EXCLUSIVES

HyperEngine-AV
Words by Scott Dewbre
January 2004

iMovie on steroids. That's the best way we can describe HyperEngine-AV ($149, Arboretum), a digital video and audio editing app that runs native under OS X. While it's not the most advanced video editing and assembly platform to come along, HyperEngine-AV has a lot going for it, including a short learning curve and an impressive set of built-in video and audio effects.

DV capture in real time

HyperEngine-AV can capture digital video in real time from a FireWire-capable digital video camera or import existing digital video clips or digital photos to work with. Text editing tools make it easy to create credits, subtitles and even karaoke lyrics.

HyperEngine-AV comes with an impressive set of plug-ins, including an array of QuickTime video effects, such as edge detection, emboss, film noise and color tint. The app also comes with a wide variety of free studio-quality effects from Arboretum's Hyperprism suite of processors, including Reverb.

For all those Spielberg and Lucas wannabes out there, HyperEngine-AV also comes with over 70 royalty-free audio clips from celebrated sound designer Frank Serafine, whose motion picture credits include "Star Trek," "TRON," "Poltergeist," "Hunt for Red October" and "Virtuosity."

To deal with audio problems, such as cleaning up scratchy audio recordings made from vinyl records, tape hiss or hum, other plug-ins like Arboretum's Ray Gun and Ray Gun Pro are compatible with HyperEngine-AV and can be purchased separately.

Easy-to-use but picky about clips

One of the first things that caught our attention was HyperEngine-AV's list of supported file formats, which reads like a laundry list of every file format known to mankind, including TIFF, PICT, Photoshop, GIF, JPEG, MPEG, DV, QuickTime, MP3, MP4, and WAV. Naturally, we were eager to import photos from iPhoto and audio from iTunes and go to town. Unfortunately, we discovered that HyperEngine-AV doesn't exactly talk to iPhoto. This wasn't all that big of a surprise, considering that iPhoto stores information in album files. But what really threw us for a loop was when we discovered that HyperEngine-AV would import some files but not others with the same format. Some JPEGs could be imported, but others were grayed out as though HyperEngine-AV could not read their formatting. We could find no rhyme or reason behind this. Filenames didn't seem to matter, nor did filename extensions. We tried to import a few WAV files, but HyperEngine-AV would have none of it. We couldn't get the app to import any of the three WAV files we showed it.

Importing problems aside, we were genuinely impressed with HyperEngine-AV's assembly interface. While most video editing apps have an interface that looks like a blank sheet of music, lots of empty rows with vertical lines that serve as time synch aids for creating transitions and other effects, HyperEngine-AV's interface is a large, open window. Time references are there, but they are non-intrusive. You simply drag-and-drop video and audio clips into the main window to start assembling your finished product.

Timing out transitions is a particularly tedious job. Typically, the editor has to run back through a transition and tweak the transition settings several times to get the desired results. But in HyperEngine-AV, you can create a transition automatically just by letting two video clips overlap. The amount of overlap determines the timing of the transition. To edit the transition, click on the overlapped area. What could be easier?

Arboretum's system requirements for HyperEngine-AV are pretty steep. So steep, in fact, that Macs more than three years old will probably need some upgrades to comfortably run it. HyperEngine-AV requires a 500MHz or faster G4 processor, 512MB of RAM, 10MB of hard drive space, a FireWire port for video transfer, a CD-ROM drive and Mac OS X v10.2 or later.

Bottom line

If you've been wanting to make digital movies but have been put off by the high price tags and imposing interfaces of most digital video editing apps on the market, HyperEngine-AV could be what you've been waiting for. This is not a professional video editing tool, but it will go a long way toward making a rank amateur look like a pro.

Item: HyperEngine-AV > Manufacturer:Arboretum Systems, Inc. > Price: $149 MSRP >Web: arboretum.com/products/hyperengine-av/hav_main.html > Pros: Simple interface with drag-and-drop assembly; automatic transition creation > Cons: Picky import filter; G4 required.