Bought a Sony Hc24E about a month ago and been evaluating Ulead VideoStudio 10+ and Cyberlink PDR 5. At first both VS10 & PDR5 looked good on my PC, but when I burnt DVDs with them and played them on my DVD player, the VS10 images looked significantly worse. I'm burning both nominally in PAL HQ but the Ulead DVD seems to produce 'jittery' images.. eg if you pan the camera across a vertical object, you see two images close together. The PDR5 DVD is much sharper and this effect is not present as far as I can see

I've still got about 15 days evaluation time on each, so I just wonder if I'm doing something wrong with VS10+. Or if anyone can suggest alternative software at about the same price (or cheaper) which does the job better than either then I'd be very grateful.

Thanks...

I have had so many problems with PowerDirector 5.0 and Cyberlink that I would never recommend this program or company to anyone.

The program will crash without warning, and repeated messages to the company have yielded no results. They also now refuse to refund my money. In addition, their "customer support" is an "outsourced" (meaning India) version and they work only from a script. They also seem to be unable to understand or write simple English sentences.

This has been on of the most disagreeable experiences I have ever had with any company. Sony Vegas Movie Studio 6.0a is far superior and more capable even if the manual and help files are terrible.

[drummerjohn]

I prefer Videostudio 10 out of the two. Download the 30day demo.

[evans]

ap999

M8 you should demo as many as you can, the cheaper products like power director dont produce very good results you need at least 3 programs and good ones to get results(i.e High picture quality).

Search for TMPgenc products they are cheap and quite good. Better products are just too expensive unless you go the P2P way. Vegas is quite a stable product but i think more money than power director.

Originally Posted by drummerjohn

I prefer Videostudio 10 out of the two. Download the 30day demo.

Thanks John .. I'm already evaluating the VS10 + I prefer its interface etc - but when I write to DVD and play on TV the video quality is significantly worse than PDR5 - which to me-- in the end -is the most important freature (i'm currently working on my daughter's wedding video!). In view of SLRMans's comments re PDR5 & cyberlink -- the PDR5 trial has already crashed on me a couple of times --I've had a look at a few more packages.. NeoDVD seemed very quick and easy to use, but again the output video quality was not as good as PDR5. I'm currently downloading Adobe premiere elements 2 trial -- ~1.2Gbyte! .. at ~£70 its a bit more than I wanted to spend...

Thanks evens .. just read your post as I was typing this...I'll look at TMPgenc & vegas.. BtW what is the P2P way?

Anyway thanks for your comments...

[redsox_mark]

eg if you pan the camera across a vertical object, you see two images close together. The PDR5 DVD is much sharper and this effect is not present as far as I can see

I don’t use either package (I use Vegas), but what surprises me is that you see such a noticeable difference in quality of the MPEG encoding. Is it a long video? I know the quality of MPEG encoders does vary, and if you are trying to squeeze a lot on to a DVD it could be more noticeable… but for a 1 hour video from a low end camcorder I wouldn’t expect you to see a noticeable difference. What you describe sounds like interlacing artifacts.. maybe you rendered the Cyberlink to progressive (de-interlaced)?

Vegas comes with the Main Concept MPEG encoder, which is a good one. Ok, it’s not Cinemacraft pro (which costs over £1000), but it is very good. The only problem is that I don’t believe the trial version includes it (due to license restrictions with Main Concept).

Mark

[toadoftoadhall]

off topic a bit, but didnt realise that there was so much difference in encoding between software. Isnt there a way to run on e package but use different encoders?

toadoftoadhall

[redsox_mark]

Sure. If you buy an encoder separately, you generally can run it standalone.
So you an edit with Ulead VideoStudio (or whatever) and encode with Canopus Procoder, MainConcept, or whatever. Depending on your editor you may also be able to access one of these "third party" codecs from the editor itself.

As I said, personally I don't think the differences are that big... all the decent editors include a decent encoder. But if you have excellent source material and display and a fine eye, maybe you can see the difference. It is at lower bitrates (trying to squeeze more on a DVD) where any difference will be more noticable.

Mark

Thanks Redsox etc..
Although I am trying to squeeze over an hours video onto the DVD I get the same difference between quality Ulead VS & PDR5 even when I just capture & burn a 5 minute clip.... it is possible I'm doing something wrong to do with interlacing but I cannot see any options in Ulead which I might have set wrong.


Anyway after leaving my pc downloading all day I've got the Adobe Premiere trial going OK.. its a bit daunting at first, but the output quality looks excellent.. even when I double the compression.......
So I get good sharp images with Adobe Premiere 2 & Powerdirector 5, and significantly lower quality from Ulead videostudio, DVDsanta, neoDVD

Unlike PDR5 all the Adobe reviews look good.. I think the only disadvantage will be that I'll spend a lot more time playing with all the bells & whistles...so I'll probably go this way.. especially as its ~£59 from Amazon and PDR5 is around £56 by the time you've converted the dollars and added VAT ..

I was going to try Sonic myDVD-- I downloaded it..., but as they havn't emailed me the serial number I'll forget it.

[redsox_mark]

Premiere is a quality editor... so that is a fine option. Still suprised you find the results from Ulead so much worse.

[senu]

ap999,
Im assuming you mean Adobe Premiere Elements 2 .. Im not sure if Adobe now use thier own encoder or still use Main Concepts(tm) for APE2

It matters little as long as you have the result you want : just suprising as I have also found a subtle rather than marked difference in the output quality of these (ligos ( ulead), main concept , etc) encoders that come with the budget to mid range software : They all seem good to great. The differences seem to be more about speed. I find myself using Procoder 2 a lot less these days (It is rather fast and good though but: Who notices?

Premiere Elements certainly has a lot under the hood and Considering it gets its heritage from Premiere it is ( suprisingly) more user friendly than I expected even if a tad less than Uleads offering

I am now using Sony Vegas Movie Studio 6.0a and am pretty happy with the results. The interface us very complex. Sometimes it seems like they searched for the most difficult and confusing way of doing things. Nonetheless, after you finally learn it, the results are usually very good. If the help files and manual were not pathetic, it would be an excellent program for hobbyists.

[senu]

Originally Posted by slrman

I am now using Sony Vegas Movie Studio 6.0a and am pretty happy with the results. The interface us very complex. Sometimes it seems like they searched for the most difficult and confusing way of doing things. Nonetheless, after you finally learn it, the results are usually very good. If the help files and manual were not pathetic, it would be an excellent program for hobbyists.

Vegas Movie Studio has a 6.0b update.....
I think that while its GUI takes some getting used to, I warmed to it pretty quickly. All of them have their peculiarities. For instance a newbee might not warm to Adobe Premiere Elements at all despite my praise for it in the last post
Youll find the Interface thing to be a matter of personal preference. Although I also use Avid Liquid ( Pinnacle ;Liquid edition) whose interface is not Instantly friendly, I actually preferred it to Ulead Videostudio 9 which is very popular
VMS manual Ive never read but The " show me how" tutorials I find to be first rate. In fact there is very liitle to learn initially to use the Full Vegas once youve achieved some proficiency with VMS

Update...

Just thought I'd report that after purchasing Adobe Premiere Elements 2 about a week ago its proved to be a very comprehensive and useful package and is producing the results I wanted. It is a rather daunting interface at first, but its fairly logical and the learning curve isn't too steep. I've still got to explore/play with all the features, but I would certainly recommend it.

I got a fairly good deal off PCWorld... you get Photoshop elements 4 and premiere elements 2 for around £55 (although you have to send off voucher for £20 !)


Anyway thanks everbody for your advice... it certainly was appreciated...

[redsox_mark]

Glad you got sorted... It seems Premiere Elements (and the bundled Mainconcept mpeg encoder) does a good job.

[danielbb]

In the 2 shorts weeks of video editing i have tryed all the big ones accept sony vegas. I found adobe premiere pro 2 by FAR the best at editing. The main concepts mpeg encoder included with it i found to be the best too, i compared it to canopus and cinema craft and still kept picking main concepts.

[senu]

Horses for courses!
Glad you found what you want.
Sony Vegas ( and Vegas Movie studio) use Mainconcepts encoder too so its mpeg encoding is probabaly what you are used to in Adobe Premiere/Elements.
Premiere pro may have a better implementation of the mainconcept encoder but it is not cheap, not that easy to use and requires fairly powerful hardware to work at its best.
In much the same way Canopus has some better implemented Codecs in its mid to high range software/ hardware range

Thanks Senu.. I didnt get round to trying Sony Vegas after Redsox comment that their trial version did not contain the full encoder.. + I'd already spent days playing with vS10, PDR5, DVDsanta, NeoDVD etc..

BtW I initially discounted Adobe Premiere Elements.. as I when I did a search I came up with 'Adobe Premier' at around £500 -( I didn't notice PRO !) - so I rapidly backed off ..it was only when I read comments in these forums etc I realised 'Adobe Premier Elements' was different-- and an order of magnitude cheaper--that I looked again.. maybe someone in marketing at Adobe should be aware of this!!!

[senu]

Having tried all these ( weary. ) Do keep 1 or 2 standalone encoders . I dont always use any one program to make up DVDs.

For instance in a DVD authored in Ulead MovieFactory or Workshop, it is not unusual to have an mpeg from Proshow Gold ( pic slideshow software), a small clip from Vegas Movie Studio or Pinnacle Studio 10 and Maybe an edit from Avid Liquid 7 all put together . If dissatisfied I could reencode Proshow Golds mpeg in Procoder before using it.
Having standalone encoders and DVD authoring software which does not reencode mpegs means I dont need to rely on any one Software as they all have their strengths and I can exploit these.:
It seems very ad hoc but it isnt: and sometimes doing it all in one software is not bad
Despite having all this I still use a standalone settop DVD recorder which I use when I can be bothered to spend all that time and effort in front of a PC
So it is a case of getting the best results, sometimes in the least complicated way