PC MAGAZINE Likes Ulead, Adobe, Pinnacle

[Jerry Jones]

Latest roundup favors Ulead, Adobe & Pinnacle:

http://www.pcmag.com/article/0,2997,s=1642&a=24664,00.asp

[IM_Riktar]

I find it very interesting that Pinnacle Studio Version 7 received the editor's choice in spite of getting 4 of 5 compared to MediaStudio and Premiere.

Even more compelling is the ommision of Vegas Video 3 from Sonic Foundry. While Movie Factory 2 was included it seemed strange not to see any mention/review of Vegas.

[farid]

This stinks indeed. Vegas could even have won this contest if it was even remotely fair. If of course Sonic Foundry starts with one hand tied behinds its back no wonder they have no chance.

And the looser is ..... PC MAGAZINE !

Farid

[IM_Riktar]

Stinks might be a little on the harsh side. My interest was in the ommision of Vegas. Pure and simple. Makes me wonder how "objective" PC Mag is about other reviews about other products. By way of not including all the contestants. Seems damned prejudiced to me.

As to the point of victory, hmmm,,,, I don't know. I have been trying to get the hang of Vegas for some time now. And while I will give credit where credit is due to the Vegas codec (Better than outstanding), and some of the timeline features, I feel it's moving path (panning) tool just plain don't get it. At least compared to MedisStudio Pro.

Anyone who is a Vegas fan: Wanna race on creating a overlay with resizing and movement acoss a scene? You show me a way to do that and I may just ditch Mediastudio altogether (And the lousy MS DV codec). Until then Mediastudio stays put.

[wkulecz]

PC Mag Editors choice helps me tremendously, whatever they pick I don't buy!

--wally.

[Patrick]

Comparing apples and oranges...

From IM_Riktar:

I find it very interesting that Pinnacle Studio Version 7 received the editor's choice in spite of getting 4 of 5 compared to MediaStudio and Premiere.

This should clear that up:

From PC Magazine:

Video-editing software is available in two classes: professional products, such as Adobe Premiere and Ulead MediaStudio Pro, and consumer products, like the ones we review here.

Let's get serious. What kind of comparison would it be between a $99 program and ones costing $500 or more? Shall we compare a Yugo to a Ferrari?

From IM_Riktar:

Even more compelling is the omission of Vegas Video 3 from Sonic Foundry.

Is it possible that PC Magazine depends on the companies themselves to provide copies of their programs for the review? If so, maybe it's Sonic Foundry who should then be criticized.

[IM_Riktar]

Is it possible that PC Magazine depends on the companies themselves to provide copies of their programs for the review? If so, maybe it's Sonic Foundry who should then be criticized.

While that may be possible, I find it highly unlikely that Sonic Foundry would submit their "low end" product and hold back on their flagship. But, if that would be the case then yes, Sonic Foundry would be to blame.

I feel that PC Magazine is the culprit in this case.

Video-editing software is available in two classes: professional products, such as Adobe Premiere and Ulead MediaStudio Pro, and consumer products, like the ones we review here.

Well then, maybe they should split the review into 2 areas. As for Ferrari and Yugos: Of course they shouldn't be compared. And I can't recall Road & Track, Car & Driver, etc., ever trying to lump different classes together in a single review.

[Brian Ellis]

Originally posted by wkulecz
PC Mag Editors choice helps me tremendously, whatever they pick I don't buy!

Wally

I agree, but not just with PC Mag but all of them.

It's OT, but in the 9 April edition I picked up at Dulles on the way home, there is an article on office suites. I quote: "Corel Presentations 10 shines - perhaps brighter than any other presentation module here." Yet in the summary table, it merits 4 "stars", against 5 for PowerPoint. Similarly, the Corel suite has lost at least one star in each sector, compared with the Microsoft Office, even though the only critical point in the text is that the graphics in Quattro Pro (spreadsheet) are "teeth-grindingly slow". Is it coincidence that Microsoft is a heavy advertiser and Corel isn't? (In any case, those who have worked with the WordPerfect Office suite for any length of time know that it is streets ahead of Microsoft Office in most respects and don't need the subjective prejudice of magazines to tell them the opposite.)

[Jerry Jones]

I agree that Corel's office suite is better than Microsoft's, particularly in connection with Microsoft Word vs. Corel WordPerfect.

I tend to like PowerPoint a little better than Presentations, but either one works for me. I haven't checked out the new version 10 of Presentations so now I'm curious.

But WordPerfect is much more user friendly word processor, in my humble opinion.

[Brian Ellis]

Word is not a patch on WP. Like the difference between the Pinaacle editing proggy and Media Studio Pro. I don't know anyone who has gone to the bother of using WP who likes to go back to the bronze-age Word. Just the Reveal Codes feature alone is indicative. As for the "everything after" feature of WordPerfect, it leaves the "write, select and change" method of Word just standing on the starting line: I'll guarantee that anyone writing multi-lingual texts with spell/grammar checks would never go back to Word. And try using the Thesauri of each!

Personally, I prefer Presentations over PowerPoint - and I've used both extensively. It is more intuitive, flexible and has more features. The "dim-out" of the previous bullets is, however less flexible. The major disadvantage is that it uses much more 'puter resources and I would not recommend it for <500 MHz CPU or <128 Mb RAM.

This leads me straight to a more on-topic question. I have a 21 Mb Presentations file that I would like to put on a DVD. It contains a lot of embedded video clips, animations, transitions and animated objects. I've tried 4 AVI screen capture utilities and they are all hopeless for capturing the movement. My latest attempt is to capture a video image from a flat-panel screen, but the result looks exactly as if I were trying to capture a video image from a flat-panel screen It loses a lot of the crispness of the original, even at 640 x 480 and the gamma is different, so that light colours are washed out and the darks are too dark. OK, I can correct some of this in MS Pro, but... Does anyone know of another method? (Please don't say convert to PowerPoint first, because that is a no-no with such a complex file.)