ULEAD MediaStudio Pro 6.5: Read It & Weep, Adobe!

[Dr Mordrid]

Odd. DVDMax works fine for me whatever codec I feed it. Must be something to do with the system involved.

As for the DV audio issue....

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 29 June 2001).]

[Jerry Jones]

That's interesting. Wally.

And it's a valid criticism of MediaStudio Pro's timeline playback.

Personally, I would prefer that it go to *both* Preview Window *and* 1394.

I *might* get a chance to do some testing of the new version 6.5 update fairly soon and I'll convey whatever observations I can although I don't have a generic 1394 board yet... I'm still using DV Raptor.

So you say Premiere 6.0 is able to do this?

Yes?

See... that's kind of similar to how the two programs interface with DV Raptor.

With Premiere the integration is better because scrubs and previews go to both the Preview Window and out through 1394. This is with Premiere 5.1c (which is what I have).

Of course, the Premiere previews do not include transitions and titles. It's kind of funny because even though you insert transitions and titles on the timeline... Premiere ignores them and displays a "cuts-only" playback of your project.

MediaStudio Pro 6.0 doesn't play such a "cuts-only" instant preview. Instead, MediaStudio Pro requires you to render your titles and transitions and only then can you get preview to 1394. The preview also summons the Canopus "Raptor Video" window, which floats above the MediaStudio timeline.

This is kind of awkward.

I read on the Canopus User forum, however, that DV Raptor cannot use Premiere 6's audio mixer, for example. It's due to the Raptor's Video-for-Windows vs. Premiere 6's Direct Show. So it has been a very bumpy ride for Canopus DV Raptor users where Premiere 6 is concerned.

Lots of forum posters were claiming that Premiere 6 works pretty well with plain vanilla 1394 cards and your comments suggest this is true.

I'm hoping we can keep Ulead focused on making the necessary improvements to the timeline playback so that we get glitch free performance to both the 1394 and the Preview Window.

[wkulecz]

Yes with both my Pyro and a generic TI 1394 card Premiere6 sends DV to both G450 DVDmax and 1394 if the camcorder is hooked up in VTR mode and DVDmax is enabled when Premiere starts. A low quality display also appears on the desktop, but DV out the 1394 port is smooth and glitch free, as is the DVDmax output. Analog from the camcorder is noticably better than from the DVDmax, but still, the DVDmax output is very good!

I've setup two very different systems (ASUS K7M 700 MHz Athelon, and ASUS CUBX-E 800 MHz PIII) with G450, MSP6.02 and Premiere6.01 and both work like I describe above. I did have to add the PreferDSCodecs=1 and FastPreviewWhileOutputting=1 (or sume such, I'm not at the editing machines now) to Premeiere's ini file.

--wally.

[Jerry Jones]

When you say low quality display appears on the desktop... do you you mean that appears in the Premiere 6 "monitor" window?

Or does another window pop up to show you that display?

[wkulecz]

The "low quality" is the normal Premiere desktop preview be it: source,monitor,bin, or clip. What comes out the DVDmax is very good but not quite as good as comes out the camcorder via 1394. The desktop preview gets pretty low frame rate and sometimes gets very blurry or blocky, but with great video on a large monitor I don't really care if the desktop is showing good quality as long it gets good again on single frames.

--wally.

[Jerry Jones]

Speaking of an elegant interface, I just finished helping another city co-worker with setup of a 733Mhz G4 Mac with Final Cut Pro.

I hooked up a Sony DCR-TRV900 and it was recognized immediately. I captured a clip and it played out to an external monitor.

This beautiful baby has a Matrox RTMac card in it.

There's something about Final Cut Pro's design that suggests it was made for the Mac. It's pretty sleek.

It'll be a treat for me to be able to do some editing on that workstation from time to time.

It'll give me an additional NLE to compare besides Premiere and MediaStudio Pro.

[wkulecz]

Doc, my MSP problem is not not DVDmax and DV codec, if I play back in media player DVDmax output is fine. Its MSP6 DV timeline playback that breaks (as does export to camcorder) when DVDmax is enabled. Both the camcorder output and the DVDmax output shows very subtle "freezes". Disabling DVDmax returns timeline DV camcorder output to working state. It is very easy to miss thes "freezes" if you are not watching intently -- my wife thought I was nuts staring intently at the same short clip over and over while testing this.

Using Premiere6 instead with no other changes, both DV nad DVDmax ouptut is perfect for scrubs, timeline playback, previews, virtually anything where premiere outputs video.

I see this on two very different systems --PIII and Athelon, both are ASUS motherboards.

What makes it event harder to understand is MSP6 blanks the desktop preview when the camcorder is hooked up for outptut and it still glitches if DVDmax is enabled. Premiere manages to send glitch free outptut to both 1394 and the DVDmax at the same time!

I used the same file for both tests, although Premiere had to "render" the type 1 file from MSP6 into a type 2 preview file before it'll do anything, so the problem may lie somewhere in the handling of DV type 1 vs. DV type 2 and its interaction with DVDmax.

Perhaps if there was documentation for the MSP6 ini file settings a solution could be found, but I've wasted lots of time permuting the ones I know about to no useful effect.

--wally.


[This message has been edited by wkulecz (edited 29 June 2001).]

[This message has been edited by wkulecz (edited 29 June 2001).]

[Jerry Jones]

Wally,

I have discussed this topic with some reliable sources.

Version 7 of MediaStudio Pro is coming sometime next year.

Indeed, there will be an adjustment made to the software that will enable simultaneous previews to *both* external TV monitor and computer monitor!

In addition, an adjustment will be made so that the preview to external TV monitor will be possible in conjunction with the real time "instant preview" feature if one has a suitable video display adapter (such as the Matrox G series Dual Head/DVD Max cards).

So - in effect - MediaStudio Pro 7 will, indeed, obsolete many of this year's REAL TIME proprietary DV boards!

[Dr Mordrid]

Just imagine this setup;

2ghz SSE2 capable CPU

1 gig of 266 mhz DDR ram

Matrox DualHead/DVDMax display adapter

SSE2/OpenGL compatable plugins

MSPro 7.0 with realtime previews to the vidout, courtesy of the Matrox card.

DVStorm who??

Dr. Mordrid

[Jerry Jones]

That setup makes my mouth water, Terry.

Both DV Storm and the DVRexRT Pro boards *do* output *many* types of effects in real time to FIREWIRE and not just to the analog output. So the MediaStudio Pro / Matrox real time output capability - for now - would seem to be confined to analog output.

Of course, Matrox might add a DV output. Who knows? :-)

Still, the MediaStudio Pro 7 should literally kill the Canopus RaptorRT. :-)

[Dr Mordrid]

I suggested some time ago that a DV encoder and IEEE-1394 controller on one of Matrox's YUV capable DualHead cards would be a killer piece of editing hardware. No word on it though.

Imagine this addendum to my dream system;

G550/G800 (we can hope!) eTV with DualHead/DVDMax

Features: YUV, MPEG-2, realtime DV encoding, DualHead/DVDMax and IEEE-1394 on one card

Makes me drool all over the keyboard....

Dr. Mordrid

[Jerry Jones]

Premiere 5.1c - $200 (Or Best Offer)

I'm so happy with the new version 6.5 of Ulead MediaStudio Pro, I'm ready to let go of my full version of Premiere 5.1c.

It was interesting to check out Premiere, but I've satisfied my curiosity. It's Ulead for me.

Money orders only.

Send me a money order and your address and I'll mail out two CDs:

1. Premiere LE CD
2. Premiere 5.1c FULL UPGRADE CD