Magix Movie Edit Pro 14 Plus

[RJ Johnston]

It is my opinion that you should not use Magix Movie Edit Pro 14 Plus Download version if you are in NTSC land and use DV-AVI footage for most your work. It just isn't ready. I lost confidence in the program when it couldn't process the footage I downloaded from StockfootageForFree.com, while Premiere Elements had no problems.

It has some really cool features, though, such as the denoiser can greatly reduce wind noise. I like the design of their DVD menus, plus each movie on the DVD can have it's own scene menu.

[RJ Johnston]

Partly good news about the NTSC DV-AVI problem. It seems that if you add a DV-AVI clip to the arranger but don't edit it, and then burn a DVD, you get a bumpy playback as if every second you drive over a speed bump. But if you apply an effect, such as the auto exposure cleaning effect, to the entire clip and then burn a DVD, the playback is good.

[ed]

Have you tried the burn routine patch? http://support.magix.net/boards/magix/i ... opic=38458

[RJ Johnston]

Thanks, Ed. Yes, I have installed the burn routine patch.

Since my last post, I have determined that I need only edit a small portion of the beginning of the movie. If I don't edit at least the beginning, then the whole movie is jerky.

I don't have any problem with MPEG.

[JohnnyO]

I too bought Magix Movie Edit Pro 14, on the last day of the sale. However, I bought the boxed version. I received the package on Wednesday.

I have been playing around with it for acouple of days now - just discovering its many features. I have to admit, I am very impressed with all of its features. I do like the Premiere Elements interface better, but I am getting used to MEP.

Here are some highlights -

1. 3D transitions such as opening a book, turning pages, photo albums etc. These are really cool. Imagine your video turning into a 3D heart and then moving off the screen to reveal the one underneath. Or turning intoa snowman, or wedding rings. There are lota and lots of 3D transitions
2. 99 tracks - this is actually less than Premiere Elements. PE has 99 video and 99 audio tracks. MEP has a total of 99 tracks which can be either audio or video. Although, in my opinion 99 tracks is pretty much unlimited.
3. You can make your own transitions. It is not like PE's Gradient Wipe, but you can take any video clip and save it as a transition. I have converted some of my gradient wipe transitions to videos (just take a white clip in PE, followed by a black clip, apply the gradient wipe and streatch it to the beginning and end, export to movie, import to MEP, and save as a transition. - it works really well.
4.Titles - the pre-sets for the titles are really impressive. All fully editable. You can even have 3D titles.
5. has lots and lots of fun effects and transitions. Common ones I have seen folks request for PE are old movie, snow, have a book open. These are all there with lots and lots more.
6. I have not played with audio editing yet, but at a glance there are lots of cool effects.
7. Authoring. - you can have motion buttons, still buttons, pre-menu videos, each movie on the main menu can have it's own sub menu, and of course sound. There are some really cool menu templates, such as one that can make a slide show on the main menu showing clips of that come from each chapter marker inthe timeline. - loks really cool. - There is alslo an editor for the disc project. All the same editing feaures seem to be available as in the regular editing mode. I like it better than Sony DVD Architect Studio.
8. Panning and zooming is easy with the movement effect. And by the way, it does not seem to have issues with full sized photos.
There are lots and lots more features. And - so far I have not seen any stability issues, although my test projects are small. The real test will be when I make a large project.

One thing I can't find - is an equivalent to the track matte effect, which I often use. Although there are so many cool frames available, may I won't miss it. (but who knows, maybe hthere is an equivalent which I have not found yet).

I will be palying around with its audio capabilities next. I also will be seeing how it handles MPEG2s shortly.

I'll let you all know how it goes.

[RJ Johnston]

Hi JohnnyO,

You should be able to achieve the track matte effect using the Video Controller dialog (Shift - Y). You'll see options for "transparency," "stamp," "alpha," "mix," etc.

[JohnnyO]

Thanks Robert - I'll give it a try.

[RJ Johnston]

More things to investigate:

You can pass frames from Premiere Elements timeline to MEP without creating a separate file using frameserving by debugmode:

http://www.debugmode.com/frameserver/

You can also frameserve from VirtualDub to MEP, but in MEP you can use many VD plugins directly without even using VirtualDub.

[RJ Johnston]

Found another workaround for the NTSC DV-AVI jerky problem when exporting. Seems to be a conflict involving 25 fps vs 29.97 fps. I don't think the clips on the timeline know they are 29.97 fps, so you need to do something to force a change and an update. Well, something along those lines.

Here are steps to eliminate the jerky, strobe effect:

1. Change the fps in Movie Settings to 25.
2. Select all clips on the timeline and move them over one or two frames to the right.
3. Change the fps in Movie Settings to 29.97.
4. Export to DV-AVI.

That works for me when exporting to files or to DVD. I still get jerky results when I export back to my miniDV camcorder. No workaround for that so far.

[ed]

johnnyo, my experience with past versions of magix and mpegs is that it will take most mpegs, and do smart rendering, but if your timeline is long you'll start to have problems. If you break up the timeline into smaller projects you'll be OK. Another thing with magix, and I'm assuming 14 is the same, is that you have to remember to set to project files temp files for every project, unlike elements where you just set to the same directory as the project, no matter what project you bring up. If you forget you'll have files all over the place.

[JohnnyO]

If you break up the timeline into smaller projects you'll be OK. Another thing with magix, and I'm assuming 14 is the same, is that you have to remember to set to project files temp files for every project, unlike elements where you just set to the same directory as the project, no matter what project you bring up. If you forget you'll have files all over the place.

I believe this has been resolved in MEP14.

[JohnnyO]

I just finished my first MPEG2 project with full success.

I recorded a 3 hour movie with my Hauppauge PVR 150 over the weekend. I ran it through Video Redo's quick stream fix, as I always do, to correct frame errors.

I started an MEP14 project and imported the video. Then I used the add detection feature in MEP 14. It did an OK job, not any better or worse than Video Redo's add detection. The movie was 2 hours and 19 minutes after removing the adds.

I then added chapter markers at each break (using the autmatic feature).

I chose a user defined menu, changed the music, added motion background, animated buttons and music to the sub menu. The main menu already had motion and sound, and a template I used gave a slide show of videos at the breaks. I did edit it to change the music. I could have also changed the background video if I wished.

The DVD burning process went flawlessly.

This morning I looked at the video on my TV and the quality was very good, and there also were no sound sync problems, no interlace artifacts.

How does this compare to Premiere Elements 4? -Well, PE4 did not handle my MPEGs very well at all. The final DVD was always pixelated. I gave up using PE4 for these MPEG2 projects.

My next task will be a long DV-AVI project. This will take me some time to do.

[Chronos]

I have an important question. I have the trial version of MEP14 Plus. I'm trying to export my movie, but no matter what format I export it to, the quality is really, really bad . So I looked for the MPEG-4 format, but I can't find out where to activate it. Apparently there's supposed to be a link on the help menu, but it doesn't show up on mine. What I want to know is, is it possible to activate the MPEG-4 codec on the trial version, and if so, where do I do this? (I need an actual link, because I've looked everywhere)

[RJ Johnston]

I can't believe you are getting really really bad quality. No way, no how. What are you doing wrong?

You have to have the full version in order to activate MPEG 4.

[Chronos]

I can't believe you are getting really really bad quality. No way, no how. What are you doing wrong?

I'm...not doing anything wrong? The videos used are in .MOV format and the audio is MPEG-3.

You have to have the full version in order to activate MPEG 4.

Well that just sucks. I will probably end up buying the full program anyway, but...ugh.