Video Studio vs. Media Studio - Any Differences?

[megamachine]

I currently have Ulead Video Studio 6, which came with my video camera, and I just installed the updates from the Ulead site. It's OK, but I wonder what else is available without having to spend an arm and a leg. I have an opportunity to get Ulead Media Studio 6.5, and wonder what are the differences between MS6.5 and VS6? Any advice from some one experienced with both of these would be helpful in sorting this out. Thanks very much.

[megamachine]

Let me clarify so as not to sound like a total dummy (maybe only semi). I am familiar with VS and find it useful but it kinds of "feels" limited, and the interface seems sort of childish (I don't know if that is the right way to put it). I have done some nice things with it so far, but wonder what'd be added with MS. I am what might be called an advanced hobbyist who likes to mess with the pro tools, at least those that are affordable. Anyway, what I'd like bdest is someone who has used both to share some experiences between the two, pros and cons. Sorry for the verbosity! Thanks.

ThinkPad T30
P4/1.3GHz/256RAM/40GB
Windows 2K Pro

[UncasMS]

pinnacle studio 8 is a lovely piece of software.
maybe you could give it a try, too!?

[megamachine]

There's so many apps, people have recommended different things, some of them seem like very high end and out of reach for my budget, but I'll have a look at Pinnacle Studio, too. Thanks.

[SKD_Tech]

Hey Uncas can you post a general price of Pinnacle studio in USD? thanks

[megamachine]

Well, I was able to work with MS Pro 6.5 for a while, and it is quite different than VS6, more features, more control, more options, and more complicated to use. For some tasks, I think VS is easier to use, but for complex jobs MS is necessary. That leaves me between both. I tried the trial for Pinnacle 7, but so many features are disabled it is hard to get a fix on what it can do compared to VS, which I already have, or MS, which I am contemplated getting. PS, last time I looked, is around 110EUR, but as far as I can tell there are no fully operational downloads so you have to order the disks, which limits folks in some regions, since the Amazon UK site, for example, says they will not ship it outside EU. Anyway, to answer my own question that started this thread, VS is good for simple straight forward projects but MS seems necessary for more complex editing. Because MS has more features, the viewing area and timeline are smaller than VS. One gripe: MS has fewer transition effects than VS, unless there is a way I don't know about to get more. As for Pinnacle, it'd be great to hear from some one who has used the fully unlocked version. Things like Premier, Retimer look great but are beyond my means.

[Comberman]

To the video purist Media Studio is more of a multi-media application: combo-software that offers a wide variety of facilities including video/audio/image/titling to produce effective CD-roms which can be sent out for publicity purposes. It's not a "video" application per se, which is why it is weak on filters and transitions. Some would say that MS is Powerpoint with wheels, but then that might just be sour grapes from Msoft vigilantes. You could do much the same thing on VS, but it would probably take more time. You could give Roxio's Movie Creator a try; it's around the same price as VS (about 50GBP), but you can download a trial version on their site. Cyberlink also produce similar products which won't cost you "an arm and a leg".

[Comberman]

Sorry, an additional point. Have you tried Ebay. I'm sure you could find someone who is looking to dispose of (now) obsolete video software. I'm currently using Premiere 6 but even Premiere 5 is vastly superior to what you have experienced so far and you might just pick up a copy real cheap.
Cheers

[megamachine]

Thanks, that really clears up the difference in a way that makes sense to me. I see what you mean about MS being more of a multi-media tool. I am looking for more of a video tool, so I'll try and track down the Roxio or Cyberlink apps you recommended. And thanks for the eBay afterthought. I'll consider that strategy, too, but the only things that kept me away from the high end apps like Premier are the limitations of my laptop, especially that I am working with W2KP and 256RAM, so even VS is a bit sluggish.

[rsquirell]

I have VS6 I use to create home movies. I split the movie and merge the segments I want to be together before importing and drag them to the story board in the order I want them to appear...set up my transitions and create a title with ease...drop a CD in the tray and record an instrumental that'll run the full length of the movie in real time, and set it into the movie's timeline. I like the simplistic drag/drop/just record in features because I can create a decent video without a lot of hassle. Picture: two people walking up to the airplane...title AIRADVENTURE...the opening strains of Country Joe and the Fish section58...9 seconds in it hit a bass beat and boom...a shattered glass transition and you are 2 feet above the river at 120MPH...steep banks beneath the tree line...transition...making approach back into the river on the way back...winding down the river to a straight area and up into the clouds...back down from the clouds and you are about to enter downwind at the airport...transition...base/final/touchdown/turnoff at first taxiway and coast into the tiedown just as the last strains of music ends. What more do you want? And it only took 2 hours to prep and build.

[UncasMS]

can you post a general price of Pinnacle studio in USD?

sorry, didnt look into this thread for a while.

i have no idea about the price in USD, since i'm european

check google.com

[megamachine]

Last time I looked, Pinnacle 8 was 110EUR. Can anyone give us a brief comparison between Pinnacle and Video Studio? I have been using VS6SE, and it has some weird quirks, like the menu bars disappear and re-appear, and I find the single timeline a little awkward to work with precisely timed clips, especially when applying transitions that shorten the clips. In MS, you can do A/B rolls and change the length of the clip. But I agree, VS is a snap.

[rsquirell]

A friend (cox_man) just switched from VS6SE to pinnacle8 and he swears by it. He's making his video's for professional presentations at work, I'm making mine to play...and am not gonna spring for the extra $100 USD it costs for the software alone without the capture card. He hangs at the Dazzle DVC-150 General forum. If you were to post this question there, I'm sure you would soon be treated to a dissertation. To get there go to www.dazzle.com/home support>>community forums>>DVC-150 General

[Comberman]

Megamachine
The min sys reqs for the latest version of Premiere are 500MHz P3; 128Mb RAM and 600Mb HD space. I ran Premiere 5.1c quite successfully on a 350MHz Pentium with 128MHzRAM, 32Mb ATIRage Fury and a 10 Gig hard disk on Win 98 - even running with three audio tracks and as much as twelve video tracks to produce my final, short videos. Before I got Premiere 5 I tried a few of the lower end video packages (Ulead/Cyberlink, etc) and when they weren't crashing my machine they loped along in a frustrating crawl. The reason: Premiere is a much more resource efficient package. The big criteria for editing video is fast disks and lots of space; processor speed helps of course but it is not the be all and end all of criteria. While I have no experience of Pinnacle software, Pinnacle have a good name in the video world so of the few low end packages (50 - 80GBP) I think Studio 8 would be well worth the extra few quid. But in the end you get what you pay for.
Cheers

[megamachine]

Hey, thanks everyone, this is very helpful! I am using the trial of MS6.5 right now, and can get a sense of what it does. As far as I can tell, Ulead'll let me upgrade from VS6SE to MS7 for a little over half price. On it's own, MS7 costs about the same as Premier. But I guess I should try out Premiere, too, since it consistently gets rave reviews. At first, I thought it'd be too resource intensive for my machine and system, but thanks to Comberman, it sounds like it would run. So, yes, you are right, in the end I get what I pay for, only I am not decided yet on how much I want to pay. At this point, I do know some of what I want to accomplish: I am doing some small hobbyist kinds of things, like cutting video clips to music, remixing TV, montages, parodies, and mostly short pieces and for the most part aimed at producing MPGs for PC viewing. I need something with multi-track video and audio, precise audio-video alignment, with overlays, FX, and titles.