Ulead DVD Workshop website link works

[BrianP]

The link that was provided in the ad for Ulead's new DVD Workshop (in the current issue of DV magazine) now works.

It actually forwards to: http://www.ulead.com/dws/runme.htm

[Jerry Jones]

Finally...

Thanks for the link.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

They now have the box pictured on this page:

http://www.ulead.com/dws/runme.htm

[Dr Mordrid]

That's not exactly your typical 1.75" thick software box, is it? Jezzz...manybe they are serious about this authoring stuff...

Dr. Mordrid

[dchip]

Yes, that is a nice fat box. Hopefully full of useful and functional stuff. Stuff, like a real jewel-cased program CD and nice thick well-organized users manual and tutorial with clear setup and use instructions and bound in a way that lets them lay flat. Nowadays the manual seems to be on a CD in a drab .pdf file and the CD's in the packages are in paper sleeves. BTW, I like the words on that box. "Advancing the Art of DVD Authoring." Nice.

[Brian Ellis]

OK, now Ulead seem to have three levels of DVD generation (DVD Plug-in, Movie Factory and now DVD Workshop) at prices of free, reasonable and expensive respectively. Would some kind person care to make up a matrix tabulating exactly what each will do or not do, as I'm totally confused with all the commercial hype?

[IM_Riktar]

What I am wondering about this whole thing is how much of this will be included in the next version of MSP (7.0?). Or how well this will integrate into it.

I would be more than perturbed if I layed out the bucks for this and then found out 5 weeks later that the latest version of MSP will have some, if not all of the core elements of this package.

MovieFactory has turned out to be a worthwhile purchase in combination with MSP 6.0 especially since I was procrastinating in the decision to buy the DVD plug-in when it first came out. That was one of the few times my indecision paid off for me. At least from my standpoint.

(Sound of playing Trumpets,,,,,,,)

"Today I are a MURCer! Tomorrow I get good grammer!"

[Jerry Jones]

Ulead now has full details up:

http://www.ulead.com/dws/features.htm

[Brian Ellis]

I'm sorry, but can someone explain to me how this justifies the price, compared with MSP 6.5 with the DVD plug-in? It looks to me as if there is little that you can do with this that you cannot do with MSP, other than some fancy gimmicks, such as a pre-menu play-in clip and stitching together sequences (which can be done with Movie Factory, I believe, at a fraction of the price). OK, I agree that they may have automated some things, which require separate operations with MSP but the price is high for something more or less equivalent to batch files. As for their claims like direct DV>MPEG or analogue>MPEG capture, the usefulness of this may be questionable as the usual procedure is to edit in the native format, before converting to MPEG.

Or am I being obtuse by missing something fundamental?

[Jerry Jones]

Brian,

I really think you're missing the point of DV>MPEG by a country mile.

One edits an hour long DV production in DV. To record the finished DV material to a DVD requires either:

a. a long conversion render to convert the DV to MPEG-2

or

b. a real time capture of the DV material to MPEG-2

In other words, one can simply export the DV project to tape and then re-capture the finished, edited project as a DVD ready MPEG-2 file.

[Dr Mordrid]

Yup, if the quality holds up. That will remain to be seen.

Otherwise the chapters, menu objects, built-in titler (looks like the one in VS6 but more so), text effects etc. make it look VERY much nicer than DVD MovieFactory.

It also seems to have had the slideshow features of DVD PictureShow wrapped into the mix as well.

I can't wait for the trial version to be posted. It looks good to a DVDiT user

Dr. Mordrid

[Jerry Jones]

Indeed... quality is going to be a real question mark until somebody tests this product.

But if the quality is good, then why buy a stand alone DVD recorder with a Firewire input when one can use one's computer as a DVD "VCR" and record an MPEG-2 DVD-ready file directly from Firewire?

Another feature that looks good is the automated navigation that allows a feature - when finished playing - to automatically "jump" to a new custom menu.

Jerry Jones

[BrianP]

from the compatibility page (http://www.ulead.com/dws/compatibility3.htm#capcards):

No DVRaptor support.

Hardly surprising, but still disappointing.

[Jerry Jones]

What the compatibility chart means is that one cannot use the DV Raptor with DVD Movie Factory for *capture* purposes.

The reason for this is Canopus has stubbornly refused to listen to us... the customers... and has steadfastly refused to enter the 21st century and incorporate OHCI compliance into Canopus hardware products.

I'm disgusted with Canopus for that reason.

They just never listened to us... turned a deaf ear to everything we told them several months ago and now they're going to pay the price because their expensive, proprietary hardware is already fading into obsolescence as today's video editing software becomes more and more real time under CPU power alone.

That capture incompatibility is a Canopus failure and not a Ulead failure.

[Jerry Jones]

I would add...

...although I no longer participate in the Canopus User Forum...

I have noticed something I predicted would happen several months ago.

The censorship by the two volunteer forum moderators has stifled any legitimate debate or criticism of Canopus products.

As a result, many users have decided to abandon Canopus in favor of Avid Xpress DV 3.0 and other exciting new real time software products and the Canopus board - and the whole notion of proprietary hardware - is now less interesting - even boring.