If you have read my previous postings, you know that i rail constantly against Adobe Premiere and applaud Sony Vegas Pro. Well, now I'm going to talk about a serious weakness in SVG that Adobe seems to have done well on.
Antialias or flicker seems to really stand out in SVG rendered files -- meaning that it be ugly! Since I build a lot of videos involving running water, that is, creeks, rivers and such, and the way that SVG handles water ripples really does not look good.
I keep looking for Sony to fix that. I have yet to see an answer. Maybe SVG9 will address the issue. You see, in Adobe Premiere, they have an Antiflicker control in the Effects Control, just like Brightness and Contrast. Seems like Sony could engineer something similar.
Don't get me wrong, Adobe is still a piece of crap in the production mode and in contrast, Sony shines. Not having antiflicker doesn't turn me off to SVG, but I sure wish they'd fix it.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
It's been a while but...
I know it's been a while since I last posted but I've been learning Sony Vegas Pro 8.0. Man, what a unit! This thing does stuff I could never get Adobe Premiere to do: work properly.
I just finished 'Great Wenert Fishing Moments' though it's not yet posted on youtube.com. Look for it later this week.
I guess the question is: what does Vegas do that Premiere wouldn't?
Well, allow me to describe the configuration of my editing computer. It's a Quad core Gigabyte MoBo with 4-GB of DDRII 800 MHz RAM. The Video card is a nVidia 7950GT. Runs some pretty good benchmarks but even better it renders movie files like it was on fire.
I want to say that Sony has some weaknesses: the Event FX dialog needs work. Scaling was great for small and medium res pictures but large Megapixel pix need more room on the screen.
Pixelan effects don't show the source shots in its preview window but I'm hoping that Pixelan will fix that little inconvenience.
Another weakness in Sony's editor is its titling: Apparently a short afterthought. Needs some creative flexibility, like the scrolling credit tool. Three or four ways to roll credits doesn't cut it. Flexibility is the key to great applications.
Yet another weakness in Vegas is antialiasing ripples. Haven't found yet the equivalent to Premiere's antialiasing feature. I know it in there somewhere just haven't found it yet.
The most important victory over Premiere was that I was able to edit a full 10-minute video made up of several hundred stills without even a burp.
You see, in Premiere, I could put up 5 to 6 minutes of mateial in the timeline but had to bracket (no more than 30-seconds of shots to work on at any time. It made for some really difficult editing and effects work. But what made Premiere the loser for me was that if I had a sequence on the timeline and attempted anything like 'Levels,' Adobe would crash. Very disgusting and not productive.
It's completely different in Vegas Pro. Put 'em up one-at-a-time, mess with each one, add effects, transitions -- tweak the way the transitions work... do it all anywhere on the timeline -- no crashes.
Finally, Vegas renders like it's on fire. Adobe works on geologic time. Forever to render. That got really old.
Oh yeah, Sony Vegas Pro is around $400 whereas Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 is almost $900. Screw that.
All in all, my choice for video editing has become the Sony Vegas Pro 8.0.
Try it out and find a lot less frustration in your editing endeavors.
Ciao...
I just finished 'Great Wenert Fishing Moments' though it's not yet posted on youtube.com. Look for it later this week.
I guess the question is: what does Vegas do that Premiere wouldn't?
Well, allow me to describe the configuration of my editing computer. It's a Quad core Gigabyte MoBo with 4-GB of DDRII 800 MHz RAM. The Video card is a nVidia 7950GT. Runs some pretty good benchmarks but even better it renders movie files like it was on fire.
I want to say that Sony has some weaknesses: the Event FX dialog needs work. Scaling was great for small and medium res pictures but large Megapixel pix need more room on the screen.
Pixelan effects don't show the source shots in its preview window but I'm hoping that Pixelan will fix that little inconvenience.
Another weakness in Sony's editor is its titling: Apparently a short afterthought. Needs some creative flexibility, like the scrolling credit tool. Three or four ways to roll credits doesn't cut it. Flexibility is the key to great applications.
Yet another weakness in Vegas is antialiasing ripples. Haven't found yet the equivalent to Premiere's antialiasing feature. I know it in there somewhere just haven't found it yet.
The most important victory over Premiere was that I was able to edit a full 10-minute video made up of several hundred stills without even a burp.
You see, in Premiere, I could put up 5 to 6 minutes of mateial in the timeline but had to bracket (no more than 30-seconds of shots to work on at any time. It made for some really difficult editing and effects work. But what made Premiere the loser for me was that if I had a sequence on the timeline and attempted anything like 'Levels,' Adobe would crash. Very disgusting and not productive.
It's completely different in Vegas Pro. Put 'em up one-at-a-time, mess with each one, add effects, transitions -- tweak the way the transitions work... do it all anywhere on the timeline -- no crashes.
Finally, Vegas renders like it's on fire. Adobe works on geologic time. Forever to render. That got really old.
Oh yeah, Sony Vegas Pro is around $400 whereas Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 is almost $900. Screw that.
All in all, my choice for video editing has become the Sony Vegas Pro 8.0.
Try it out and find a lot less frustration in your editing endeavors.
Ciao...
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Got the Alaska Trip video done
Well, after four months of video hell, I got the Alaska flyfishing trip done. All the DVDs, including the artwork, the copies and all of it.
The client was very happy with the finished product. The project's running time is just over an hour. Now, I know that most times you don't really want a video to run that long but my client submitted over a thousand pictures in it.
And we were interrupted by another project for the same client about his granddaughter's tennis feats, used to make her video resume. That worked out really well.
Now I am taking a couple of weeks off to learn some new video effects and techniques.
The client was very happy with the finished product. The project's running time is just over an hour. Now, I know that most times you don't really want a video to run that long but my client submitted over a thousand pictures in it.
And we were interrupted by another project for the same client about his granddaughter's tennis feats, used to make her video resume. That worked out really well.
Now I am taking a couple of weeks off to learn some new video effects and techniques.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Pinnacle Strikes Again
I've been working on a project that has taken its toll. I'm within sight of the finish line. Over two months, a thousand pictures, a couple of videos (unfortunately not usable). Oh boy, but in a moment of weakness, I decided to use Pinnacle Studio 11 (Plus, ultimate, whatever bullshit name they put to it. I happened to think their titler works pretty well; and my list of credits grows with every project.
Anyway, I like to keep things simple so I used a 10-sec black AVI vid I've used for the last five years, okay? Pinnacle wouldn't open it. Pinnacle thinks there's something not right about that file. But the file works just fine in my Sony Movie Studio and in Adobe Premiere Pro. It views properly -- IWO, there's nothing wrong with that piece of footage. But Pinnacle doesn't like it.
Their first possible solution was -- get this -- uninstall and re-install Pinnacle. Guess what? I'll do the first part but no way am I re-installing that rat bastard.
Okay, while I'm good and pissed about Pinnacle, I might as well say a few things about Pinnacle Studio: I think that any company that uses the word "Ultimate" in their product name ought to provide the ultimate (another word for everything) package. All inclusive. No crap to put up with. What's with all these activation codes? I would expect there to be several hundred nice transitions. I would expect there to be a reasonable array of audio and video filters. But no, you have to purchase them -- give them even more money than their product is worth. Now, I'll give the other side too. They do provide a few fundamental transitions and a couple video effects. But the transitions have no life or punch to them. They look like 50's film editing technology.
Pinnacle Studio 11 Ultimate does provide ProDAD's Vitascene. I have had very little success at getting it to do anything but their sample stuff.
I also want to mention that Pinnacle's still animation is a joke. You get an in point and an out point. Nothing in-between. I think even Muvee gives more flexibility than that. If you are thinking of using an editor to do "slideshows" but DVD videos are so much more than a slideshow, scratch Pinnacle Studio 11 (any flavor) from your list.
My gripe is that they sell you a package -- more like a bill of goods. The application is unreliable, clumsy and definitely not intuitive. And they always want more money.
Next time, I want to talk about editors but from the budgetary point of view.
If anyone reads these posts, I'd really appreciate a response. I know I wander sometimes but we pro-am video dudes have to talk and exchange ideas. That's exactly what I'm promoting here.
Anyway, I like to keep things simple so I used a 10-sec black AVI vid I've used for the last five years, okay? Pinnacle wouldn't open it. Pinnacle thinks there's something not right about that file. But the file works just fine in my Sony Movie Studio and in Adobe Premiere Pro. It views properly -- IWO, there's nothing wrong with that piece of footage. But Pinnacle doesn't like it.
Their first possible solution was -- get this -- uninstall and re-install Pinnacle. Guess what? I'll do the first part but no way am I re-installing that rat bastard.
Okay, while I'm good and pissed about Pinnacle, I might as well say a few things about Pinnacle Studio: I think that any company that uses the word "Ultimate" in their product name ought to provide the ultimate (another word for everything) package. All inclusive. No crap to put up with. What's with all these activation codes? I would expect there to be several hundred nice transitions. I would expect there to be a reasonable array of audio and video filters. But no, you have to purchase them -- give them even more money than their product is worth. Now, I'll give the other side too. They do provide a few fundamental transitions and a couple video effects. But the transitions have no life or punch to them. They look like 50's film editing technology.
Pinnacle Studio 11 Ultimate does provide ProDAD's Vitascene. I have had very little success at getting it to do anything but their sample stuff.
I also want to mention that Pinnacle's still animation is a joke. You get an in point and an out point. Nothing in-between. I think even Muvee gives more flexibility than that. If you are thinking of using an editor to do "slideshows" but DVD videos are so much more than a slideshow, scratch Pinnacle Studio 11 (any flavor) from your list.
My gripe is that they sell you a package -- more like a bill of goods. The application is unreliable, clumsy and definitely not intuitive. And they always want more money.
Next time, I want to talk about editors but from the budgetary point of view.
If anyone reads these posts, I'd really appreciate a response. I know I wander sometimes but we pro-am video dudes have to talk and exchange ideas. That's exactly what I'm promoting here.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
I have used most of the NLEs out there, and...
NonLinear Editors (NLEs) seem to have flourished in the last few years. The price range shows systems from free (Windows Movie Maker) to Avid Liquid Pro (over a grand). I am sure the range is even higher but I am talking about things I can afford.
Let's get the trash out of the way first. If you have XP or Vista, don't even bother opening Windows Movie Maker. Typical of most Microsoft products, it was apparently a half-baked idea then someone forget to turn on the oven to finish it. When XP first came along, I spotted WMM, and went "Hmm, what's this?" Well, MS did not deliver a movie maker but a space-taker. Titling didn't work. No PTZ features. Forget the rest. Let's talk about editors, real editors.
I work mostly with pictures not video. I make the pictures move. That means I have to have control over features like pan, zoom and rotate. One of the first product that did that was Movie 10 by Magix.
Movie 10 worked pretty well. it had drawbacks but still produced a nice AVI file. The image quality looked good and the render times weren't too bad. But being the OCB techie I am, I had to try others. I knew there were better products out there.
I bought Pinnacle Studio 10 -- this is the "poor man's" video editor. I call it that because not only did version 10 not work well out of the box, but every thing you might want to do required you paying for a license for the particular feature. IOW, you'll be poorer for using Pinnacle.
Now I have to say the output AVI looks really good but not worth the hassle and extra expense Avid imposes.
That's it for today. Tell me what you think.
Let's get the trash out of the way first. If you have XP or Vista, don't even bother opening Windows Movie Maker. Typical of most Microsoft products, it was apparently a half-baked idea then someone forget to turn on the oven to finish it. When XP first came along, I spotted WMM, and went "Hmm, what's this?" Well, MS did not deliver a movie maker but a space-taker. Titling didn't work. No PTZ features. Forget the rest. Let's talk about editors, real editors.
I work mostly with pictures not video. I make the pictures move. That means I have to have control over features like pan, zoom and rotate. One of the first product that did that was Movie 10 by Magix.
Movie 10 worked pretty well. it had drawbacks but still produced a nice AVI file. The image quality looked good and the render times weren't too bad. But being the OCB techie I am, I had to try others. I knew there were better products out there.
I bought Pinnacle Studio 10 -- this is the "poor man's" video editor. I call it that because not only did version 10 not work well out of the box, but every thing you might want to do required you paying for a license for the particular feature. IOW, you'll be poorer for using Pinnacle.
Now I have to say the output AVI looks really good but not worth the hassle and extra expense Avid imposes.
That's it for today. Tell me what you think.
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