Presale support - Newbie Question

Coach · Post by **Coach** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 9:23 pm

I just posted the below in the video studio forum and meant to put it in the media studio forum - the day has been longer than I thought. Anyway, I am reposting in the right forum; sorry if some see this twice.

thanks, in advance, for any advice...

---original post:

Hello Everyone,
I am not new to technology but am just starting to look at vidoe capture and editing. I appologize in advance for the newbie questions I am about to ask; I'm sure you get plenty. I have spent the last several days pilfering through a ton of websites and user manuals on video capturing and editing products. I am starting to get my arms around the various formats and what not and am close to selecting a product. Right now, I am leaning heavily towards buying Ulead Media Studio - it seems to have a lot of good features at a pretty good price. I downloaded the user manual today and the one thing that stuck out as a limitation is the dvd menu creation tool. I could be very wrong; it is late in the day and I have read too many manuals now. From the manual, it did not appear that the menu portion of Media Studio does not support motion background and seemed to be a bit limited in menu creation. From what I read, it kind of seemed the buttons are pre-positioned, you can't really customize the layout and such. Is this true or is my brain just warped from all the reading today?
I really like the product because of the graphics editor which seems to blow the doors of Pinnacle's comparable product. It would be a shame if the DVD menu system was lacking (but i prefer the graphics over the menu system).
Also, aside from the 3D graphics stuff, would I get a lot more with Quartet?
What I want to do is capture/edit home movies, convert VHS tapes to DVD so the kids can watch in the car, and I want to be able to insert graphics right into video (I coach little league football and that would be sweet). What would be especially sweet if I could make training videos with animated playbooks; I don't know if Media studio graphics engine is that good though. If not, I can create things like animated GIFs in other programs to do the trick; can I import those and include them in a movie clip? last, I want to take digital stills and save them to DVD to send to extended family so they can just look at them on the TV.
I need to try to make my product selection in time for Father's day and was hoping some of the more experienced guru's here might throw me a bone and help me out?

Thanks!!!

Coach

AnimeChick · Post by **AnimeChick** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 12:21 am

The Mediastudio Pro 7 includes DVD Moviefactory 2 LE. It does not do motion menus and is restricted to template menus. Current version of Moviefactory is 4.0. Version 2 was good back in the day but things have gotten better since.

Quartet would come with Cool Production Studio, giving you more 3D animation capability.

You can insert still images into Mediastudio Pro and make video slideshows and burn them to DVD.

ejskater16 · Post by **ejskater16** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 4:44 am

Yeah, I would reccomend just buying MediaStudio, then buying one of the DVD burning programs separatly. I used a trial of their newest DVD program, and I was very pleased with it.

Devil · Post by **Devil** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 6:27 am

Having MSP7 also allows you to buy the upgrade MF4 at a very low price (choose the Disk Creator version). This should satisfy all your needs. If you want a more sophisticated authorer, DVD Workshop Express is fantastic value (not sure, offhand, whether MSP allows you the upgrade version).

Coach · Post by **Coach** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 5:29 pm

Thanks Everybod! A buddy of mine at work was telling me he does his DVD burning with free software from MS that does the trick but I have to get more details on the flexibility of that one.

DVDDoug · Post by **DVDDoug** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 8:11 pm

Coach,

It's not just an issue of DVD burning... With motion menus, you're talking about DVD authoring. (Most authoring software will also encode and burn.)

You might consider buying both Video Studio and DVD Workshop Express. If you buy them together, you can get the Special Upgrade version of DVD Workshop Express for $150. (You can also use the Special Upgrade version of Workshop Express with Media Studio Pro.)

You may need 3 different programs... One for creating animations, one for video editing, and one for DVD authoring.