$105 (USD) mini-DV capture/NLE package

[jeff b]

Just a side note here on 1394 six pin to four pin cables. I have never looked around at prices for these cables until this weekend when I was at Best Buy, picking up the VideoWaveIII software. I found that the cheapest 1394 six pin to four pin 6 foot cable they had was a whopping $69 USD!!! Unless there are vendors somewhere that sell this type of cable for under $20 USD, I'd say that the 1394 cards that come bundled with a cable are probably worth the extra money, just for that.

[Jerry Jones]

Jeff...

Thanks for the tip about MGI VideoWave III!

I am a Ulead fan (as most people know),
but only because I have a very nice
setup with MediaStudio Pro and the
Canopus DV Raptor.

However, I am disappointed the bundled
Ulead VideoStudio version 3.0 did not
work for you. As far as I'm concerned
Ulead has no excuses as long as you
had the latest drivers for that version.

Maybe version 4.0 will work, but that's
incredible that you ran out and bought
MGI's software (which is usually seen as
a VideoStudio "clone") and that you got
instant, flawless functionality.

Thanks for that information because it
tells me there's hope after all for these
inexpensive new Type 1 DV boards!!!

Please continue to report back if the
MGI VideoWave III software turns up with
some glitches. I'm extremely curious to
know how well it continues to work for
you.

If MGI got it right this time... more
power to them!!!

[jeff b]

I took some shots of my brother on his Harley Davidson today, along with some shots of his three daughters running around the house. I spent about an hour playing a bit with these clips in VideoWaveIII, and was absolutely AMAZED to find that I could render out to MPEG1 (352x240 29.97fps) at about 2:1 real time. In other words, it rendered a 2:47 minute project to MPEG1 in just over five minutes!

Just for the helluvit, I subsequently rendered the same project out to MPEG2 (720x480 29.97fps), and found this to take a bit longer, ie- about twenty minutes. I wasn't particularly impressed with the results, though, as the final output looked a little more compressed than I thought it was going to be. Perhaps I could have fiddled somewhere with the datarate and made it come out better, so I won't condemn it just yet.

Interestingly, I'm beginning to feel a little more comfortable with the UI on this program, now that I've done a 'routine' cycle with it. Having used MediaStudio Pro for the past two years, and being a VERY happy user of that software, porting over to the VideoStudio and VideoWaveIII styles of User Interfaces is, however one cares to slice it, a learning curve.

I think I'd be much happier with all this if MediaStudio Pro 6.0 was out, and it worked with this type 1 stuff now, rather than later. Then I could be lazy and not have to learn anything new!

[jeff b]

I went back and poked around with VideoWaveIII's MPEG2 settings and found that the bitrate on the video portion was already at max (where it defaults): 625kbs. Never having dealt with MPEG2, I really don't know what that might be all about, but I suspect that MPEG2 can be created with other consumer/prosumer software at much higher bitrates at this time, or in the near future. MPEG2, of course, CAN be encoded at much higher bitrates, and is actually an encoding format used in DVD, and on broadcast HDTV here in the states. So having my first MPEG2 come out about the same as a highly compressed MPEG1 on an expanded screen is a bit disappointing.

But, then again, what the heck should I expect for 45 bucks????

[andrewh]

625 kb/s !!!

Wow, this must be some encoder if you can even see the picture. For 720x480 MPEG2, 625 kilobits per second is only a dream (You do not mean bytes??). DVD averages out at 4-5 Mbits/s (4:2:0) with a maximum of about 10 and the DC1000 and RT2000 use 25 Mbits/s (4:2:2).

I have played with HW encoders at bitrates down to 1 Mbit but never really expected good quality (nor did I get it).

Can you dig out more technical details on what it is doing?

Andrew

[jeff b]

Andrew: I'm really pretty much in the dark about what that 625 kbs is all about. Color me baffled...

Curiously enough, I have found something even more perplexing tonight. On a whim, I decided to play around a bit more with VideoStudio 3.0 SE DV, and was absolutely flabbergasted to find that EVERYTHING I did to render out DV to the camcorder WORKED FINE!!!! Clips captured previously in VideoStudio that I simply could NOT get to render out in this program without all kinds of jerky video and tripped up audio, suddenly now I can't find a rendering option that DOESN'T give me decent stuff back to camcorder!

My first assumption is that the MGI VideoWaveIII installation must have replaced something that didn't work from Ulead with something that DOES work with both MGI and Ulead... The codec currently being used by both programs is Adaptec's DV-Soft. I have no idea if this was the DV codec used by VideoStudio 3.0 SE DV before I installed VideoWaveIII.

If anyone has only VideoStudio 3.0 SE DV installed on their system, could you post here what the DV video codec is that's installed on your system? I really don't want to go and uninstall/reinstall just to figure this one out... But if I have the extra time this week, I'll do it.

[dchip]

I have nothing to contribute, but, just wanted to say I am following this thread closely and learning from it. I will be making the move from analog to digital sometime first quarter of 2K and this is helping me understand how it all works. Thanks.

[jeff b]

Y'know... some things just beg to be broadcast, far and wide.

I got home from work tonight, and found that UPS had delivered my Ulead VideoStudio 4.0 upgrade. I read the manual, put the CD into the drive, and followed the instructions to upgrade and install all the stuff it wanted to install onto my computer. It rebooted, and I ran my new version 4.0 for the first time.

Well, I CAN capture off the camcorder IF I run it manually, but no matter which options I pick in the setup, IT SAYS THAT I HAVE NO DEVICE CONTROL OPTIONS! In other words, it simply WILL NOT see the Sony TRV900 on the 1394 line for program control.

Absolutely UNBELIEVABLE!

Of course, I can still run MGI VideoWaveIII with absolutely no problem.

The other annoyance I found was that the upgrade has a step where it informed me that, yes, I DO have VideoStudio 3.0 installed on my computer, and therefore, YES, I do qualify for this upgrade, and so NOW it's okay for this software to install itself on my computer. How nice. For some completely unknown reason, though, I still have version 3.0 fully installed on the machine.

But, here's the best part: the OLD version has still got the device control working JUST FINE!!!! I can run the camera from the UI in the software, just like before on VideoStudio 3.0 and on MGI's VideoWaveIII just like before. Somehow, version 4.0 simply refuses to recognize that I've got the camcorder hooked up, turned on in VTR mode, and waiting to be told what to do!

Can you BELIEVE this crap?

I mean, the original install of VideoStudio 3.0, and my first running of it had this and that baloney which had to be set here and there, and I got my settings all right after a bit of poking around. Then I installed MGI VideoWaveIII and had the most troublefree installation, everything worked, everything was fine, AND it solved the playback quality problem I was having in VideoStudio, just as an added bonus. Now I get the upgrade to 4.0 and what the F**K am I confronted with but yet ANOTHER problem!

So, basically, and in conclusion on this thread, I LOUDLY recommend that if anyone wants to do a low cost solution upgrade path into DV NLE, then VideoStudio is DEFINITELY not worth the powder and shot needed to blow it to hell. An inexpensive TI based 1394 card and MGI VideoWaveIII will make you happy. I recommend using Windows98 Second Edition (for the drivers), and (of course) a dedicated second hard drive.

[Patrick]

So Jeff, other than that, what do you think of Ulead VideoStudio...

[jeff b]

Anyone who reads this whole thread to this point will see that I started out being dazzled and quite happy with VideoStudio. Then Jerry pointed out that there have been problems with export back out to the camcorder, which I hadn’t checked out at that point. I was still happily playing around with computer based outputs, and really having a lot of fun in that regard. Consequently, the thread has me praising VideoStudio at the outset, and condemning it in the end.

So what does MGI VideoWaveIII have that Ulead VideoStudio doesn’t? Flawless installation.

I’m really a Ulead devotee, despite my short term experience with VideoStudio, and I remain so. I’m sure that it can be gotten to work quite well with the usual poking around, tweaking, swapping of drivers, and all that kind of thing that we’re all used to with NLE. The glaring fact that this other product, which to my eye looked like it was probably just some cheap piece of crap for the uninitiated, turned out to be a big surprise in terms of functionality, and ease of installation. This is something that I’m really not used to with new technology applications running on Windows. That it exists at all is what turned my opinion of VideoStudio to such a negative one. Without that contrast, I’d still be offering up things as I found them in how to get VideoStudio to work. As it is, I can see that VideoStudio isn’t for the newbie, and MGI VideoWaveIII is.

VideoStudio 4.0 is the heavier feature laden product, however. For instance, MPEG-2 support is LIGOS based, and isn’t limited to the puny bitrate that VideoWaveIII is. I haven’t seen a way to convert a Type 1 file to a Type 2 file in VideoWaveIII, but you can do that with VideoStudio 4.0, or at least it looks like you can because the options are there at render time. So, in the end, the time it will take anyone to get an installation of VideoStudio 4.0 to actually work will probably be worth it. But I can’t recommend it to the kind of people who can’t get troublesome software to work by poking around, installing this driver and taking out that driver, re-installing Windows over and over again, etc.

And THAT, Patrick, is how I REALLY feel… at least for now.

[Patrick]

Hey Jeff, I was actually just teasing you. I wasn't expecting an answer. The fact that you did respond is a bonus.

There's a lot of us following this interesting thread. Many people, including myself, are on the verge of buying and shooting with Digital8 or MiniDV. It's great to be able to follow your progress so that we can make some informed decisions regarding DV capture in the near future.

Thanks for the reports.

[jeff b]

Things I write may sometimes appear to be dead serious, but they are all said with a smirk that makes people who know me tend to pause sometimes and wonder, "Does this guy ever get serious?"

[This_Idiot]

So this would no doubt be the same Jeff B that unshaved his head just to make us all jealous ? Don't think we'll forget that one in a hurry, I'm still pacifying the youngest who walked in on me when that clip was playing.

Jeff, do me a big favour and hang on to your money until the new year. By then we should have some news & street prices from the bigstuff and who knows what knock-on effect that will have !

[jeff b]

Well, Chris, like I said at the outset of this thread, "While waiting these past four months for Matrox to release the RT2000..."

Let's see, now, August, September, October, November, and half of December... now it's four and a half months. hmmmm... do I sense movement out there in the shipping lanes? Is there a stream of those TWO card FOUR disk and a BOB packages making their way to retailers under cover of darkness in the night? Do I sense the onslaught of a whole new era in NLE just around the corner, just ready to crash in upon us like a tidal wave of merciless NEW TECHNOLOGY, rendering our brains into feeble masses of giddiness, like little kids rushing to open presents on Christmas morning?

HOO, Sheesh! I just bumped my head on the ceiling, I got so high there for a moment! Now I'm going to have to polish the top of my head again...

[jeff b]

Well, I’ve got some good news about Ulead VideoStudio 4.0 for all you hackers and heavy hitters now. I uninstalled version 3.0 and version 4.0 and reinstalled version 4.0 anew a couple of times. I found that the problem was that the install wasn’t detecting any drivers for the 1394. The third go-around, I noticed this and there’s a dialog box that comes up regarding this. It came up at the same place in each previous install, but nothing really indicated to me that I was supposed to do anything there …duh! I selected the microsoft driver, since I know that’s the one I’m using for the 1394. Well, GOLLY! That was the long and short of the problem!

The good news:
Now I can capture, edit, and output via 1394 all my nice clean crisp video with my DV camcorder! And, as an added bonus, I can capture clips, and immediately convert them to Type 2, import those into MSP 5.2 and do any and all editing I want with them. Then I can blow all that into a DVSoft Type 2 file from within MSP, import THAT back into VideoStudio, immediately convert THAT back into Type 1, and export it out to the camcorder. This may sound like a very tedious and roundabout way to have to do anything, and I agree, but both programs smartrender any unchanged parts of the clips, and this is a very fast blow-through. It gives me the ability to use the features of MSP 5.2 within this still limited DV framework.

Shortcomings:
Preview mode in MSP 5.2 won’t overlay the video at all (at least with my Mystique220), so it’s basically blind editing. You can’t preview the project before you go through the trouble of saving the whole thing to a file.
Since there’s no cutlist style playback out the 1394 line available in VideoStudio (if there is, I haven’t found it yet), you’re limited to a max of just under 20 minutes for a project back out to the camcorder with this kind of setup. That’s the 4gig limit on a single file problem come back to haunt us.

The “double click on the track” clipboard mode of navigating through each clip works okay in MSP, though, which gives you that feature of being able to navigate through each clip with the video in a window on the screen.

So we’re still at a level significantly below the DVRaptor with this, and this won’t change for a couple months or so. When MSP 6.0 comes out, though, we may find ourselves up to that level of utility. What that will mean for current owners of MSP 5.2 is the upgrade price to 6.0, plus somewhere around $30 USD (by then) for a 1394 card.