VideoStudio Pro x3

[Ken Berry]

Obviously a response when they had brought out DVD Suite 2010 or whatever it was called, and VS X2 was the upper VS editing suite available. But of course not taking into account X3 which has no such options!!!

[Accolades]

Downloaded and installed TRIAL of X3.

Impressed with options and speed all seems pretty smooth...

Having 4 videos running and scrolling back and forth to see what CPU/GPU effect ...

Still hard pushed to get over 30% CPU but seemed to jump over 55% on rendering to file !! must be doing something!

Still not gonna use more than 3.5Gb Ram

Does not appear to use much GPU on my average video card but....

Went to create DVD and felt sic!!

The Create DVD option is a JOKE!!

Creating and edititng your production feels semi pro and going to ceate a DVD is like going to play school!! WHY!!!!

Would have been happier with 64bit version but will still buy and hope for a few UPDATES

[mitchell65]

Here's an odd one. I can't load VSP files from VSx2 into the trial version of VSx3. I get a window with the message [" File path" is already in use.] It isn't, of course. VS x2 isn't even installed on this PC. All my video stuff is stored on an ext hard drive. That is plugged into this PC with it's appropriate designated drive letter installed.

[philip_l]

Hi

Downloaded and installed TRIAL of X3.

Impressed with options and speed all seems pretty smooth...

Having 4 videos running and scrolling back and forth to see what CPU/GPU effect ...

Still hard pushed to get over 30% CPU but seemed to jump over 55% on rendering to file !! must be doing something!

Still not gonna use more than 3.5Gb Ram

Does not appear to use much GPU on my average video card but....

Went to create DVD and felt sic!!

The Create DVD option is a JOKE!!

Creating and edititng your production feels semi pro and going to ceate a DVD is like going to play school!! WHY!!!!

Would have been happier with 64bit version but will still buy and hope for a few UPDATES

I've noticed this but it is hard to get fast processors 100% utilised as there is always a bottleneck somewhere that means it has to wait, so utilisation drops. For encoding video it has to read and write to the disc.

CUDA and off loading the CPU work to the GPU will only speed things up when you have a slow CPU, if your CPU is fast it is quicker to use that. I've used TMPGEnc Xpress encoder before and when you enable GPU off loading it runs a performance test to compare the GPU and CPU, and in my case using an Intel i5 it found that was faster.

I would think for the majority of people who take their editing seriously and especially working with AVCHD will already have well spec'd machines with fast CPUs, so hardware acceleration on X3 is really marketing as few will see any benefit from it.

Yes creating disks has gone all "Fisher Price"

Corel should hurry up and release a fix for the AVCHD blips on X2, I'd be happy with that.

Regards

Phil

[richmg821]

Burning DVD's since 1999; I finally realise, what has been ticking me off from the beggining. I think my first video editing program, was Pinnacle.
On the box; "Make Hollywood Type, DVD's". Was nothing near it. Here, they say "PRO".. Nothing near it. I feel that, transistions and special effects are nice, but what good is it that, if the final result is not as clear as the original. I feel the word; "Pro" should not be used, if I cannot control or copy the videos, without sacrificing picture degration. What I would consider pro? To be able to take my HD clip, make a HD video, on a hybird or BD disk, and it looks the same; with only transistions, titles, and cropping added; using the same amount of bytes, plus or minus the titles, color correction. Anything less, is not; "Pro". I used a $600 program and the quality options are perfect; but the word, "Pro" needs to go here. Shrinking the bitrates, are fine, if you want to fit more. But, when you max all the settings, and you still get unaceptable results. The better encoders, have greater VBR ranges. The cheaper ones, only vary minimum. It's not any hardware needed, it's software programming; so it can be done. Seems like Hollywood, made a deal with these video software companies. Make it hard for u$, to get good encoding. Yes everytime, they come with new bells & whistles; in the editing & special effects. But in video quality improvement, and endcoding; they get a "F"; and seems to get worst, than better. But what's worst, if they have features, to change min, avg., top bitrates; it's usually a joke, and has no change and effect at all; if you watch the bitrates on the disk, while playing back the video. "Pro"? AVCHD goes to 24,000; what's the limit here? 16000?

[mitchell65]

though admittedly seems to handle AVCHD well, and allow -- after one of the somewhat obscure processes I mentioned above -- production of an AVCHD folder, as well as a standard Blu-Ray folder.

I must be going daft as I can't find where the folders can be generated. I click Share > Create Disc and can only then create a menu and burn a disc, can't see the Create Folder option. Haven't seen the word Blu-Ray in the Corel DVD Factory Pro screen. Any thoughts? I was considering buying X3 if only to cure the transition blips but as the authoring side is totally useless as I rarely use menus and I can't load projects created in VS x2 Im wondering if it is worth it. Perhaps Corel would sell me a copy of X3 without the DVD factory pro. As that is 39 pounds sterling as a stand alone program it follows that X3 is valued at about 25 UK pounds. I would pay that. Shall I ask?

[dalemccl]

though admittedly seems to handle AVCHD well, and allow -- after one of the somewhat obscure processes I mentioned above -- production of an AVCHD folder, as well as a standard Blu-Ray folder.

I must be going daft as I can't find where the folders can be generated. I click Share > Create Disc and can only then create a menu and burn a disc, can't see the Create Folder option.

When you get to the second screen in DVD Factory (by clicking "Go to Menu Editing" in the lower right corner of the 1st screen), on the right hand edge of screen the word "Settings" is written vertically in a light gray font. Hover your mouse pointer over it and a window will open that has some additional settings, including a check-box to create folders.

[philip_l]

Hi

The better encoders, have greater VBR ranges. The cheaper ones, only vary minimum. It's not any hardware needed, it's software programming; so it can be done.

Part of VideoStudios problem is the bitrate maybe 17000 for AVCHD however this is the maximum bitrate, and what really makes the difference is the average bitrate. If you have a low average bitrate then the maximum rate will hardly ever be reached.

I think you can get some missing settings back for X3 for upping the AVCHD rate, on Windows 7 at C:\ProgramData\Ulead Systems\Corel VideoStudio Pro\13.0 edit both these files:

GG_App.ini
uvGGPL.ini

and set EnableAVCHDSettings to 1.

Note, you will need to open these files running Notepad with elavated permissions to save any changes to these files.

But, it will not help much as you are only upping the maximum bitrate, where really the average needs to be upped and we are not given access to these settings.

Regards

Phil

[richmg821]

Thanks Phil,
Even when Ulead allowed you to choose from a fixed, or a variable rate; at the top rate, I still didn't like the quality, of any encoded videos, or setting. And two pass rendering, gave me a worst quality DVD. When I watched; 2 hour commercial, single layer videos. The bitrate varied from around; 1500 - 8200; most programs may have gave me the top end, but only bottomed out at 4500; regardless, of what avg. settings I used. SV; was the only program to let me fit my 2 hr video; on a single layer disc. I bottomed around 2000 also.
I used note pad, to alter; earlier versions of VS; to allow me to change the 3 settings, which was a joke. Very little change, no change in range; just a shifting of the top rate. There's not a program out there, I haven't tried; or like 100%. I know how to make a exact copy, of my AVCHD videos, trim them, using another program, and I only use X12; to make the BR disk. X12 didn't alter the size of my trimmed AVCHD videos, or add menus. Can't use X13 at all. Thanks Again. Biggest beef; the word "PRO", needs to go.
P.S. Don't have Windows 7; and until I buy something, that works only with it; not with XP; I wont.

[alpine]

Hi


While they install to separate folders that is a shed load of DLLs that are shared and these are updated to the versions used in X3. This hopefully should not cause any issues (they are designed to be shared but I don't trust Corel to have done any testing with the new libraries to older products) so if you find X2 behaving differently this is the likely reason.

Take a look at Program Files\Common Files\Ulead, you will find a lot of files with December timestamps after installing X3, these would have placed X2 versions.

That's an interesting point. If a trial installation of X3 does indeed overwrite the common DLLs, has anyone checked yet whether the transition blip in an existing X2 installation is fixed? Rather depends of course what the DLL functions are, but you never know!

[Black Lab]

Corel should hurry up and release a fix for the AVCHD blips on X2

Ain't gonna happen.

[philip_l]

Hi

That's an interesting point. If a trial installation of X3 does indeed overwrite the common DLLs, has anyone checked yet whether the transition blip in an existing X2 installation is fixed? Rather depends of course what the DLL functions are, but you never know!

No it doesn't unfortunately. While the H264 decoding/encoding DLLs are updated to newer versions these don't seem to be the cause of the problem.

Corel need to fix this problem for X2, they can't imply or argue it is down to camcorder manufacturers not complying with the specification and so they can't fix it, when they have with X3. Is there any camcorder that outputs AVCHD that X2 doesn't have a problem with?

Regards

Phil

[sjj1805]

.......
Corel need to fix this problem for X2, they can't imply or argue it is down to camcorder manufacturers not complying with the specification and so they can't fix it, when they have with X3. .....

I wouldn't build up any hopes, the trend seems to be that when a new version has been released (VideoStudio X3) that older versions are then left as they are.

[dmz]

I have X2 on Xp and have just installed win7 (64 bit) and am transferring my apps. So naturally I come here to see whats up. Having read through the win7 and x2 thread and the x3 thread I am getting the impression that x2 has bits that dont work in win7 and x3 isnt all that much better. It leaves me wondering whether corel really care about us win7 users and am I stuck running my old xp box for just x2 when everything else is on win7?

Cheers

David

[sjj1805]

I clicked here --> to view your system specifications and you don't seem to have a computer.
If you did I would have probably suggested a Dual Boot System.
If on the other hand you have acquired a new (Windows 7) computer and were wandering what to do with your old (XP) computer, then if the system specifications were good enough I would have suggested that you dedicate your old (XP) machine to video Editing. No internet and no anti-virus etc.
In fact all of the suggestions here (Minus creating a hardware profile)
Creating a Video Editing Profile.