: CyberLink
Web Address: www.cyberlink.com


There must be hundreds of ways to store, sort, view and share your digital photos and home movies. For example, Windows comes with increasingly sophisticated software for the task every time a new version of its operating system is released, and Vista is pretty adept at the job. Free organisers like Google's Picasa (http://picasa.google.co.uk) can streamline the process further. Or, if you want to go online, services like Flickr (www.flickr.com) and YouTube (www.youtube.com) can offer a triple-whammy of storing, organising and sharing. Trouble is, no single program combines the best features of them all for free. If you want to get the most from your media, you're going to have to go for a commercial option. Cyberlink MediaShow offers a compelling mix of organisational prowess, everyday editing tools and ease of use, with lashings of extra power.

Features
You'll probably spend most of your time using the organisation tool. This is set up in a very standard, almost 'best practice' way – Picasa users will hardly notice the difference, except for the extra options at their disposal.

MediaShow hasn't gone overboard on sharing options but, because it doesn't host its own service, it's been able to choose the best of all worlds, with direct links to both Yahoo's Flickr for photo sharing and Google's YouTube for video. These options may seem limiting but there's little point looking anywhere else. The software's internal tagging system is compatible with the external sharing sites too, so you only need tag your photos the once.

The disc-burning options are vastly superior to cheaper and free alternatives – you can make great DVDs with both movies and photo slideshows, and things like menus are sorted out automatically. You can create slideshows and files too, if you'd rather email or post on the web than write to disc.

Performance
CyberLink has created a smooth, seamless and super-fast program. It contains tools that cover everything you're likely to need, from making slideshows to decorating your Desktop. Its operation is so incredibly smooth that it's very hard to pick fault with either the way it operates or the speed at which it works.

Ease of use
Ease of use is really all-important on a product like this. You want to be able to pick it up and use it straightaway, not waste time fiddling with the software. MediaShow manages this well, especially for those already used to software like Picasa. The only real downside is that you have to flick between two tabs in order to see videos and photos. This is a little irritating because sometimes you'll want to watch a video of a particular event at the same time as viewing your photos.

Value for money
Although MediaShow is far from expensive, you will find great swathes of its functionality in Picasa – and Picasa is free. However, MediaShow does take several further steps in the right direction. There's a chance that Picasa 3, should it appear in the near future, might take much of the wind out of MediaShow's sails. But until then, for those of us with huge, cumbersome media collections who are prepared to splash a bit of cash, MediaShow is worth the money.

More Video Editing reviews:

• Adobe Premiere Elements 4.0
• CyberLink MediaShow 4
• Sony Vegas Movie Studio 8
• Serif MoviePlus 5
• Magix Movie Edit Pro 14