Videostudio 8 - sound problems- any recommendations

[bmori]

Several years back I purchased a panasonic DVD recorder and spent hours putting 25 years of old sony tapes onto DVD. I recently purchased Videostudio 8 - it seemed to get the best reviews and had fewest system crashes.

I now discovered that it is no good for editing my DVDs because it looses the sound - wise after the event - after reading the forums. It is fine for editing my panny mini DV tapes and seems to do a good job.

Anyone recommend which way to go to get an editor which will allow me to edit my DVD's. I've read so many horror stories recently about video editors.

I should add that I only take the occasional video now and my main interest is in still photography.

any thoughts greatly appreciated

cheers
Bill

[Ron P.]

Welcome to the forums,

recently purchased Videostudio 8

That concerns me, as VS8 is a phased-out version. The current version is VS11+, with the free upgrade offered to owners of VS11, is actually 11.5.

Did you purchase this off Ebay? If so does it have an SE as part of the version (VS8 SE)? If so those are watered down, freebies that hardware manufacturers bundle with things like video capture cards. They are not to be sold retail. If it is an SE or VE version, that would explain why you are having problems with the sound.

I'm guessing the sound may be Dolby digital. If so, free versions do not include the Dolby audio codecs. There is a licensing fee that Ulead (Corel) must pay, and they are not going to give something they must pay for away.

With all that said, what OS are you running, XP, ME (oh I hope not), Win2k, or Vista? That's important especially when it comes to Vista (Windows ME re-incarnated). The current version of VideoStudio is certified for Vista, and I believe that VS8 would qualify for the upgrade pricing.

Corel has narrowed the video/dvd programs down to VS (videostudio) and DVDMF (DVD MovieFactory).

VideoStudio is a full editor, designed for editing video, with a lessor degree of DVD authoring added on.

DVDMF is a DVD authoring program, that allows minimal editing.

Both can handle the DVD video format, which is MPEG-2.

Finally I'll leave you, like others that are trying to decide, with this...Corel and several other vendors, provide free trials. The only way to know what may/may not fit your needs, is to download some TBYB (Try Before You Buy) programs...

[bmori]

[quote="vidoman"]Welcome to the forums,



That concerns me, as VS8 is a phased-out version. The current version is VS11+, with the free upgrade offered to owners of VS11, is actually 11.5.

Did you purchase this off Ebay? If so does it have an [b]SE[/b] as part of the version (VS8 SE)? If so those are watered down, freebies that hardware manufacturers bundle with things like video capture cards.


thanks vidoman for your detailed reply.

You are correct, it is an SE version - it was bundled into a PCMCIA firewire card I bought for my laptop
- I recently bought the laptop to get the last of the XP ones - it is a dual core with 1.5GB of RAM

Amazon still sell videostudio 8
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ulead-Video-Stu ... B0002C6LD6

I assumed since it was an older version it would be bug free - it seems to get better ratings than the newer version.

cheers
Bill

[Ron P.]

The one offered on Amazon is a full version. The SE's are watered down, and may not contain all the functionality and features of the full versions.

It wasn't until VS9, that you could purchase and expensive plug-in to use Dolby Digital, which only installed to the full version.

A downfall to the SE, and VE and TBYB (trial) versions are that any update patches or fixes will not install to them. With VS8 there are several. However I just checked and you can download a zip file that contains a PDF document. The document has links to the manual, as well as all the SPs, and they did put out 1 update patch for the SE versions. Here's the link: http://www.ulead.com/tech/phasedout.htm. Click on the 8.0 in the VideoStudio Row to download the zip file.

It's strange that VS8 is getting high reviews, because several of us considered it one of the buggiest versions put out by Ulead.

[bmori]

The document has links to the manual, as well as all the SPs, and they did put out 1 update patch for the SE versions. Here's the link: [url]http://www.ulead.com/tech/phasedout.htm[/url]. Click on the [b]8.0[/b] in the VideoStudio Row to download the zip file.

It's strange that VS8 is getting high reviews, because several of us considered it one of the [i]buggiest[/i] versions put out by Ulead.[/quote]

Many thanks for the link Ron - I'll have a look later- I already have a pdf manual. I presume it is only after version 9 that would be able to handle my dvds with dolby sound?

cheers
Bill

[Ron P.]

Yes, VS10 was the first to natively handle Dolby. That PDF file, is not the manual, but instructions and links to the patches/fixes, and the manual.

[bmori]

[quote="vidoman"]Yes, VS10 was the first to natively handle Dolby. That PDF file, is not the manual, but instructions and links to the patches/fixes, and the manual.[/quote]

Thanks again Ron - I did download that pdf file and will download the patches later


cheers
Bill