Beginner's questions

[Rednose]

Hi,

I just downloaded and installed the trial version of Video Studio 9. I had tried Pinnacle Studio V9 before, but I never got it to work properly (picture-in-picture "feature", audio/video de-sync, etc.), so I'm having high hopes for Ulead. A couple of questions, though:

1. Ulead seems to recognize my Pinnacle capture card; however, only video comes through. Audio options are my SoundBlaster or built-in audio only. Can that be changed as I don't want to add yet another cable? Are there any reasonably priced capture cards available that do both audio and video?

2. Pinnacle had some nifty video noise reduction tools that seemed to work ok. I capture from a Sony Beta VCR (don't laugh...), and the video quality is not quite up to snuff. Does Ulead offer some kind of "cleaning" feature? I couldn't find it in the Help files; maybe it's in a different (higher end) product?

Thanks.

[michaeltee]

1. Ulead seems to recognize my Pinnacle capture card; however, only video comes through. Audio options are my SoundBlaster or built-in audio only. Can that be changed as I don't want to add yet another cable? Are there any reasonably priced capture cards available that do both audio and video?

Hi Rednose,

I've found VS9 to be a great program. In fact I have both VS9 and Pinnacle Studio Plus 9 on the same PC with no software conflicts whatsoever. Like all editing applications, both seem to have their ups and downs depending on what sort of project you have in mind.

As far as capturing and editing through Pinnacle Studio, I've had better luck capturing in AVI (versus MPEG) or converting my MPEG clips to AVI before using them in a Pinnacle project. Pinnacle Studio 9 has some known sync issues so sometimes OOS problems are related to Pinnacle's software, not the captured clip itself.

Try using some of the OOS clips you've captured through Pinnacle in a VS9 project and see if the sync is restored. If so, you could continue to use Pinnacle as your capture utility and then simply import your clips to VS9 as needed. If not, you might need to check your capture settings to make sure they're correct. If you need a good tool to view the properties of your clips you can download KC Video Inspector here http://www.download.com/3000-2169_4-10305777.html at no charge.

In general, most if not all Pinnacle capture devices use proprietary drivers. Although your device may appear in VS9's capture source list, it might not function properly outside of Pinnacle applications. There may be exceptions but so far I've yet to discover any.

If you opt to drop Pinnacle all together and go with a 3rd party capture device I can highly recommend Hauppauge's WinTV PVR USB2 (or it's PCI counterpart) which utilizes an integrated, chip based hardware encoder. Ulead recently released a compatibility patch for this particular device and it works great in VS9. The nice thing about PVR capture devices it that in addition to analog capture (camcorder, VCR, etc...) they also give your computer TiVo-like capabilities for viewing and capturing cable or satellite TV

2. Pinnacle had some nifty video noise reduction tools that seemed to work ok...

VS9 includes an assortment of audio and video filters, some of which fall into the correction category while others are for adding special effects. Unfortunately I can't recall if all of them are included in the trial package. For a good overview of the features and capabilities included with the registered version, you might download the "VS9 Features" PDF at http://www.ulead.com/vs/vs9_features.pdf

-Mike

[Rednose]

Thanks, Mike,

I really appreciate the assistance. I actually deleted all my OOS files, out of sheer frustration... I did use your tip to try to capture with Pinnacle to AVI, and so far it works fine. Good idea to retain both products and use each one where it's most appropriate; I guess it's just a matter of getting used to each.

My plans are to capture my analog video to eventually (after somewhat heavy editing) burn DVDs. Is there any advantage of capturing to AVI over MPEG or vice versa? AVI seems to have a much larger file size, as I believe it's uncompressed, so it should be higher quality? Which format is easier (that is, faster and less CPU intensive) to edit? I run the programs on an Athlon 2000, with 512MB of RAM, and my hard disk is large enough so that file size isn't a problem.

Andy

[Howell]

I, like some others use both Pinnacle and Ulead software. I always use Pinnacle for capturing video whether it is analogue or digital. Where I find Videostudio takes the advantage is that if you render the avi files to MPEG then it seems to handle the MPEG format a lot better than other software at the editing stage.
Howell

[michaeltee]

Thanks, Mike,

I really appreciate the assistance. I actually deleted all my OOS files, out of sheer frustration... I did use your tip to try to capture with Pinnacle to AVI, and so far it works fine. Good idea to retain both products and use each one where it's most appropriate; I guess it's just a matter of getting used to each.

My plans are to capture my analog video to eventually (after somewhat heavy editing) burn DVDs. Is there any advantage of capturing to AVI over MPEG or vice versa? AVI seems to have a much larger file size, as I believe it's uncompressed, so it should be higher quality? Which format is easier (that is, faster and less CPU intensive) to edit? I run the programs on an Athlon 2000, with 512MB of RAM, and my hard disk is large enough so that file size isn't a problem.

Andy

Andy,

Dispite the unwieldy file size, there are a number of Pinnacle users who choose to work with uncompressed AVI. That said, there are lots of AVI and MPEG variations available through Studio's "custom settings" capture UI and as Howell mentioned, large AVI captures can be converted to MPEG which may alleviate your OOS problems.

Both VS9 and Studio offer a fair amount of conversion options but I've found standalone converters to be useful as well. In many cases the processing is faster and there are often a greater variety of settings and codecs to experiment with. There are many to choose from (some better than others) but I've had very good results with AVS Video Converter which I believe is offered in a try-before-buy version.

Quite honestly, until a few months ago all of my cutting experience was with Sony BPG linear editing systems where format choices were a black and white issue. Ahhhhh. the good ol' days... LOL! I dunno, in the NLE realm, variables sometimes seem to be the rule rather than the exception. Barring OOS or other issues MPEG-2 720X480 (DVD quality) would be my source format of choice although AVI is probably more reliable. I wish I could be more specific but like yourself, I still have much to learn.

I certainly wouldn't hesitate to post additional format/system config questions on the VS9 and Studio 9 web boards as there are many Senior members who are more than happy to share their knowledge with new users. If you haven't already done so, adding your system info to your web board "profile" will save you the trouble of typing it manually each time you post. In any case, once you discover the right mix of format quality combined with system compatibility things should get a lot easier

-Mike