Going mad!! help with programs movie factory & video stu

[woolfie]

I recently bought a Sony HD Camcorder and I want some easy to use software to edit and produce my finished movies. Having downloaded both movie factory and video studio 11 I am having problem after problem and it is driving me nuts. I am goingto explain what i want to do and what has been happeneing and maybe some kind soul will give me some help.

I want to copy the video from my camcorder m2ts format i believe. edit them (nothing fancy just cutting out the rubbish and using transformations between scenes) then render and put on menus etc then output in 1080 format onto my laptop to play back on my tv. Now the problems

downloaded the trial of video studio 11 and after trying to install the power pack discover it doesnt work on the trial version. Also the bundled software 'movie wizard' crashes every time i try to use it. I assume to import the high def files i need the power pack?

Do i need movie factory to do the menus etc? do i need to buy both programs? why can i not open m2ts files or avi files (produced in sony vegas) in movie factory.

Can anyone advise me on what i need and what i am doing wrong? i really appreciate any help offered

thanks

Andy
(aka woolfie)

[Ken Berry]

Welcome to the forums!

Can you give us the exact model of your Sony, please? I am guessing from its use of the .m2ts extension, however, that it is an AVCHD model shooting to hard disk rather than SD card. If that is the case, as you will see from just glancing down the list of questions on this Board in the last day or so, a lot of users with AVCHD cameras are having a lot of problems.

If indeed your camera is an AVCHD one, then I am afraid you absolutely need VS11.5+ to be able to handle AVCHD. As you have found, Corel in their wisdom have never updated the trial version from VS11+, so an increasingly large number of users with AVCHD cameras cannot test it to see in advance whether it can handle AVCHD from their particular camera. Silly, in my view, but then, I don't work for Corel!

The good news is that VS11.5+ *does* seem to work with Sony (and Canon and JVC) AVCHD cameras. It seems to have most problems with Panasonics. However, you also have to have a relatively powerful computer to deal smoothly with AVCHD (Core 2 Duo or above) quite apart from anything else. Lower than that, but still P4 3.0 GHz with HT and above, you can use SmartProxy for editing (creating SD proxy files of your HD ones, editing the proxy files, then the edits are transferred, slowly, to the HD ones). But I warn you, anything less than a Core 2 Duo, and you will have difficulty even getting AVCHD files to play back smoothly on the computer even if you successfully edited them...

In this regard, please fill in the Profile button at the top of this web page. That way we will not have to ask every time about your system resources if you come to this forum regularly -- as I am afraid your may be doing if indeed you have an AVCHD camera!

For what it is worth, Corel has a 30-day refund policy if not totally satisfied. So you could take the plunge and buy the full version. And if it does not work, claim a refund.

Is it only the .avi files to which you referas being produced by Vegas which you can't open in VS? That sounds strange, but it depends on what flavour of .avi you are talking about. There are over 800 varieties of video which use that extension.

By the way, VS11.5+ can certainly produce a proper and fully functional HD menu to go with AVCHD hybrid DVDs. I know, because I make them! As for Movie Factory, I am afraid you will also need the full version for AVCHD editing; and more to the point, the Power Pack for MF6 costs US$20, whereas the VS11+ Power Pack is free to registered users (and converts it into VS11.5+).

[woolfie]

Hiya,

My Camera is a Sony HDR SR11E so you are quite right in your assumptions. It looks like, from what you are saying that i would only need video studio and not both that and video factory is that right?


thanks again


andy

[Ken Berry]

Well, some of us have both, of course, and use a wide variety of other programs as well in any one project. Video Studio is basically an editing program, but for the sake of making it stand-alone, it also has had authoring capacity thrown in. Over the years, with newer versions, this authoring/burning capability has become really quite good. So no, you don't really need Movie Factory.

Movie Factory, by contrast, is essentially an authoring program, and for the sake of making it stand-alone has had an editing capacity added. However, in my opinion this editing capacity is nowhere near as good as Video Studio's authoring capacity. Movie Factory also does a variety of other things. I personally love it for slideshows.

But you should certainly be able to do what you want just with VS11.5+.

[woolfie]

Just wanted to say thanks for the reply. There is such a huge range of software these days and I was just getting my head round vegas but its sooo over priced!!

I have so many questions but i have no doubt i will be back here often but one more for now.

I do not have a blue ray burner my plan is to make up my movies and then link my laptop (which has hdmi port) to my tv and watch them that way. I couldnt see how to do that in Movie factory it seemed to want to save to disk all the time. Is my idea practicle or even possible as i cannot affor to go out and buy a blue ray at the moment!!

thanks again

[Ken Berry]

It should work OK, but I would think you would need a software DVD player which can play Blu-Ray format video. PowerDVD Ultra, Nero Showtime in the Nero 8 suite and, I believe, one of the most recent WinDVD will do so. I assume the laptop HDMI switches the computer view from monitor to HDTV rather like the older VGA connection on laptops...

[woolfie]

Ok I am going to buy DVD movie factory first, well thats the plan. What I seem to be struggling to do is save the completed file to my hard drive in a format that i can play back. All i seem to get is the option to burn it to disk what i want to do is save it as an avi file or the like so i can watch it back on my laptop! Any ideas?

Ken I really appreciate the help I know your doing this as a hobby not for work and thats awesome mate! Thanks again

[Ken Berry]

I think you misunderstood me. I thought your plan of making movies to play back via your laptop/HDMI would work. But I was not suggesting Movie Factory was the way to go. As you have found, it is primarily directed at burning DVDs. It is Video Studio which should allow you to make the other formats.

I was also suggesting that if you want to play your video back in high definition, then you would probably need to create a video in AVCHD format or Blu-Ray format, and have a software player on your laptop which can play that format. Then connecting the laptop via HDMI would (presumably) convert the HDTV into a monitor arrangement with the laptop and the software player would display high definition on the HDTV.

But to repeat: you will need VS11.5+ for that.

[cacaofemme]

Mr. Berry and forum users, can you explain to me why it is I can get uLead Movie Factory 5.6 Launcher (trial version) to work with my AVCHD camcorder capturing, editing, and outputting my videos but uLead Video Studio 11 (trial version) nor uLead Movie Factory 6 Plus (trial version) will not? I can't get either of them to import the videos. But uLead Movie Factory 5.6 Launcher imports just fine. It just doesn't have near as many editing tools as the other two. Please help and tell me what it is I'm doing wrong w/importing.

[Ken Berry]

I have no idea why the older version of MF works with AVCHD at all... I am not even sure that AVCHD had emerged as a format when that version of MF came out. And I can't see any reference to AVCHD in any of the update patch notes for MF5 -- only Blu-Ray disc burning capacity.

As for the trial version of VS, it is the trial version of VS 11+ and not VS 11.5+, and it is only the full version of VS11.5+ that can deal with AVCHD. I am not certain about MF6 trial version, but suspect it might be the same since AVCHD functionality in that came with a Power Pack you have to buy for MF 6. And that does not work on trial versions anyway...

[cacaofemme]

Mr. Berry, what is the difference between MF 5.6 Launcher and VS 11.5? Do you think if I purchase VS 11.5, it'll work with my .m2ts files? I am a complete novice a this and I'm not sure what files were captured, but I was able to make a short video, make minor edits, and output the file to a DVD in my computer drive. I then took it out (after I burned the disc) and played it in my DVD player and it worked beautifully. This program just does not have many special effects. You think if I purchase VS 11.5, it'll work? So sorry to have to ask these computer dummy questions. I just don't know what to do.

[Ken Berry]

As far as I am aware the 'Launcher' part of the name simply describes a small program that lurks down in your system tray and speeds up launching of the main program, Movie Factory. MF is mainly an authoring and burning program which for the same of completeness has some limited editing capacity added, as you have found. VS is mainly an editing program with a now pretty good authoring/burning module added for completeness. VS11.5+ can definitely handle AVCHD files. But as you will see if you look down the list of recent posts here, a lot of people have a lot of problems with that format.

At the very least you need a powerful computer -- at least Core 2 Duo or preferably Quad -- to be able to play AVCHD smoothly. You can edit it using SmartProxy in VS11.5+, but you might still have difficulty playing it. But I get the impression you are only at the moment downconverting your AVCHD and burning it to a standard definition DVD.

What is your camera make and model?

[cacaofemme]

My camcorder make and model is the Canon HG-10.

[Ron P.]

I might also note that DVD MovieFactory 5.6 is a special version that is provided only with some laptops like Toshiba, and possibly with some camcorders. It can not be purchased directly from Corel (Ulead). So that version has been tweaked to work with the hardware it comes with.

Ulead sold DVD MovieFactory 5/5+ which would not handle the AVCHD codec.

[woolfie]

Me again... still a little confused.

I have played about with both vs11 and mf and both seem excellent however I still have a couple of questions. I like the easy layout of MF for creating menus and chapters as well as a front end for my movie and I cant see how to do all this in VS. I would like to buy both products but I dont see how to save my finished MF project to hard drive rather that burning it to disk, can this be done?

Once I have created a finished movie in MF and have created chapters etc is it possible to play the whole movie or would i have to connect all the seperate bits together and then save that as a seperate file?

I hope this makes sense


thanks