Try Ulead Media Studio Pro. You can download a 30 day trial fromtheir website. It's been stable for me on P2-400, P3-900, and P4-3GHz. I think it's very easy to learn.

Adam: I would recommend Sony Vegas. Seems to be a lot more
forgiving. It is a bit different in how it operates, but a lot of people
seem to like it (myself included).

You can get a trial from http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com

Thanks Rob,

I like Premiere and the way the workflows, but it's agrevatting when you have 45 mins of edited video and plug in special effects such as film bigfx which uses a lot of memory and then decides to lock up half way through the rendering process it really makes you mad.

What I do like about premiere are the availble plug ins.

I do need the plug in to render windows wmv files. I am missing it or do I have to purchase that?

Is the Sony Vegas as enhancement rich as premiere 6.5?

AE 5.5 AVI render issue.
 

I got the new premiere pro drivers recently for my canopus M-1 - RT card and i am now able to use prem pro 1.0 but when i went into AE 5.5 Pro i am finding that it is not seeing the canopus RT card anymore, making it impossible for me to work on .AVI files. Has anyone out there had this problem? Are there any known fixes? i am runnning dual 2.2 G Xeons, 1 G ram, Windows XP Pro,
2 120G ide drives partitioned.

In my mind it is much more feature rich than Premiere 6.5 and
probably even Pro. For WMV encoding you need the latest
Media Player installed I think. Not sure. I hope someone else
can comment on that "problem".

It "smells" like the new driver is not compatible with the older
version of AE. Have you checked to see 5.5 was supported?

Multi-camera in Premiere Pro
 

This is my first post after lurking here a while so please be gentle with me.

I'm doing some experimentation with the trial version of Premiere Pro before I invest in the real thing. What I want to do is record a musician using two cameras in the following manner:

Camera 2 (canon ZR70) will be in a fixed position on a tripod and capture a relatively wide angle shot of the performer. I will be moving around with camera 1 (Optura 20) catching various angles.

What I want to do is use the footage from camera 2 as "filler" when the angle captured from the moving camera position (camera 1) is unsatisfactory.

Is it as simple as putting the video from camera 1 on video track 1, camera 2 on video track two and then just creating gaps in video track 1 where I want the "cutaway" shot to show? What pitfalls do I need to watch out for?

Also, I will be using the audio solely from camera 2 as it will not be stopping and starting during the performance. Is this the right approach?

BTW, this is not a "live" performance in front of an audience. My friend is just providing me a learning exercise that can benefit him if I do a good job. (demo material to send to record labels, etc.) No money will be changing hands.

I'll appreciate any insight you gurus can provide.

Thanks.

You've got it! Sync up both tracks and place your safety cam in track 1. This is also your audio control track. Then, slice the rov cam track to shreds as you edit out the movement from re-positioning and framing. NEVER shut either camera off until tape change or end of session.
Once everything is sync'd up and the crosses and cuts are done, export the audio track out for sweetening: reverb, NR, compression etc.
Drop the audio track back in and you are ready to export.
The camera work is important but most essential is audio capture and lighting.

Thanks Jimmy!!! That's what I needed to know.

glenn,

can you explain why #2 is a "no" if my need was for DV?

thanks

Don't bother with SCSI. Your 2 WD drives will be fine.
I'm running 20 Dells with two HDs one 40GB and the other 120GB. They have zero problems with capturing and editing.

but speed-wise?

1. is it true that scsi HD works better with 2000? (in a way that the os can take more advantage from the scsi bandwidth)
- No

2. If in the case of using ATA, should i consider RAID to boost performance?
- Yes, but not for your boot drive. We recommend that your system drive not be a raid. For Video a RAID stripe will increase your performance of EIDE, ATA, SATA or SCSi drives.

3. about RAID, can i install OS on RAID HDs?
- As I metnioned earlier, We do not recommend this.

4. My motherboard has both ATA, and SATA RAID controller, can i use the onboard controller, as SATA controller to upgrade to SATA as main HDs?
- Just use a single ATA drive for your c: drive. Install your OS and programs on it. Use the raid for your video storage and projects

5. i got the scsi control card from my friend, it's kinda old, but i didn't see much changes in SCSI, is my ultra2 wide card still good? or should i abandon it?
- do not use it. SCSI negotiated down to the slowest SCSI component in the chain. By using an old slower SCSi controller you will be limiting the performance of all the SCSI drives attached to it.

6. what would be my ideal set up?
- Run the OS off a 7200 ROM EIDE system drive. Then use the Mobo SATA raid controller and stripe a pair of SATA drives for outstanding system throughput.

Gary
Videoguys.com

strobe
 

Not that I would need this effect very often, but I couldn't figure out how to do a strobe effect through premiere. I have Pro and figured it would just be an effect. Any thoughts?

Cookie Cutter Effect
 

I mainly use vegas, but on big projects i use Premiere Pro (version 1.0) For mulitcam shoots in vegas i apply the cookie cutter effect and adjust to taste, but in premiere I can't seem to duplicate that process. I've tried using crop and feather, but what if i want a shape like and oval or arrow like in vegas? How would i achieve this?