Considering upgrade to Pro X2 - pre purchase question

[ghoofie]

Hi there..I have been using VS9 SE for some time..it's time to get SERIOUS about a video editor. I browsed around the different vendors and I think I want to stay with VS, just upgrade. Are users here generally happy with Pro X2 ? Or was version 11 better ? I thought about Pinnacle and even Sony Vegas, but I'm already familiar with VS.
I'm still on a Windows XP SP3 machine with 2GB of memory, plenty of hard drive.



Thanks for your opinions.


Ned a.k.a ghoofie

[Black Lab]

I have been a VS user since around v6 or 7. I like v10 very much, but did not upgrade to v11 because I didn't think the upgrades warrented the price (I wasn't yet into HD nor did I use Vista).

I did, however, upgrade to X2. I thought the upgraded features were something that would benefit me.

I am sure you will get different views, dependant upon what users are editing. Those still using DV-AVI or MPEG-2 will probably tell you X2 works like a charm. AVCHD users may not give good reviews because of (apparent) inherent problems with the format. I, myself, just did my first project using HDV footage and had no problems. This using an "old" P4 machine with 1GB RAM.

My best advice would be to download the trial and give it a test drive.

[DVDDoug]

I'm still using VS10 (and I use some other audio/video software too). But, I think you might find the upgrade from SE to be worthwhile (depending on what you're doing).

My best advice would be to download the trial and give it a test drive.

I agree! I suggest you download the trial versions of the three programs you're considering. (Except last time I checked, Pinnacle didn't have a trial version... )

Video Studio still has some "quirks", and some file formats still seem to cause it trouble. From what I've heard Pinnacle has a different set of quirks. I haven't heard much about Vegas, but I'm sure the entry-level version has it's limitations too.

[sjj1805]

.......... Are users here generally happy with Pro X2 ? Or was version 11 better ? .....

Each new version has been an improvement over its predecessor - however I would not touch Digital Studio 2010 with someone else's barge pole never mind my own. Just ensure it is VideoStudio you buy and not Digital Studio.

[ghoofie]

Thanks everyone. I did just that...I d/l the trial version of Pro X2. It works fine for importing existing files, but so far, I've not been able to use the capture feature. I have an ADS DVDXpressDX2 that captured fine with VS9 but not so with X2. The capture device came bundled with CapWiz and VS9 SE...so maybe it is 'hardwired' to work with those. I'll try customer service next. I still have CapWiz installed but uninstalled VS9.

[Black Lab]

The capture device came bundled with CapWiz and VS9 SE...so maybe it is 'hardwired' to work with those.

It probably is. We usually suggest capturing with the software that came with the hardware, then importing those files into VS for editing.

[Ken Berry]

Not just 'probably'. It is definitely hardwired to use CapWiz. So no point in approaching Support... Just capture with CapWiz and edit in X2 as you did with VS9...

[ghoofie]

Not just 'probably'. It is definitely hardwired to use CapWiz. So no point in approaching Support... Just capture with CapWiz and edit in X2 as you did with VS9...

Odd thing to me , though, is that I was able to capture not only with CapWiz, but I could capture with VS9 (SE). And X2 recognizes the Adtech device, that is, it shows up on the capture screen screen, then gives the error that it is unable to initiate the capture with the device.

[Ken Berry]

Earlier SE versions of VS (9 and earlier) were tweaked by AdsTech to work with their devices, though the recommendation was still to use CapWiz. But the tweaking was done by AdsTech, not Ulead (who was then the owner of VS). This happened with a number of hardware manufacturers -- they would distribute an SE version ('special edition' i.e. crippled) which they tweaked with their own proprietary code to work with their devices, but they would not share the secret with Ulead/Corel...

[ghoofie]

So here's a follow up regarding using my existing Adstech device. Once I removed the trial version of X2 and installed the official purchased copy, I can now capture with VS X2.