Ello all,

Ive just got my new camera which is mint, its the sony handycam DCR-SR50E and im having some trouble. Basically ive got the vids ive recorded onto my pc so far but when u play them (they play in windows media player) they jump every 4 seconds or so, as if ur watchin a movie from youtube and it stops while you dl the rest of the move then plays again. It does this all the way through the movies. Any reason why? Do you know how i can stop it from doing this coz i would like edit some of them etc.

Also does anyone know of any good editing software for windows pc that i could download? or perhaps buy at a resonable price. All i have is the Windows Movie make lol

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Lee

[redsox_mark]

Lee,

I'm not exactly sure what's happening, but a few points:

- Playback problems on a Pc are generally issues with the PC performance, the format, or codecs.

- If you want to edit DV, you want to capture it to your PC in it's native DV-avi format. Movie Maker can do this, but by default it converts it to .wmv, which isn't good for editing.

- For editing software, some good affordable options are: Premiere Elements, Ulead Video Studio, and Sony Vegas Movie Studio. You can download trials of all 3.

http://www.adobe.com/products/premiereel/
http://www.ulead.com/vs/
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/...egasfamily.asp

yeh i was thinking i could be somthing to do with the format coz when i play the movies through the software i got with the camera it runs smooth and anything. think ill try and convert them to a differant format or somthing :D

Cheers

[Geordie Jester]

Not wishing to hijack the thread..... but those three packages are what Im looking at.

Most of the reviews seem to speak quite highly of Vegas Movie Studio. I got caught out with premier as it required sse support that my AMD didn't have. Am I right that Vegas doesn't have it is a requirement ?



.

[redsox_mark]

Originally Posted by Geordie Jester

Not wishing to hijack the thread..... but those three packages are what Im looking at.

Most of the reviews seem to speak quite highly of Vegas Movie Studio. I got caught out with premier as it required sse support that my AMD didn't have. Am I right that Vegas doesn't have it is a requirement ?

.

Correct. In Vegas 7 the enhancements made to make HDV editing more responsive are based on SS2... but non SS2 machines still work, just don't see any speedup with HDV. With DV there is no issue.

[Geordie Jester]

cheers for the reply. Its a shame that premier pro didn't just work but slower rather than insisting.

I think I might just get a copy of the standard (non-platinum) movie studio and give that a whirl. I want something a step up from WMM, but probably not quite as intense as Adobe Premier !

[senu]

Anything is a Step more than WMM and Adobe Premire pro is a bit OTT, there are many in between

Saying that ,I would get the Platinum Version of Movie Studio . It isnt much more and it has a few more features which make it worth the difference

Ver 6 is less than £50.. Ver7 didnt make it to the Uk and Ver 8 will be out soon

[Geordie Jester]

Cheers Senu, I will look into the Platinum. I downloaded the standard trial version and really enjoyed using it. I think the GUI just suited me really well and I found it very intuitive.

The only thing I couldn't find was the 1001 sound effects ? Maybe they don't come down on the trial download.

Other than Ebay, do you know any good sites for best price on the Platinum ?


.

[senu]

Originally Posted by Geordie Jester

Other than Ebay, do you know any good sites for best price on the Platinum ?
.

Amazon

Originally Posted by Geordie Jester

The only thing I couldn't find was the 1001 sound effects ? Maybe they don't come down on the trial download.
.

The 1001 effects come on a separate CD with the Full Boxed version as well as a free Copy of Acid XMC , a fun type music making software based on Acid studio
It also comes with Printed manuals for Vegas MS and DVDA Studio and a book by Douglas Spotted Eagle on HDV

[Geordie Jester]

I was just coming on to say that it looked like Amazon are the best bet.

What are those effects like ? Much good ?

[senu]

They are free and very handy if you need them.
Certainly there are royalty free ones on the internet and Cover mounted CDs on Magazines
It really is a showcase of their extensive Library even if it isn't the packages strongest selling point..
But to answer the question directly
They are good.. and free

[Geordie Jester]

My favourite price

[Geordie Jester]

Just when I was about to make a decision, PC World are selling ULEAD Video Studio 10 Plus for £20 !

Does anyone have hands-on experience of that one ?

[senu]

Originally Posted by Geordie Jester

Just when I was about to make a decision, PC World are selling ULEAD Video Studio 10 Plus for £20 !

Does anyone have hands-on experience of that one ?

I do. ( amongst other NLE software)

If it is the Plus version , £20 is great VFM but be aware that Ver 11
is now out with AVCHD support, Vista Support and HD DVD authoring.. these may not matter to you

It is very capable but I (personally) find its hand holding a bit confusing;

The other negative for me is its (? cluttered) GUI.. it seems a tad less logical if you are coming from the likes of Adobe Premiere and not quite as logical if you've used the likes of Pinnacle Studio .. but it is far more Stable than Pinnacle Studio and definitely much Easier to use than Premiere

However it is justifiably very popular and has a large user community

Some users on here have reported not being able to get razor sharp results..that is not my experience

Short Answer
If you like, Give it a go....or download the trial and see. Im not sure ver 11 will have a very different interface

FWIW I certainly rate The Vegas Movie Studio Software higher , one other advantage apart from functionality is that VMS seems to run reasonably Ok on a lower spec PC

[Geordie Jester]

Yeah defo the plus version
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/product/seo/020226

I will try and see if I can get a feel for the GUI before I choose between them as like I say Vegas gave me a good vibe.

Im a software developer so I definately prefer more logical less nannying/hand-holding type packages.

[felix2]

Originally Posted by Geordie Jester

Just when I was about to make a decision, PC World are selling ULEAD Video Studio 10 Plus for £20 !

Does anyone have hands-on experience of that one ?

Me too, and I agree with Senu (again! )

I got Ulead VS 10+ from PC World, and it's pretty stable on my PC. I think £20's a very good price for it, for its smart render engine (which won't re-render DV-AVI or MPEG files where it doesn't need to, saving potentially a lot of time, and saving loss of quality for MPEGs).

But having used other software, and now using Serif MoviePlus 5, I find Ulead too prescriptive in what you can and can't do, and how to do it. Ulead is very 'hand-holding' to make it easy for the program to do it all for you, but as soon as you want to do something a bit different, I really don't find it at all intuitive. It still reminds me a bit of a DOS GUI program, whereas MoviePlus, and Vegas (Movie Studio), are just really simple 'typical Windows GUI' programs to use. MoviePlus and Vegas Movie Studio are very similar programs to each other, both in how they work and in how they look (a cynic might even suspect that they're built on the same code!), and are very stable even on modest PCs. I find MoviePlus just slightly more intuitive, and it has unlimited video & audio tracks (Vegas MS still I think has 4+4), but is now lagging behind Vegas MS for some features (e.g. audio and effects) and file format support.

My main gripe about Ulead is its very limited overlay video tracks. In ver 10+, you can now fade in and fade out overlays (judging by eye rather than by a set number of seconds/frames), but you still can't cut clips in the overlay track. They've now added that feature in ver 11+, but you still can't have transitions in overlays! Which makes it a pain if ever you do e.g. multi-camera work where you want to line up 3 videos in sync, and then chop in and out the bits you want. Actually, I've just had to use MoviePlus and Ulead in combination, to add some AVI clips onto a homemade DVD. I did the editing in MoviePlus, to cut the overlay clips, then exported them one by one into Ulead, so it could then smart render the DVD (MoviePlus would've re-rendered and the loss in image quality was noticeable to me) but add in my chosen clips on top... Goes to show, they all have their strengths and weaknesses.

[Geordie Jester]

Thanks for taking time to write that. After reading around, I'm hearing the same sorts of things. I think I will try and stick with Vegas if possible.

Going to have a look around PC World store today and see if they have any deals. Otherwise it looks like Vegas Platinum from Amazon.

cheers people


.

[felix2]

No problems, let us know how you get on!