My initial Thoughts on VS

[david reece]

On the whole I am impressed!

I have done some extensive testing and here are my findings so far.


VS9 Observations!

Pros!

1)what VS8 should have been! seems more stable
2)why bother with DVDWS2 as you have motion menues etc?
3)Chroma key!
4)Works better than Pinnacle Studio 9 plus.
5)Reverse clips!
6) Ripple effect (why call it that?!? why not rubber banding?!?)
7) Digital Pictures seem to be better in this than before ie a lot more clarity and no pulsing on certain images!
you can resize to the PAL safe area!
9)I have moved my PC onto 08.12.05 no problems with daylight settings


little niggles!

1) Still cant cope with 16:9 within 4:3 ratio. ie it gets squashed if you let video studio automatically do it in PAL DVD 4:3. I set the template 1st and then unchecked non square pix render for AVI. PAL DVD 16:9 works perfect with it as final movie. However on disc it gets squished again for movie I have to uncheck non sq pix rendering for this format! Playback in Power DVD only works when you use pan and scan 1.85:1
2) if you check the normalise audio in final menu of disc creation it crashes out with a message " convert Step got some problems 4525" followed by "unspecified error 0x800411aa (4525)"
3) Chroma key! Better than Pinnacle studio 9 plus! however i had to use the denoise filter to get anything good out of it. but what do you expect for £50 UK. also dont use blue if you have blue eyes! your eyes become seethorugh!
4) Ripple effect (why call it that?!? why not rubber banding?!?) why isnt default that you can have all the time line tagged instead of parts of it? Why parts of it anyway?!?
5) Pictures - you can resize to the PAL safe area! but you dont get a very good picture. same problem was in VS8 but didnt happen in VS7!?! more akin to DVD Pic show 2 quality if you resize it.
6) not many templates for menus. ( i have the ESD version)
7) not many movie maker themes either ( i have the ESD version)
the default setting for PAL DVD 4:3 is 8000 kbps for movie file. The default menu template is 7000 kbps why?!?
why isn’t anti flicker filter set as default!?!

[thecoalman]

2)why bother with DVDWS2 as you have motion menues etc?

There's a lot more to DVDWS than just motion menus & motion buttons which by the way can be resized in DVDWS. They don't have to fit within the placeholder. For one thing you don't need to use templates for the menus. You can import just about any standard format image and place it anywhere at any size etc including animated gif's. For all intents and purposes the menu options are endless, it's completely customizable. You start with a blank slate page if you want. The templates themselves can also be customized to anything you want right within DVDWS. also note the template library is quite extensive including button, frame and objects. That can be used anyway you wish.

There's more features than that, another notable mention is Multiple VTS. You can have multiple compliant MPEG2 videos with different attributes. Even 16:9 and 4:3 on the same disc and they will display properly when viewed on a TV. Different resolutions bitrates etc.... There's a lot of other features too.

[david reece]

my concern with DVD WS2 (and i agree you can have other formats ie frame based and field based on the same disc.) its it has been mis marketed/sold to end users. ie you can get macrovision protection on discs. Yeah alright read teh small print inside on the many forums! Only if you apply for the licence per 100 discs and if you have a DLT device!

for bob standardness this is fine! it took some time to get motion menus into VS when other editors have had it for some time.

I am making a comment on those who dont want to spend £200 on a DVD authoring tool which has a limited editing and you cant even make movie files out of it for that price!

[thecoalman]

its it has been mis marketed/sold to end users. ie you can get macrovision protection on discs.

I'm not going to comment directly on that I already made my thoughts known in the othere thread about this but I will say IMO if your buying DVDWS for the MV then your buying it for the wrong reason.

I am making a comment on those who dont want to spend £200 on a DVD authoring tool which has a limited editing and you cant even make movie files out of it for that price!

Agreed, for the average user VS is a fine product because. It has more than enough features especially if used in conjuction with photoimpact to spruce the menus up a bit. DVDWS wasn't meant to be used as an editor, that's not it's purpose. But for someone who wishes to expand their creativity during authoring and not be hampered by limitations it's a better choice. Technically you can create video files with DVDWS1... also according to htchien MF has this feature. I don't have DVDWS2 so I don't know if it's available.

[MikeGunter]

my concern with DVD WS2 (and i agree you can have other formats ie frame based and field based on the same disc.) its it has been mis marketed/sold to end users. ie you can get macrovision protection on discs. Yeah alright read teh small print inside on the many forums! Only if you apply for the licence per 100 discs and if you have a DLT device!

Hopefully, high-end users will know that there is a high cost just to put the space for MV (to make a disc for MV) and not ever think that a $500 program can make a home-made MV disc.

DVDWS2 is an awesome professional and advanced amateur tool. Multiple language tracks, subtitling tracks, and much more.

I think VS9 is a great product, but DVDWS2 has far more capabilities.

Mike