AVID vs Media Studio

[Peer]

I have had a discussion with a friend who owns a Marvel G200 about the use of Media Studio and Avid. Note that we both are very new into the Video area.

We noticed that rendering in Media Studio took a very long time, it renders all the pictures i.s.o. the changes. Is this true or just a wrong setting?

So he is using the AVID software in stead (but this has less functionality).

Also AVID is using QuickTime (smaller output) as a output format and MSP uses AVI (larger output).

Is all of this true or do we see things wrong

[Brian Ellis]

Hi!

You cannot compare apples and pears. Avid is a simple entry-level package and MSP is approaching the level of Pro packages. A bicycle and a Rolls-Royce will both transport you from A to B. If A and B are only 200 metres apart, there is every chance the bicycle will be faster than the RR, but does that make it a better, more comfortable, vehicle?

Of course, there is a price to pay for the superior functionality of MSP, the same as the price to pay for the simplicity of AVID is inferior functionality. Rendering does take time, but it is not prohibitive, IMHO. The more bells and whistles you add to your editing, the longer will be the rendering time. If you have an enormous project full of things likely to increase rendering time, it is always possible to let it do its work overnight. MSP does have a quick-rendering feature, whereby it is SUPPOSED only to render changes made since the previous rendering. This feature is somewhat ambiguous because the software's definition of "changes" may not agree with others'.

My advice is, stick with MSP if you want to do more than just string along a series of clips with no other editing.

------------------
Brian (the terrible)

[dave m]

As a P.S., for some hardware setups, Avid is a simple entry-level package that just won't work(eg no sound or won't run at all). I've just bought a Rainbow Runner Studio for Mystique, solely to get a copy of the VE (Lite) version of MS Pro, so I can do some video editing on my Marvel G200 (Avid Cinema has plagued me with problems for more than a year).

Just a small rant, sorry.

Dave

[dchip]

Hi DaveM...I guess I will go on record now as defending Avid Cinema, a video tool that most in this forum seem to hate. I will admit, it's not very sophisticated and feature-rich, but, IT DOES WORK. I had a problem starting it at first but it turned out all I needed was to grab a file called iv5play.exe from Intel. Would I have liked Matrox to bundle Media Studio with G200TV? Yes. Do I find Avid Cinema, as a substitute, quite satisfying? I sure do.

[Peer]

Thank you guys for your comments on this subject.
Some things are more clear now.