Experiences in MPEG editing

[Ken Jarstad]

For the past week or so I have been trying out various video editors and DVD authoring applications to replace my aging and venerable PRE2. My impressions of editing MPEG files have not been good. Perhaps it is simply the difference between editing AVI in which every frame is a keyframe, I don't know. I am hoping to get some response as to whether my experience is par for the course - or not.

I have been using the files captured from my Canon HV20 which are .m2t MPEG-2 transport stream files. These are files I have captured with HDVsplit. Some of the editors accept TS files with no problems. Some require a conversion to program stream and some very obviously create a runtime, index file. Magix MEP 16+ leaves additional files strewn all over my disks!

The viewing or previewing of these files varies widely as to smoothness. Having a quad-core processor, fast GPU and two fast HDDs doesn't seem to be enough for some editors. And it is not unusual for the video at the beginning and end of a clip to behave strangely. Moving one frame at a time, a frame may often be duplicated once or twice and then the action jumps to where it should be. My response has been to trim the beginning two or three frames and sometimes the ending frame or two. And none of these editors do anything as straightforward as dragging the beginning or end of a clip to shorten it like PRE2 did. I miss straightforward!

Perhaps I will share later on my experience with some of the apps I have been trying out but for now I just want to know if others here have had these symptoms editing MPEG files.

[Steve Grisetti]

Looking forward to hearing what you learn, Ken.

Let us know if you'd like recommendations for alternative programs to experiment with.

[AVITRY]

I've often wondered about a program called Womble. Is this perhaps one of the programs you tried Ken?

[Ken Jarstad]

AVITRY,

Hi again. At one time I knew your name but can't remember it now.

I looked at Womble but one of my requirements is to burn high definition AVCHD on conventional DVDs. This is such a new and seemingly esoteric capability that I have discerned if the app does not make the capability prominent or easily found in their advertising then the feature is usually not available. One tenth the cost for media sounds real good to me. Womble is good in that they don't try to be everything to everybody. Some apps have rampant featuritis - jack of all trades and master of none. At $99 they had better be good because you can get the industry leaders for significantly less.

As I write this the Corel VideoStudio Pro X3 trial is finishing up rendering the timeline of an 18 minute project. It's using all four cores of the Q9400 and looks like it will finish after, ah .....40 minutes or so. Timeline tweaks, cutting and so on were pretty good but the color correction, bright/dark and such were real fiddly. The authoring portion is supposedly the successor to Ulead DVDFactory (Corel DVD Factory Pro 2010) but my first impression is yuk. It has a media organizer that is worse than the current Adobe Elements offerings. That thing leapt into action and presented to me EVERY media file on my hard drives including all the render files for all the Elements projects that are still on there! There appears to be no way to control it including shutting it off. After it had run for awhile I tried to find the media I wanted and couldn't locate it. So, it finds what I don't want and can't find what do I want. That's not working for me.

So far Magix MEP 16 Plus has made the best AVCHD DVD but the timeline and interface are, are .... are foreign. Oh yeah, it comes from Europe! I talked it over with my wife today and we may actually spring for Magix Video Pro X2. That product is filling the niche between the consumer editors and pro editors. 600 bucks between Elements and PPro! VPX can be had for just over 200 usd.

Well, I just tried to use my Corel project in the included DVD Factory Pro 2010 and could not make it work. The earlier version by Ulead may have been nice but this thing is a dog and not intuitive at all. I don't think I will waste any more time on it. Goodnight!

[RJ Johnston]

I told you in another thread that X3 was terrible. Supposedly Corel is working on the DVD authoring portion and will have something else in a few weeks, according to the forum moderator over on http://forum.corel.com. He can't elaborate. Since I reported how bad it was, I have the interface almost figured out.

[Paul LS]

I have stayed clear of VideoStudio X3 after Robert's report and what I have seen on forums. I was only going to upgrade because COREL killed off DVD Moviefactory which I used for producing AVCHD discs... X3 can also do this. However, I am quite happy with MEP 16+, no major issues... I can produce AVCHD discs, it has some nice features especially the ability to use VirtualDub filters natively.

[Ken Jarstad]

Hey, thanks for weighing in. I have so many balls in the air right now. Corel, Cyberlink Director and Producer, Magix MEP 16+ all on 30 day trials. Can't keep all the info straight. Corel is done for. It got a rave review on Amazon PowerProducer was untestable but probably has the same burning engine as PowerDirector. PowerDirector was tolerable as an editor and produced a mediocre AVCHD disk so is likely out of the running.

Unless I have missed something the last app standing seems to be Magix MEP 16 Plus. It makes a decent, if not stellar AVCHD disk. My test footage was rather extreme on purpose. But MEP16+ has its own quirks. And right now I am testing it and there is bad quirk in the authoring which I haven't solved yet. I can't burn another disk.

I had a good talk with my wife about these issues and she now sees that we need something "good" for editing. Our granddaughter's wedding is coming up in June and I would like to produce in Blu-ray. But the $500 and up cost of the "real" editors is prohibitive - I don't do this for a living. I surmised that there is an untapped market for video software in between PPro/Vegas 9 Pro and the consumer editors. One I had overlooked, and perhaps the only app in this 'tween price range is Magix Video Pro X2. All I would have to do is learn a whole new way of editing. Oh boy I think JohnnyO may be using it so I may have to pester him to see how much different it is versus MEP 16+.

BTW, in my scouring the web for apps I found a surprise. There is an outfit that places what I call 'nuisance' ads for video software and, as such, I had simply ignored them until now. The company is AVS4YOU. This company's video editor and authoring DVD app are designed rather nicely! I left a message with them lamenting they don't support AVCHD disk burning. If they did they would be prime on my test list. Until March 31st you have unlimited use of all their software for $59 usd. Could be a bargain.

[RJ Johnston]

Ken,

I'm not sure if you would be interested in this. I found that you can still purchase Corel ULEAD DVD MovieFactory 6 Plus and the HD plug-in. MF6 is $39.99 for full version. The HD plug-in is $19.99. You can burn an AVCHD disc with the plug-in. Unfortunately there isn't a trial version, and it may not work with Win7.

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/ ... 0954650114

http://store1.corel.com/corel/product/i ... rod3430129

[Ken Jarstad]

Thanks for the info and the interest, Robert. I got a message back from Corel regarding DVD MovieFactory 6 Plus. I specifically asked if it was an orphan product. They simply suggested I upgrade to the current product DVD MovieFactory Pro 7. Interestingly, it is not promoted in the USA. The sites promoting it are mainly in Australia. Even version 7 doesn't claim Windows 7, only Vista.

I have decided to move on. I'll just have to go through the pain of learning a completely new editor and author package. I am rather more serious now looking at MEP 16+. I have been spelunking the Magix forum regarding the VPX product which is available for less than $250 usd. After reading there I don't think the VPX product is worthwhile. Perhaps a more robust product and maybe more attentive tech support but I sure would like to >simplify< my life regarding editing and burning while maintaining the ability to burn AVCHD disks.

[RJ Johnston]

I tried the VPX version and thought that it was much the same as MEP. In fact, when you exit from MEP, the info on the status bar says says "Exit from VPX."

I picked up the ULEAD DVDMF6+ and HD plugin. It accepted the HV20 clip I downloaded from DVINFO.net, and it created an AVCHD disc. Looked really good, but I don't have an HD monitor to view it back on at my current location - just a 1024x768 monitor.

[Paul LS]

The other good thing with DVDMF6+ is that it will smart-burn a H.264 export from Premiere Elements... or straight from the camcorder. I have always been very impressed with the quality... as you would expect if it is not re-encoded.

[RJ Johnston]

After reading the sales info on the AU website about DVD Moviefactory 7, I think that DVDMF6+ with the HD plug-in is just about the equivilant in the US market.

[Ken Jarstad]

OK you guys have convinced me to look at 6 Plus again. I already removed it from my drive because I didn't want to hassle with a plugin unavailable with the trial. I still had the downloaded trial file. I just reinstalled and it says I have 21 days left. I will have to create a standard DVD with it tomorrow and see how I like using it. Your recommendations are quite valuable to me even though I stumble through trying out stuff you already warned me against. <where is that 'roll eyes' smilie when I need it?>

[RJ Johnston]

I read on the Corel fourm last night that Corel is releasing a reworked version of MovieFactory 7 for those who purchased VideoStudio Pro X3. That's to make up for the sorry DVD authoring app that came with VSP X3.

Of course I haven't downloaded the new release because Corel hasn't provided a download link yet. I'd like to see what the difference is between MF7 SE and and MF6 Plus with the HD plug-in I just purchased.

Regarding MF6 Plus with the HD plugin, you can have one track of "real" subtitles, the kind that you can turn on and off with your remote control by clicking the subtitles button. It will read in SRT files. And then I created a smart-rendered HD-DVD last night using an HV20 clip, but very few media players will play the HD format now since Blu-ray won out.

[Ken Jarstad]

After we got the Blu-ray player we gave the Toshiba HD-DVD player to my step-daughter who still has a CRT set. So, it's now not even being used for an up-scaler.

Since DMF6+ can't use HDV files I used DV-AVI files and ----

Is it an authoring and burning package?

Is it an editor?

It seems to be both! That is a surprise to me. It might even be enough for home video. My community access TV programs need the sophistication of PRE2 and I plan to go on using it for that.

I selected one of the two included themes and it auto-arranged the various elements on the timeline tracks. Not bad. Can you easily create your own themes?

I found the effects. A little strange. You have to apply a fade-out or fade-in from the main interface, then the effects menu becomes active and presents the collection of effects which can be swapped out for the fade.

$60 usd now, including the HD Power Pack. Hmmmm...........