Just do it!

2 x Video lines

3 x audio lines

Economic Upgrade paths to Vegas Video

THIS FORUM - that's gotta be worth it, just for this place!

I've got and tried Studio7 - Don't know from S8, other than the "DVD authoring" element is there -seen thier Studio8 Forum lateley? Have a look at it . . . see what you think. S7 is sufficient to the day. BUT having used VF and found my way around all its functions, no contest. I use VF and now Vegas in conjunction with U-Lead MF. It works for me.

JohnnyRoy is correct - gotta a DVD burner yet? If not you aint gonna burn DVDs. I can burn a pseudo DVD - sDVD or somehting like that. I'm waiting for the DVD + and - thing to settle down. It will. In the meantime I can do VCDs and SVCDs. I've yet to use the MainConcept MPEG2 option in Vegas for my SVCDs [ is that correct Johnny? ] to see the improved quality - but I can hold fire until the Philips/Sony/Panasonic/ Another sought themselves out.

Do It!

Grazie

Yep, that’s right Grazie, the MainConcept MPEG2 encoder makes some pretty nice SVCD’s. The problem for VF owners is that MPEG2 is an upgrade for VF. You only get MPEG1 with the package. So it would be hard to justify spending $30 for the MPEG2 encoder and still not being able to burn an SVCD or DVD, when you can spend $15 more ($45) and get DVD MovieFactory 2, which has an MPEG2 encoder included. Since we Vegas users have the MPEG2 encoder it doesn’t matter to us but VF users would be smart to hold off and use the encoder that comes with their DVD burning software. (of course I used that as my excuse to upgrade to Vegas because the pro MPEG2 encoder is $99 more and Vegas was only $100 more than that ($199)... but that’s another story) ;-)

Oh yea, almost forgot about the video / audio track thing. Studio wrongly claims they have 2 video tracks when, in fact, all you can put on the second track is still images and titles. No video! How can they claim 2 video tracks? In the program they correctly label it “Title Overlay” but when they compare themselves with other products they claim 2 video tracks and that’s deceiving. They also claim 3 audio tracks but there are only 2 extra audio tracks besides the video’s dedicated audio. If the video has no audio, you can’t reuse that track like you can in VF. It’s a lot of false advertising if you ask me.

Let’s not even get into the support issues. As Grazie said, just check out the Studio forums and see all the unhappy campers. And with good reason: They are on the 4th or 5th patch to Studio 8 and each one seems to fix one thing and break another. It’s a circus.

VideoFactory 2 is clearly the way to go. I agree with Grazie, just DO IT!

~jr

Not to start an argument, but in Studio 7 and 8, you can have access to all three tracks. YOu can seperate the sync track from the video and use it as another audio track.

I like Studio 7 for various reasons, and I also like Sonic Foundry. And as with any help forum, the people who post are the people who have problems.

You are right about the Video track issue though. But Studio does allow you to do your A B Roll editing on one track, and use the other track for titles.

Studio 8 appears to be undergoing some growing pains, but the main issues appear to be related to the DVD burning option. Not so much on the editing.

Dave T2

Dave, No argument here. I know you’re one of the people who try and help over at the Studio forums. I still use Studio whenever I need a Hollywood FX in my video. I then import the results back into VF or VV. I didn’t realize that once you unsync the video’s audio track that you could drop a wav file on it. I stand corrected. I also have to agree that the people who come to the forums are the ones with problems. There just seems to be an awful lot of people with problems. I know I’ve had my share. I’m still waiting to burn a DVD with Studio 8. It just doesn’t work.

From my personal experiences with Studio 7 I’d say it’s a lot more stable than Studio 8 but it was still unpredictable. One of the last times I used it, I was just dubbing a tape for someone onto DVD. I decided to add an opening a closing title and just add an HFX transition between the three major sections of the tape for clarity. I rendered it to AVI, burned a test DVD with DVD MovieFactory and was happy. It took me about 15 minutes (not including capture and burning which is real-time 30 minutes)

I would be praising Studio if it ended there, but my wife suggested that the third transitions didn’t look right and I should change it. I loaded up the project, changed the third transition and rendered back out to AVI. Burned another test DVD only to notice that now the first and second transition didn’t render correctly. I had to go back into the project and try again. After much trial and error and deleting of auxiliary files etc., I discovered that if I changed something about each transition in the proper sequence they would finally all render properly. I made the first DVD at 10:AM. I finally got the project to render correctly after my “one little change” at 5:30PM. I wasted a whole day! I don’t have that kind of time to waste fighting buggy software. That’s why I can’t recommend Studio anymore. It’s like playing Russian roulette. You never know if your project is going to render or not. 9 times out of 10 it does, but when it doesn’t it can consume a whole day or evening.

The bottom line is, software shouldn’t be that unpredictable. I’ve never had anything like that happen to me with VideoFactory or Vegas Video.

~jr

Pinnacle Studio does remind me abit of Windows ME (which I also use). Some pe0ple seem to be able to run right out of the gate with only minimal problems, and some people seem to have so many problems, it makes you wonder if they have the same software. Sonic Foundry seems to have made a more universally compatible video editor.

I use Studio with my DC10plus for analog, but most of my other editing is Vegas or Videofactory (depending upon my mood and how involved the project is).

Dave T2

Thanks everyone. I appreciate the info. I sort of felt the same way, but I wanted to hear everyone else's thoughts. I got Pinnacle because it was $10 after rebates. I think I'll just use it's MPEG-2 encoder. I'll have to upgrade to VF 2.0. Now I'm going to post my real question. I'd add it here, but there it get's confusing with this title "Video Factory vs Pinnacle"

> Sonic Foundry seems to have made a more universally compatible video editor.

Yea, and I guess that was my point. There are lots of things about Studio that I like but its unpredictability scares me enough not to use it except when I need HFX or SmartSound.

In all fairness I have to admit I’ve been on the other side with Studio too. I started with Studio DC10plus 1.06 and it worked perfect right out of the box. There were lots of people with audio sync problems and memory leak problems, etc. and it just worked without any problems for me. I couldn’t understand why the other people were having such problems. So I’ve been on both sides. I’ve just had no luck with Studio 8.

~jr

You had STudio DC10Plus??? and it worked???? You da man. I had that and it didn't work at all. I'm actually going sell mine as soon as I can. I think I'm just a computer goober. I have had a lot of problems with editing. I've resolved a ton of them, but it's a bit trying.

Actually, I’m da "lucky" man. When I installed it, it just happened to land on its own IRQ but I know IRQ sharing can really mess things up with that card. The first week I had my DC10, I captured a 30 min VHS-C tape, edited it, made a movie with titles, SmartSound, freeze frame effects, etc. I output to MJPEG AVI and then converted it to MPEG1 with TMPEnc Beta 12 and burned a VCD with Adaptec Easy CD Creator and took it to work. Man the guys at work were drooling over this VCD. It was so clear it was amazing. I though Pinnacle Studio DC10 was the best software on the planet. (I hadn’t heard of VideoFactory at the time) Then I visited the Pinnacle webboard and there were all these people who couldn’t get it to work. I wish I could help them but I just plugged it in and it worked. I realize now I was very lucky. I musta had some good Karma back then.

If course, I used Studio DC10+ on my Micron Millennium P2 450MHz with a Voodoo3 graphics card and Windows 98. I bought a new Dell for Studio 7/8. That may have something to do with it. I had a lot of respect for Micron computers before they sold their PC business. They made solid machines that outperformed the competition. I’m not so crazy about my Dell. It sure does run VideoFactory and Vegas as smooth as silk though, which is why I believe that my problems with Studio are a fault of the software.

~jr

I am joining this discussion late, but from my experience Studio 8 is an awful product. I have had so many problems, especially in edit and DVD authoring modes. It captured my DV stream just fine, but that's the only positive thing I have to report. I really like VF 2.0. I just wish that Sonic Foundry offered a stand-alone DVD authoring suite. I really don't need Vegas for what I doing - Video Factory meets all of my requirements. I can't believe that no one has made a complete, solid, consumer-based, user-friendly video capture, edit and DVD authoring package. It looks like the new Vegas 4.0 + DVD will be the strongest product out there for its price point. Studio 8 has a nice price, but you end-up 'paying the price' with the time you spend trying to get it to work properly. For DVD authoring, a friend of mine suggested the ULead Movie Factory software. He said it has worked flawlessly for him and it only costs $45. Not bad for an interim solution. I think I am going to give it a try.

Anyway, great discussion. Good luck!

Go to their web site (www.ulead.com) and download the FULLY-FUNCTIONAL program for a free 30-day trial.

I agree with your friend, Movie Factory 2 is the best authoring program for the money.