The latest version of Pinnacle's home video editing program again comes in three editions: Standard, Plus and Ultimate. Long time users will appreciate many of the small interface changes which make capturing, editing and producing home videos run more smoothly, but the big difference across all three versions is the introduction of a feature called Montage which allows you to apply themes (for example Baby, Seasons, Love, Tribute, Valentine's, Star, Video Wall and so on) to your videos.

There are 11 themes in all, comprising 80 individual slide templates which add animations, fancy titles and the ability to display multiple video clips simultaneously framed inside graphic devices like Christmas baubles, photo frames, heart-shaped graphics, gift wrapped parcels and so on (check to see if you qualify for the time-limited promotion, the Winter theme pack which is included for free at the time of writing).

Elsewhere the changes are more detailed ones: better navigational tools in the timeline view, more sophisticated volume control, the ability to zoom any video clip on the timeline so it fills the frame with a couple of mouse clicks thus losing the dreaded black bars, a feature for rotating still pictures and video clips, 27 new title styles and 32 new DVD menus, plus a peak volume indicator right there on the timeline.

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To finish, Studio 12 adds more import options (including GIF, PhotoShop files and AC3 Dolby) and more export formats, like 3GP for mobile phones, MP3 and WAV for audio only export, Flash and the facility to upload videos directly to YouTube. Version 12 also fixes another bugbear: instead of having to start again from scratch, it's now possible to pause the output if you run out of disk space, then resume when you've cleared some.

The Plus version (£69.99 inc. VAT) adds native Blu-ray authoring to its already impressive HD features, while Ultimate (£99.99 inc. VAT) includes the ability to animate text along specific paths, 3D titles and animations as well as a bunch of fancy 'professional' plugin effects courtesy of Boris Graffiti for titling and vector graphics, along with Red Giant Software's Magic Bullet Looks which is designed to help you re-create the visual feel of modern TV shows, commercial movies and music videos.

Although overall the Montage themes work rather well, they're not as intuitive to use as Pinnacle thinks, and using them to provide a consistent 'look' to a video is long-winded, especially when it comes to applying effects. There are other minor irritations too: why is Studio the only program in the world that doesn't always let you use the Tab key to move between fields, and why the peculiar process of downloading activation keys for effects that are already included in the program when you've already typed in the serial number?

One last point. Check the system requirements on the site and err on the side of generous, especially when it comes to memory and the graphics card; most of the technical moans that accompany video editing programs like Studio 12 are the result of trying to run it on an underpowered system.

For existing users this is a gentle upgrade that adds the Montage feature and tidies up the interface a bit; as such, the Ultimate version is perhaps the most compelling of the three because of the inclusion of those professional-level plugins. For new users, make sure your hardware is up to the job and you'll find Studio 12 one of the easiest ways to produce high quality videos on a home PC.