Pre-Purchase Questions versus Pinnacle Studio

sjschmidtky wrote on 11/9/2002, 7:25 AM

I'm serching for new video editing software to replace the disappointing Pinnacle Studio that I've never gotten to work right. I'm a novice and my first task is to get all my home videos (analog and digital) to DVDs for easy viewing. I've downloaded and read the tutorial to get a feel for Vegas Video, but have some questions (coming from a Pinnacle point of view):

1. How do I initially get my DV tape into an avi file? In Pinnacle, the "get video" activity is part of the product.

2. How do I insert titles, scrolling credits, etc,? In Pinnacle, there's a word art tool to let me create them in the product, versus import them. Seems like I have to create them outside Vegas Video (what tool?), import them, and then go through some complicated processes to make them scrool in.

3. How do I create a DVD with a selection menu so viewers can skip right to a specific portion of the DVD?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Steve

Comments

vonhosen wrote on 11/9/2002, 7:51 AM

Vegas is way more powerful then Pinnacle Studio (I'm no Pro but I have used both)

1. Vegas will capture DV with a supported firewire card ( I infact use the card that was supplied with Pinnacle Studio 7 fine). Make sure your DV camera is connected & in playback mode, then File>Capture Video to bring up the capture dialog box.

If you want to capture analog with Vegas you'll either need a DV camera that supports passthrough conversion OR plug your analog source into something like a Canopus ADVC-100 converter (which in inturn will be connected to your firwire computer input)

2. For titles make sure you have "Text/Backgrounds" tab displayed botom left of interface. (If it's not just Alt+9 to bring it up) then in the left coloumn you will find some presets for "Credit Roll" & "Text" . These are quite easily customiseable. (I also use an inexpensive product "Ulead Cool 3D" for making esay 3D titles to import into Vegas)

3. Vegas will encode your video to good quality MPEG-2 for DVD but it will not author it for you. You need seperate authoring software for that at present & it is in that you will create your chapter points (the "In" points you are talking about). There are plenty of inexpensive decent programs for this.

Stiffler wrote on 11/9/2002, 8:29 AM

You can also download the Demo version and try it out. Here is the link:

http://www.sonicfoundry.com/download/step2.asp?DID=363

Vegas is a top-notch, stable, and powerful program. Have fun.

sjschmidtky wrote on 11/9/2002, 2:32 PM

Thanks for the info. What are the best DVD authoring software products?

vonhosen wrote on 11/9/2002, 2:42 PM

There are lots to choose from , it will depend on what functionality you want & how much you are willing to pay.

Of the budget ones you may want to consider

DVD Complete by Dazzle about $99
DVD MovieFactory by Ulead about $50

For more functionality go a little higher like

DVD Workshop by Ulead about $300
DVD Impression Pro by Pinnacle about $350
DVDit PE by Sonic Solutions about $600
ReelDVD by Sonic Solutions about $1000

Look them up, weigh up what functions you need/want & look at their user forums at what problems people are having with hardware/software similar to yours.

Happy Hunting