Visual Communicator Plus

Description

Visual Communicator Plus is an innovative and sophisticated software application that allows you to produce broadcast-quality presentations and videos through your PC. Although it doesn't offer the intricate split-second editing or the sheer number of effects of some home moviemaking suites, the program features a super-simple interface and enough pioneering amenities to impress any audience.

Visual Communicator Plus imports various forms of media files, including AVI video, JPEG graphics, and WAV audio, and captures raw video footage directly from a DV camcorder. Instead of the time-consuming timeline and storyboard editing procedure common to most video editing packages, this program allows you to quickly drag and drop your elements into the Action Area, where it is then automatically processed. Developer Serious Magic has integrated a number of stock elements to help get your message across more effectively, including nearly 200 screen transitions and effects, 200 sound and music clips, and 40 super-slick animated backgrounds and virtual sets.

Visual Communicator Plus also offers several predeveloped scenes featuring a professional TV anchorperson, although your subject matter must fit a specific set of parameters to make sense of the very narrow script. Furthermore, as competing products such as Nova Development's Video Explosion Deluxe offer thousands of predesigned audio-video elements and advanced video effects such as Gausian blur, the Visual Communicator Plus effect roster seems comparatively limited.

But the most unique and powerful aspect of the package is that it quickly and easily converts any computing environment into a TV-style studio. To do this, merely suspend the enclosed 6-by-5-foot piece of green fabric behind you and then record yourself speaking into a standard Webcam. The program intelligently recognizes the green fabric as a Chroma Key background, which it will digitally replace with your choice of images or animated scenes. In short order you can be a roving reporter standing in front of your home movie of the Grand Canyon, or perhaps a product spokesperson extolling the virtues of your new cheese grater as images of the cheese grater circulate behind you.

Best suited to anyone who wants to put themselves in the center of the action as a pseudo news correspondent or narrator, Visual Communicator Plus will infuse television-style sparkle into virtually any business or personal video. –Gordon Goble

Platforms

Linux, Unix, Mac, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows Me