Marc Peters takes a look at Magic Bullet Editors 2.0. He fell in love with the original version, but surely an updated product couldn't offer much more than the original. If the promise of real time preview is delivered, he could fall head over heals for this latest version.
Red Giant gave us the holy grail of editing - turning video into film. The original Magic Bullet Editors came with a huge number of film effect filters inspired by Hollywood blockbusters together with tools to give a quirky celluloid look from crisp digital video. Magic Bullet Editors consistently rates as my must have tool. Be it a simple vignette or a diffused look to give instant sex appeal, videos simply don't look complete without the finishing touch of a preset or custom magic bullet filter. How could Red Giant improve Magic Bullet? How could my must-have Premiere plug-in be bettered and could the upgrade price be justified? After all, the addition of a few new presets would hardly be a temptation.
But if Red Giant's promises are to be believed, the new version of Magic Bullet doesn't just add to the number of presets, it adds a whole new level of functionality. That functionality is every editors dream: real time preview. My only gripe with the original Magic Bullet Editors was the ridiculous render times associated with adding what seemed like a simple filter. Adding a range of film effects would grind rendering to a standstill and you'd have to be pretty confident that you'd made the right editing decisions before rendering out that magic bullet effect. Worse still, a large combination of effects sometimes refused to render. An annoyance which was tolerated due to the fantastic end result. So does Red Giant's claims make Magic Bullet Editors v2.0 the must have addition to your editing toolkit?
Digital Director's review of Magic Bullet 1.0 featured the vast array of presets and these remain in the new version. We gave an indication of what your Magic Bullet treated video could look like in the review found at: http://www.videoforums.co.uk/reviews/software_reviews/p2_articleid/76. The core functions of Magic Bullet remains the same, with two main settings appearing in Premiere (or your editor of choice). Firstly the Magic Bullet appears under the video effects tab where a selection of film effects such as scratches and grain can be added (my personal favourite is the vignette - it really brings out those rich colours of a decent 3 CCD camera). Secondly you get an exhaustive list of preset film looks inspired by the likes of the Matrix and CSI. Only this time you get ten more film looks to play with. I'm sure you'll find your favourite or may even experiment in creating your own unique look - you can either use the presets as inspiration or create an entirely new and original custom look.
Magic Bullet Editors 2.0 also features what Red Giant like to call Compression Correction™. I haven't really been tempted to make use of this feature as typically my DV footage doesn't suffer from compression artifacts. However, this apparently gives smoother edges to outlines and objects suffering from compression artifacts. As I say, I didn't really notice a difference when using the filter, but apparently it provides a better chroma key result when video is preprocessed. I'll have to take their word on that one.
Unfortunately the upgrade from Magic Bullet 1.0 to 2.0 wasn't as smooth as I'd hoped. I'd assumed that any projects using the original Magic Bullets would used the same effects featured in the update. This was not the case and although the clips contained reference to the effect, the effect itself was not applied to the clip. So if you're halfway through a project, I'd recommend you either wait until it's finished or re-apply the effects after upgrading. If you've got a fast system, you might be wise to try the latter...
What I can testify to however is the claim real time previews. Now bear in mind that to take advantage of this new feature you'll need a pretty damn fast PC. But throw away the video editing handbook as for once it's the power of the GPU and not the grunt of the CPU that does the business in Magic Bullet 2.0. Yes, the real time preview is dependant on the manliness of your graphics card and your bog standard AGP card simply won't cut the mustard. So get your hands on a nVidia 7800 GT or Quadro 4400. Render times aren't just a little quicker... I was averaging around 10 times quicker and could actually playback the footage on the timeline without editing for my favoured vignette effect. This has vastly increased my productivity as I cut down on render waiting times.
I thoroughly recommend the upgrade for any existing user. At $99, you'll easily recoup the outlay in your increase productivity. However, to really take advantage of the new real time feature you'll need a high end PCI-Express graphics card so it could prove an expensive upgrade! The full cost of $395 makes Magic Bullet an expensive addition to your editing arsenal, but certainly not a luxury. I owe much of my videos praise to the simple addition of a magic bullets effect.
