Preview Window signal

[DiscCoasterPro]

Hello everyone. In Video Studio 9 when previewing a project in the preview window, will VS9 send that signal out to the firewire port (DV) port on my computer as well as the computer monitor. The converter I purchased supports digital back to analog conversions as well as the other way around, and if I can get a DV signal of the Preview Window, I will actually be able to see my edits on TV in analog as I create them through this converter.

thanks,
dcp

[Ken Berry]

It will certainly send a signal back to the Firewire port. In the first place, that is how the Export function works -- sending a DV video you have edited back to your digital video camera either for storage or for playing on the TV, with the camera connected to both computer and TV.

Second, I am not sure that you can connect to your capture device and then to your TV. But I confess I don't know and anything is possible. The alternative in any case, as I have already suggested, is to get the signal to the Firewire port and thence to your digital vidcam and thence to your TV. Have you changed your preview ("Instant PLayback Target") set-up in File > Preferences? It gives a number of options, including the preview screen in VS, your vidcam, the preview screen AND your vidcam, or a 'dual head device' which I assume means a VCR or something similar which is connected to the Firewire port and the TV in place of the vidcam. But I am not sure if your capture device will take the place of this 'dual head device'. Give it a go, but if it doesn't work, use your vidcam as the pass-through device back to the TV.

[DiscCoasterPro]

Hi Ken, thanks for the speedy reply. Actually I just got off the phone with Canopus tech support. I had some basic questions I thought I'd run by them. This thing has lots of options and I wanna be sure I understand them somewhat before I dive in.

At any rate the fellow there said that in fact the model 300 is bidirectional and will take the DV signal and convert it back to analog so that I can view exactly what will be seen by viewing it on TV. ( I suppose excluding any mpeg compression flaws if they develop during encoding.) But even then, I guess I can watch it on TV before I commit the project to DVD disk.

He just told me to check my software for support of that function. This converter has all three outputs composite, s-video and component out. He said it will convert a digital signal to any of those in real time back to analog so I can view it on my TV as well as the monitor.

Ahh... I just went in the program and found that setting. I set it for Preview window and DV Camcorder .. I suppose that gets the DV signal out the firewire port.

My default field order ... I see is set to frame based ... here I go again ..lol .. what shoud I set this to? I'm assuming lower field first?

thanks,
dcp

[Ken Berry]

Well, as I said, anything is possible. If the Canopus has S and composite video OUT ports, as well as IN, then I guess it is really no different from the digital video camera AV IN/OUT port. As I said, try it. I don't think you will blow anything up, and you can always connect back to the TV via your vidcam, as I suggested, if the Canopus does not work that way with VS9.

[DiscCoasterPro]

I did a quick edit on my last message to you, asking about my default setting for field order when I went into the preference screen. Wonder if you could advise.

thanks,

[THoff]

The field order is irrelevant, because a) DV dictates lower-field first, and b) UVS has no idea that the ADVC-300 will be converting the DV video (which is always lower-field first) to analog. The analog output from the ADVC-300 will always be upper-field first.

If you have any questions about the ADVC-300, let me know, I have one of those puppies myself.

[Ken Berry]

... and I imagine the ADVC300 will set the relevant Field Order automatically.

[DiscCoasterPro]

Oops sorry guys .. my bad. I was mixing up my questions and expecting you to read my mind. I'm sorry.

When I went into the FILE > PREFERENCE window to find the Instant PlaybackTarget options, I just happened to see the default field order was set to Frame based. I was asking what it should be just in general, not related to playback through the firewire.

In reading the VS manual, so many of the options are explained in a way that leaves the decision up to the end user. Thats only good if the end user knows what he or she is doing.

For example under File, Preference,Edit tab .. resampling quality says choose Best if you are preparing for final output and choose good for fastest operation.

In reading that I am led to the conclusion that I should go back in this setting everytime, for each project and reset to good to work on the project and back again to set to best before finalizing. Then I scratch my head and say .. no .. that can't be what they mean. And even the small things begin to get confusing. It doesn't even really explain what is being changed by these settings.

Or even under the capture tab, I have "Image capture deinterlace" checked. When I read what that is in the manual it says....

Enables constant image resolution when downloading files, as opposed to the progressive image reslolution available with interlaced images.

I mean, thats the explanation and it alone will take me a week to research just so I can understand what it says. LMAO .... whew. Does everyone who buys this program understand this stuff but me?

How did you guys become so knowledgeable? Is there a book that takes these concepts from square one? I mean, I wouldn't know what to do without your patient help.

thank you,
dcp

[Ron P.]

In reading the VS manual, so many of the options are explained in a way that leaves the decision up to the end user. Thats only good if the end user knows what he or she is doing.

For example under File, Preference,Edit tab .. resampling quality says choose Best if you are preparing for final output and choose good for fastest operation.

In reading that I am led to the conclusion that I should go back in this setting everytime, for each project and reset to good to work on the project and back again to set to best before finalizing. Then I scratch my head and say .. no .. that can't be what they mean. And even the small things begin to get confusing. It doesn't even really explain what is being changed by these settings.

Or even under the capture tab, I have "Image capture deinterlace" checked. When I read what that is in the manual it says....

Enables constant image resolution when downloading files, as opposed to the progressive image reslolution available with interlaced images.

I mean, thats the explanation and it alone will take me a week to research just so I can understand what it says. LMAO .... whew. Does everyone who buys this program understand this stuff but me?

How did you guys become so knowledgeable? Is there a book that takes these concepts from square one? I mean, I wouldn't know what to do without your patient help.

thank you,
dcp

I think Ulead should hire a "layman" to assist in writing their manual. That way when the "geeks" write something like that, the layman can request that it be translated to something comprehensable. I will on occassion go back and read parts of the manual to try to grasp it, (or just to get more confused ) I've used 3 versions now and mostly learn by trial and error or here.
As you've seen these guys here are great and know their stuff...

[Ken Berry]

In a sense, it really is always up to the user because only the user knows what his/her work targets and procedures are going to be. Take the Field Order question: if I were you, I would change the template setting to Lower Field First (Field Order A) if you think you are going to be using mainly digitally-sourced video, or in the case of your Canopus, material captured through it from an analogue source. This is what I do since 90% or my work is with digital video from my vidcam, and only about 5% from my analogue tapes and the rest being still photos from my digital still camera. Since my analogue capture device captures Lower Field First (like the Canopus) even from an analogue camera (when the norm would be Upper Field First), then 95% of my work uses Lower Field First and it is thus logical to have this as my default. But it is up to the user and he/she will always have to change the settings when doing something which falls outside the bulk of his/her work.

It's a bit like the Good/Best question you raise. And IMHO the manual means exactly what you first took it to mean. Set it to good while you are editing, but remember to change it to Best before you produce a final DVD-compatible file. But again, it will be up to the user to decide what he/she wants to do. I confess that with VS 7 and 8, I always left the setting at Good and still think I produced excellent quality DVDs. With VS 9, I have it set more or less permanently to Best and don't seem to notice any significant slow-down in the process. But that may be because I am now using an even more powerful computer than I had when using VS7 and 8.

As for the deinterlace setting, I leave it set permanently at that and have not had problems. Other people may have other ideas though.

[DiscCoasterPro]

Ken your input is invaluable. Vidoman .. you hit the nail on the head hiring someone to proof read and edit that has no idea how to use the program. Shoot, I bet they could cut their tech staff in half .. lol.

After posting those questions, I read on a little more. On pg.166 vs9 manual, while reading about the capture tab .. there's an option "allow access to capture device settings" Hmm, I though, that would be nice But right after that it says if you check this option, the "Video and Audio Capture Property Settings" dialog box will no longer be available. I can't find it anyway.

In fact, and I'm embarrased to admit it, on the following pages 167 to 181, I can't find most of the other setting windows.

I did find, under Project Properties> Edit, Compression Tab, an audio format setting that allows me to choose lpcm or mpeg but I thought ac3 was part of VS9 and there is no option for that one. <sigh>

[DiscCoasterPro]

This just gets stranger. The reason I didn't think I could find the other boxes ( I think ) is because they look nothing like what the manual shows

example... Project Properties>Edit>Project Options, On the Ulead Video Studio tab my computer window shows only TV standard greyed out as ntsc
and one check box. Perform non-square pixel rendering. The rest of the window has nothing. In the manual,pg 176 the same tab shows 8 different options. It looks nothing like mine.

Under the General tab the manual shows (pg177) the first heading as Encoder Driver ... I don't even have that option.

I can't even find video save options window or the AVI tab as shown on 180. which has some important options.

I must be getting tired.

[Trevor Andrew]

On pg.166 vs9 manual, while reading about the capture tab .. there's an option "allow access to capture device settings" Hmm, I though, that would be nice But right after that it says if you check this option, the "Video and Audio Capture Property Settings" dialog box will no longer be available. I can't find it anyway.

The Video and Audio Capture Property Settings are in the 'Options 'cogwheel on the capture page.
selecting them will open an info window containing several tabs and an Advanced option.

If you "allow access to capture device settings" from Preferences the pop up window will no longer appear but view as a list.
Selecting this option seems to change the way the info is presented not the content. Leave it alone.

Trevor

[DiscCoasterPro]

Thank you for the reply. I appreciate everyone's effort and patience on this board helping us newbies out. I fully realize that at times it must be frustrating for you folks who understand not only the program, but the concepts of things like bit rate, audio and video compression methods, field order, type1 and type 2 AVIs, and the tons of other important puzzle parts that go together to make a successful video product, to have to answer our sometimes foolish questions.

If its any consolation, it's equally frustrating for folks like myself who are fully willing to spend the money and time to learn, only to be flooded with explanations in manuals chunk full of new technical terms that end up requiring us to dead stop mid sentence and embark on a whole new quest for information, just to complete the sentence that we are reading. It seems by the time I return from all these tangent journeys through websites, text books, and forums, I don't even remember what page the sentence was on that I was originally reading. The result is that I can't assimilate anything I read, and end up more confused than when I started.

To complicate things even more, I decide to read front to rear the VS9 manual only to be shown setup windows that contain different check options than my program provides to me, and even some options I assumed would be available but are not. One example of this is the ac3 audio compression, which if I read and understand is the same thing as dolby digital. I don't see an option for that in my VS9.

I suppose I'm looking in the wrong spot, or at the wrong time in the right spot, but geez, if they only wrote this manual so people could learn from it rather than to show off their technical knowledge by confusing us, it would be wonderful.

There is an old saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I think that this is where I'm headed. If I knew nothing, I wouldn't even worry about asking more and more. I'd just run the program, burn the DVD and not care to know what just happened . LOL .. oh well, you guys may have to put up with me a bit longer, cause I really do want to understand this stuff. If I knew of a "video editing bible" that went from square one, I'd buy it, but instead I'm finding myself clicking through a zillion web links for a zillion topics. Pretty soon, I'll have to register on a database forum so I can learn how to organize the links I have, so I can search them. LOL

I believe that understanding is a needed foundation for successful troubleshooting, and I also believe I'm gonna be doing a lot of troubleshooting once I get started with this process

<sigh> Thanks again,
dcp

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi dcp
Well from that reply I think you are getting the hang of things.
We are all on the big learning curve, I am sure from your attitude that you will certainly succeed.

As for AC3 / Digital Dolby, you are not mistaken.

Although VS 9 does support this audio, you cannot set AC3/Digital Dolby as part of your Project Properties, A mistake by Ulead programmers I feel.

But you can capture to Dvd/mpeg2 and select Digital Dolby as your audio option.

You can also use the Make Movie Manager to create your own templates and include DD.

When you Share Create Video File you cannot use ‘Same as project Setting’ as DD is not an option, but you can choose Custom and DD or use your own template that has DD as the audio.

Hope that does not confuse.

Trevor

Ps:- no questions are foolish