What laptop, Windows 7, and product key

[stormcab]

I currently have videostudio 9 and 11 on a 5 year old laptop with XP. I have just bought a HD camcorder so will now need to buy a new laptop and videostudio X2 to edit. (although I have just discovered that there is now an X3, so should I go for that instead?)

My first question is - will it work with Windows 7 correctly? i.e. does it need to be a particular version 32bit or 64bit? etc..

Secondly - I plan to buy a sony laptop with 4GB RAM, 2.2GHZ dual core, 512mb graphics card, HD screen - will this be sufficient when using X3 and AVCHD files? http://www.johnlewis.com/230823111/Product.aspx

Thirdly - if I purchase the product key to unlock the trial software instead of buying the disc, can I download it to more than one laptop in my home, and reinstall it whenever I wish (if I have to reboot or buy another computer for example).

My apologies if these have already been answered - I have looked around the whole of the site but it is vast and hard to find specifics - if there are answers in other posts could you give me the link please.

Thanks for any assistance.

[Black Lab]

I currently have videostudio 9 and 11 on a 5 year old laptop with XP. I have just bought a HD camcorder so will now need to buy a new laptop and videostudio X2 to edit. (although I have just discovered that there is now an X3, so should I go for that instead?)
The X2/X3 dilema should be clear by the time you finish reading below.

My first question is - will it work with Windows 7 correctly? i.e. does it need to be a particular version 32bit or 64bit? etc..
X2 needs a patch to work with Windows 7. Without actually looking I would hazard a guess that X3 has been designed to work with W7.

Secondly - I plan to buy a sony laptop with 4GB RAM, 2.2GHZ dual core, 512mb graphics card, HD screen - will this be sufficient when using X3 and AVCHD files? http://www.johnlewis.com/230823111/Product.aspx
That will be something AVCHD users will have to answer. However, I can say that X2 had problems with AVCHD and transitions. That has been rectified in X3.

Thirdly - if I purchase the product key to unlock the trial software instead of buying the disc, can I download it to more than one laptop in my home, and reinstall it whenever I wish (if I have to reboot or buy another computer for example).
It has been the recommendation of this forum for a long time that you do not activate trial software, but instead purchase the full version. With that said, you can purchase a download version instead of a disc. VS can be installed on multiple machines as long as only one is running the VS software at any given time.

My apologies if these have already been answered - I have looked around the whole of the site but it is vast and hard to find specifics - if there are answers in other posts could you give me the link please.

Thanks for any assistance.

[stormcab]

Wicked! Thanks, looks like I got into all this just in time for X3 then. I did attempt to put a few test clips together with transitions using another laptop with Vista, and noticed they played back on my TV via a USB key with the problems you have said. So hopefully this new laptop when I get it will do the trick. I also noticed that there was no sound coming from the clip via the TV, I wonder if this had something to do with a notice that came up when installing the trial software - 'this will not run properly with this service pack'. Anyway, thanks again

[mitchell65]

Just to add a bit to Jeff's advice. On the blurb Corel state that X3 is written for Windows 7. Checking the System Requirements on Corel's site suggest that your proposed new Laptop will suffice. If you download the full version of VS x3 then save it to a disc. You then have your own installation disc. Saves having to download again if you have to do a re-install at any time.

[oz4me]

My suggestion is to download the X3 version trial which is 660 odd meg and play with it. You may well decide to stick to X2 with patches rather than change to X3 with its very slow and limited function WinDVD2010 program for actually burning the DVDs. In my opinion from limited use of X3 WinDVD2010 is a real backward step from Corel. The X2 system is faster and has many more options

[Black Lab]

I haven't downloaded the new X3, however, my beta copy is not slow at all compared to X2.

The burning function is an issue, but you can always open X2 and import your project to finish the authoring/burning stage.

[Ron P.]

adding to Jeff's suggestion...

If you happen to have DVD MovieFactory, DVD Workshop, or Nero, use them to burn your DVDs. You don't have to use just one program to do everything. Having seen and tried to use the pathetic attempt at improving the burn module in VS (digital studio 2010), I'll never be using it. There's too many better alternatives..

[Ken Berry]

...And a further (important?) gloss on Jeff's suggestion of using X2 to burn an X3 project, you would need either (1) first to render your X3 project into a new final file, and then enter that in the X2 burning module; or (2) (and this is the important bit) save the X3 project in X2 format to be opened in X2.

Note that later version project files are not backwards-compatible with earlier versions of VS. In other words, X2 cannot automatically read an X3 project file. But you do have the option of getting the latest version to save in the project format of the previous two versions of VS. So with X3 you can save a project as either X2 project or VS11 format. (Just as X2 allowed projects to be saved as VS 11 and VS 10 projects, and so on down the line...)

The only blip with X3 doing it this way is that if your project contains filters or other effects (e.g. the super cool Picture-in-Picture filter) which do not exist in X2, that bit of the project will be lost when saved as an earlier version project. I have gotten around this by rendering the clip using the P-in-P filter to a new video clip, and then inserting that in the X3 timeline and saving the whole project as an X2 project. That way you get the best of both worlds...

[sjj1805]

In defence of the beta testing team, we DID point out to Corel that we all thought it was poor and requested they return to the traditional authoring module that has existed for as many versions of VideoStudio that I have owned.

Having said that, I must add that some of the new Menu Templates ARE impressive but they are not built in the same way as previous versions.
So I will pre-empt the usual requests that always follow the release of a new version and simply say - don't bother trying to import your old DVD Menus from earlier versions - they will not be recognised.