MSPro 7.0 screenshots

[Ted222]

With all this on the table, I bet its not going to be a patch, but a similar upgrade to MSP 5 to MSP 6. Maybe even more expensive. Its just too much for a mere $100.

But, it sounds like it will be worth every penny.


Ted

[Dr Mordrid]

No, it's certainly not a "patch".

It's also not perfect since you never get every single feature you'd like to see, but I think most will agree that just what I've been able to post about makes for a huge upgrade.

Then there are those things I haven't even touched on yet because they're still being worked on, like the embedded titler.

Those new titler features that are locked in one would normally expect to see in Cool3D: text animation paths (customizable), animated textures (customizable), a "text box" feature with either solid or gradient fills and transparancy, a "title safe box" overlay for previews etc.

Other titler features are still in the works, so I can't post an image of the UI yet.

Dr. Mordrid

[Brian Ellis]

Realistically, no software is ever perfect, even after the third patch, but I have confidence that Ulead will do their best to provide something good from the start. It should not be forgotten that the gurus have been working on this since before the release of 6.5 and they probably have gone through many tens of alpha versions before beta testing even started. A little birdie tells me that the testers are shortly going to start on beta version 5. This means that if 1) the beta testers are worth their salt (which they probably are) and 2) there are sufficient testers with as wide a variety as possible of hardware configurations in both PAL-land and NTSC-land, there is a fairish chance it will work straight out of the box, first time, for 99% or more of ordinary users.

The whole problem with testing at the beta stage is someone reports a problem. The authors think it through and provide a patch which cures the problem but it may introduce another one, somewhere else. This is why beta testing is a much longer process than the layman would think necessary, especially for very complex software, such as CAD stuff, that I have done, and video stuff like MSP. In this case, I should guess that beta 5 should be close to gamma (pre-release), so that it, and the gamma, will take the three months remaining for evaluation and producing the end product for distribution.

It'll be worth the little wait, even if I'm impatient to see it. Grrrrrrrrrrr! (And I'm confident that it will work out of the box for most of us )

[jeff b]

This major upgrade is clealy filled with some serious changes that I, for one, more than eagerly anticipate. This stuff is going to be GREAT!

However, we have all been through this before. The 6.51a patch is a great example, wherein I posted here about the problem with macrovision triggering on DV playback with certain camcorders, and it immediately turned into a flame war with Jerry. It took a week or so of wasted time before others finally took the time to discover the same problem, and a bit beyond that before we found a fix (one file didn't get updated in the install). And that was just a simple patch, not a major upgrade. Never mind the problems people have had with the MPEG codec...

I'm only being "devil's advocate" about this because it might serve us better to expect problems in the first release, and it would serve others better if we do the upgrade and understand that WE are the QA department for Ulead in this exercise. After all, the problems that people have are usually solved HERE, not through Ulead customer service lines.

There's just no way that 7.0 will hit the streets without weird glitches and nutty problems popping up somewhere. It will most definitely not make ALL the ugraders happy ALL of the time. Since this is such a multi-fold upgrade, expect the problems to be multifold and complex. It will take longer to nail any REAL problems down in that situation.

Just to make it even more difficult, the prospect of upgrading hardware as well, to take full advantage of what's coming, will make the potential for problems multiply geometrically. We're in for some incredibly difficult troubleshooting, most likely.

Consequently, and despite the fact that this is such a beautiful upgrade that I'm definitely salivating over, I'm a realist and have been going through these upgrade scenarios with MSP since version 2.0... We in this group are not the ignorant consumers who line up at the Best Buy on the morning of the latest MS OS release. We're the first line of release testing for Ulead, and always have been.

So, when the release hits, and people start posting problems with it during the first couple of weeks afterwards, let's be prepared for it.

And let's also be prepared for the "early March, 2003" release to slip into some point in time that is a bit later... Maybe they're being a bit more realistic at Ulead Marketing on this one, but the marketing guys are definitely not the software guys... never have been, and never will be.

Jeff B

[Brian Ellis]

I'm sorry, Jeff, if the impression I gave is that it will be perfect (see my first sentence). What I was trying to say is that I believe it will be reasonably good and will do most of what it claims to do without a hitch (and, even if there is a hitch, there is often a workaround).

I would say that most of the problems that will surely arise will be because of misunderstandings. These may arise because of a poor understanding of a perhaps ambiguous manual or simply a misinterpretation of a menu item, either because it is not clear, in a jargon which may be different in different countries or simply because the reader is not of English mother-tongue.

I would be curious to know the number of beta testers in PAL- and NTSC- lands and what range of equipment they have. I suspect that a lot of the beta testing (not only for video, but also for many other applications) is done on quite sophisticated hardware, so that those with "ordinary" hardware may run into trouble that simply was not foreseen.

Maybe Doc or Jerry would like to comment on this.

[jeff b]

I'm usually just a "wet blanket" when people get excited, with my jaundiced eye, my suspicious nature, and the fact that I'm a card-carrying "nabob of negativism"...

On the postive side, however, I have to say that this all gives me goose bumps! I really can't wait for this to be released so that I can embark on a whole new cycle of elevated capability in my amateur video work. Just the new Cool 3D Workshop has me suddenly waking up in the middle of the night with new ideas for projects! Now all this stuff on the horizon for 7.0 suddenly hits, and I'm ready to burst into a whole new episode of the "manic state"!

Jeff B

[landrover]

Certainly nice. all those new features, and I know that this isn't the final layout, but I find a bit disappointing that it will still have a separate videoFX track, where it's becoming common (even in budget NLE software) to place transitions between segments on the same videotrack.

landrover

[Brian Ellis]

Landrover

I can see advantages of the A>B reel system, in that the overlap is visible on the timeline, which remains linear. I honestly cannot see any advantage of the A>A system. Please elucidate!

[landrover]

Brian,

it's just simpler to place a number of clips on one or more video tracks and put a transition on the heads or tails of adjacent clips. I don't need to see if there's any overlap and the Avid systems I work on even warn me if I don't have enough overlap to perform the transition and propose the nearest possible solution.

landrover

[Dr Mordrid]

A/A works fine if you have control over the degree of transition overlap on each end of a clip. IF not then it's not flexible enough. A/A-simple, for lack of a better term, is the way you see it in programs like VideoStudio.

Personally I prefer the A/B system.

Dr. Mordrid

[Alf Fulford]

Dr Mordrid,

Have Ulead changed the Freeze Frame feature? I and a lot of others always find this a pain....ass.

Also can the track widths be shown narrower than 40x30? (Timeline Display Mode) - this size takes up far too much screen space, 20x15 would allow the Preview and Source screens to be larger. I hope too much.

Regards - Alf

[Dr Mordrid]

Yes, Freeze Frame has also been changed;



40x30 is still the minimum track size. Actually due to the large displays today....

Dr. Mordrid

[Brian Ellis]

That looks better! Great idea freezing for hours, though: maybe it incorporates an alarm clock to wake you up at the end (just kidding!)

[Dr Mordrid]

If you like that try the new Speed control;



See something new?

Also fresh are the new Media Source Options;





To use the Stretch mode and Display aspect ratio settings you have to enable "Perform non-square pixel rendering" in the project settings.

With images and the likes of HuffYUV you get to set both Stretch mode and the Display aspect Ratio. With DV files all you can set is the Stretch mode.

Dr. Mordrid

[Ted222]

Doc,

Can you use "field based" slow motion? How does it compare to the slow motion from your RT.x100?

Ted