I have used Premiere 6 and Studio 7 (haven't tried 8) and of course VV3. Of the three I prefer VV3 (big surprise). Permiere 6 was just too difficult for me to learn. Applying special effects took forever and then having to render before seeing how it looked drove me crazy. I edited one movie with Premiere and promptly let the demo expire. I started editing with Studio 7 and it is very user friendly and surprisingly powerful for the price tag. Studio 7 & 8 offer real time preview of effects just like VV3. However, I found that to do some more complicated actions (i.e. P-I-P effects) required me to jump through several hoops. Studio 7 can do some amazing things, it just takes longer to accomplish the tasks then it would with VV3...IMHO. Studio 7 also offers a lot of 3-D effects if you purchase the Hollywood FX add-on. I felt Hollywood FX wasn't very user friendly and therefore never really explored the program (I'm lazy).

I love the way VV3 is laid out and works. VV3 is weak in the 3-D effects arena, even with their recent add-on pack. However, too many 3-D effects in a movie gets boring quick and become nothing but fluff. I've been using VV3 for about 6 months and haven't regretted switching since. All three programs have demos, play with them and have fun!

Very few NLE's do three D effects---you create those in another program like After Effects, Commotion etc.

If you are a rank beginner, Studio 8 MIGHT be a good starting place for you. I started in Studio 7, worked my way around several packages, and am staying with VV3.

I am FAR from a professional in this. I teach a little "introductory computer" course and cover so much that things that are EASY to teach seem to be VERY important. That might make Studio 8 seem like a natural, as it has a VERY easy learning curve. However, with just a LITTLE bit of effort, VV3 takes the cake.

Further, I had nothing but trouble with Pinnacle. They offered NO help when there were problems, and there were plenty, and their forums were far less informative than those on VV3 TEND to be, usually.

I kept the Pinnacle 1394 card from my Studio package and tossed the rest. Don't even TRY to use it any more. VV3 is MUCH more rewarding for the effort.

i too am considering VV3... because as of this writing i have been unsuccessful in creating a good quality VCD.. my query would be.. can VV3 produce good quality VCD?

also can it import from MPEG's rendered from other applications?

I have used Pinnacle DC-2000 with Adobe Premiere 6.0C and can tell
you it is very difficult to master. Editing a 1.5hr. movie in Premiere
is like running through 3 feet of water as the longer the movie the slower
it gets. the timeline is basically unstable compared to Vegas and it sometimes
looses data for no reason. The tutorial for Premiere has the same instabilities
(optional purchase) The only real drawback with Vegas is having to purchase
the Canopus ADVC-100 for external monitor previewing. Previewing in a small
window just doesn't get it. The Mpeg 2 codec in Vegas is a breath of fresh
air compared to Pinnacle and can be fully adjusted to your heart's content.
Adobe Premier just recently purchased an Mpeg-2 codec from a Beechwood, Ohio
company (they did not have one but Pinnacle did) and I do not how that one
works with Premiere 6.5.

James J. Kizak

The MPEG2 codec in Premiere v6.5 is from Main Concept. I suspect it's essentially the same one that's in Vegas since Main Concept wrote them both.

By the way, Main Concept is a German company with an office in Beachwood, Ohio.

Main Concept web site

John

Actually, there is one package that I use for doing some 3D transitional work: AIST MovieDV. It's a $49 package that uses OpenGL and can twist, contort and manipulate any object (including motion video) in three dimensions with keyframing. Makes for some great PIP introductions to see the video fold in from the side or tilt around in 3D. You can even apply some basic specular highlighting to these effects so that they really do just sort of 'jump' off the screen at you. It's quite cool.

For finals, though, everything is brought into Vegas. I would just LOVE to see the ability to do more than just scale and rotate about Z in Vegas. If I could rotate video in three dimensions, I would never have to open another app again (which would make me a very happy person!). I understand that this would severely impact Vegas' ability to preview things in real time (MovieDV does *not* do high-quality real-time preview unless you have an OpenGL hardware accelerator), and for now, at least, I'd rather have the better real-time preview.

But, in the future, I would really like to see more motion keyframing dimensions added to Vegas.

-Rob

You dont have to purchase the Canopus converter to get external monitor preview. You can just run your signal out thru firewire thru most dv camcorders, to your monitor. Works great !

You dont have to purchase the Canopus converter to get external monitor preview. You can just run your signal out thru firewire thru most dv camcorders, to your monitor. Works great !

To answer your questions: Yes, Vegas can render MPEG-1 files for VCD. The MPEG encoder even has presets for them. And, while I do think that Vegas can import MPEG files for editing and re-mastering, you would *not* want to do this. The resulting quality (especially if re-encoding an MPEG-1 file to another MPEG-1 file) would be positively horrid!

Vegas will not actually *burn* a VCD, though. I believe you're going to need a 3rd-party application to do that. Or, at least, if Vegas *can* burn a VCD I have not made use of said feature and do not know how to make it happen.

-Rob

Vegas 3 can burn a VCD. It also burns Disc at Once Red Book CD Audio, Track at once audio, or multimedia data CDs.
///d@

rcolbert: click Tools, Burn CD, Video CD.

Hey Rob

Can you do 3D titles in movie DV or do you have to get their other packages