I hope I have posted this in the correct forum. I did a search and couldn’t find what I am looking for so I decided to go for it here. DVI looks to be a high tech forum for Pro's, you all must be in the business. Most all of the stuff in here is light years ahead of me. Please bear with me.

I need to get software that will enable me to do the following as listed below. I am just getting started with this and would really appreciate some advise. I have tried Roxio 6 and Roxio 8 and I couldn’t get either of them to work for me. I see there is Ulead and Pinnacle products out there. I heard the Pinnacle 9 & 10 versions were slow, pigs, but had some good features I’m interested in.

I am using a Sony DCR HC32 mini cassette video camera to film family videos. Just family events, my son’s ski races etc.

All I want to do is:

1. I really want is an easy to figure out software that works good and has a really good help or tutorial sections in the program and good online data. My experience with most software is the help sections, online tech support data files, etc. are really lacking and essentially useless. I really think the software development sales team is always in a big rush to get the product to market and could care less about needed updates. They leave the hassles of making the software work to the tech guys after the software is already in the hands of the consumer.

2. Capture and burn to DVD + RW’s and then archive them on DVD+R’s.

3. I would like to have automatic brightness, color, etc. quality editing available to turn on and leave on just in case my wife films a ski race in bright sun on the snow and the video turns out real dark or something like that.

4. Burn direct to DVD disc from the camera to save time, or what ever else I can do to save time.

5. Be able to re-edit video already burned to disc.

6. My camera say’s it is able to transfer my old Hi 8 analog tapes (connect analog camera to DV Sony camera via RCA jacks then to my computer via firewire and edit for quality and burn them to disc. I want to do this. I’m not sure if the software needs to do anything special here or not.

7. I’m not going to get big into creating fancy videos with titles, backgrounds, special affects or anything like that. I just want to do an efficient, fast as possible, get it off my camera, edit for quality and burn the videos.

8. It would be nice to have a better photo editing software. I take a lot of digital stills with a different camera. All I have is Nikon View 5, which has a very basic Arc soft product I think, and is pretty limited. My Sony DV camera came with something called picture package and it has the exact same editing software that Nikon 5 has in it. It seems all I can do with it is adjust brightness with the “intensity” adjust function. Here again, normally all I have to do is adjust brightness but it would be nice to be able to do more? Suggestions? I’m not really sure what I need here as I have not had the opportunity to do something that I am not even aware is an option.

Please let me know what else I might need? I’m just a beginner and really don’t know “whatszup”?? I am a firm believer in the only dumb question is the one not asked. $ is not a big deal, my time is.

Thanks!!! If I can help any of you guys out let me know. Construction and Ranching is my business, dirt bikes, skiing, competiteve shooting sports, and hunting are some of my serious hobbies.

This all pertains to PC products. If you are going Mac, thats a whole other world..

I have used the Pinnacle software for many years, and it is great for basic editing. Pinnacle Studio 10 Plus is latest version, and it is still a bit "buggy", but my experience with Pinnacle is that they work out bugs after their first release and you do a free update. The program is fairly simple to learn. With any editing program, it is my experience that support comes more from forums like these, than anywhere else. Pinnacle has their own user forum. Since this is a consumer product, you get all types there, including people who don't know a gigabyte from a ram, so expect to see a lot of frustrated people on the boards. Studio is about $80.00

For a more 'professional" entry level editor, consider Sony "Movie Studio +DVD Platinum. This provides all the essential for editing (stipped down Vegas), and burning (Stripped down DVD Architect), and a sound editing program (stripped down Acid), and in using this, you are introduced to a work flow that a lot of professionals on this board are moving to these days. This program will run you about $100.00 or so.

There is also Premiere Elements, which is Adobe's stripped down editor, but I have not used it, since I have the full version.

At the higher level, you have have the full level editors of Premiere and Vegas, and they run around $500.00 more or less depending where you get them.

As to digital photo editing, you can use Photoshop Elements which is a stripped down version of the industry standard Photoshop. It gives you good basic editing tools. You might also want to try an open source program called "Gimp" which has been developed in open source community. Full blown Photoshop can be very expensive... $600.00 or so, I think..

To transfer Hi 8, the Sony Digital 8 work great. Just insert the tape in the camera, and the camera digitizes the signal and transfers over firewire to any capture system, on any editor that captures DV.

Good luck...

This all pertains to PC products. If you are going Mac, thats a whole other world..

I have used the Pinnacle software for many years, and it is great for basic editing. Pinnacle Studio 10 Plus is latest version, and it is still a bit "buggy", but my experience with Pinnacle is that they work out bugs after their first release and you do a free update. The program is fairly simple to learn. With any editing program, it is my experience that support comes more from forums like these, than anywhere else. Pinnacle has their own user forum. Since this is a consumer product, you get all types there, including people who don't know a gigabyte from a ram, so expect to see a lot of frustrated people on the boards. Studio is about $80.00

Good luck...
As far as Studio 10 Plus goes, there is a beta service pack out now that has addressed a lot of the issues.

What you heard about Studio being 'slow' is true with all editors. Unlike about any other application, they deal with very large files (13GB is a straight hour of Digital Video captured). They also have to 'convert' what is in the file for display purposes while allowing you to edit it. It is very CPU, Memory, and hard drive intensive. Most applications come nowhere near a NLE on the amount of stress they can pile on.

I recommend you play with some of the demos or watch the demos. The listed Sony, Adobe, and Pinnacle software each have their unique way of doing things. Ulead and others also make competing products. Each have their own challenges too. Find one that makes the most sense to you not just in features, but how easy you understand how to do things.

A caution, read the list of recommended requirements for hardware. Especially with editors that support HDV, the requirements may be more than your current system can handle. BUT, the HDV requirements are not needed to do regular SD (standard definition) video (DV) and they usually differentiate that.

By points -
1) Studio's answer - there are a few sites with tutorials and you can find those in the Pinnaclesys forums with a little searching. Keys are Mike Shaw and Video777.
2) Easy to do with your burner software.
3) I have not used S10, but in may have the Auto Color Correction and does have the Color Correction Editor. Not sure if it has the advanced one (Studio's new engine is based on Avid Liquid 7 which has these).
4) Studio has something called direct to disc, but not sure if that is what this feature means. Otherwise, a DVDR settop can do this with a firewire port (if it is included.)
5) Not sure of the feature set. Studio 9 could edit VOBs renamed as MPEG. Liquid can edit VOBs directly (not of the DVD of course), but have not tried it and not sure it was carried to Studio.
6) Chris covered it.
7) Just because they are there, you don't have to use them ;)
8) Chris covered the suites. The video editor can usually apply the same color correction filters to stills that are imported too.

I use Avid Liquid, which is the competitor to Vegas and Premiere. Liquid's editing engine is now the engine used in Studio. We need a service pack too (we should see it in the next few weeks as the resources where helping with Studio first.)

I've used both PC and mac for this type of stuff,so I'll try to throw some info your way regarding both.

First, if you are going with a Pc, then pinnacle is by far the easiest to use. it comes with great manuals and the easiest setup. The way the program is setup is geared towards people like yourself who want to simply tackle family movies and such. As far as exporting it to dvd, you will need some other program. There are a lot of them in this market, including some that you have mentioned, Ulead and Roxio. What I've found is that these programs, although sometimes coming with editing software, are really just better for burning thge dvd. If you are using a PC, the best thing to do is use pinnacle and export it to the right format and burn it using roxio or ulead.

NOW, if you are using, or considering a mac, then the world opens up to you. New MAC computers ship out with everything you need to create and archive your movies to dvd. They have the best tutorials and if you are fortunate enough to have an Apple store in your area, you can pay an extra $100.00 for a whole year of one on one instructions on how to use ANY programs you want. Well worth it for beginners like yourself.

Hope this helps some!

plus apples ship with a solid photo editing software.

Bryon<><

I also vote for SOny MOvie Studio as a great getting started package. You can download demos of almost every NLE, usually try them for 30 days. Some like AVID even have a very limited free version, hoping to entice you into an upgrade quickly. But SOny is teh most intuitive, and puts to shame most other software companies vis-a-vis release management and on-line help. (I developed software for 20 years, so it takes a lot to impress me).

My vote would also go for Sony VMS.

I've heard good things about Adobe Premiere Elements and it also comes in bundles with either Photoshop Album or Photoshop Elements which could be what you need for photo editing. You should check the minimum PC requirements for the actual version of Premiere Elements though.

There are demo versions for all of those, you can download them and see for yourself.

Good luck

I really appreciate all the info. I will definately download trials. Sony VMS seems to be a great option. The idea of going to Adobe Premier Elements bundled with Photoshop Elements is also interesting because of the Photoshop that comes with it for not alot of extra $. I really do need a better still photo software.

Still I need to go with your recomendations for the best Video editing software. If that means getting Sony VMS and then paying more $ to get the Photoshop elements, so be it. I want a software that will work for me for quite awhile without having to upgrade or buy more later.

I have leaned that when you get your computer working with the software you need, Don't change or add anything and I mean nothing!. It can lead to big time problems. One buggy program can lead to re-installing operating software and starting all over again. The trend now for Company bookkeepers and controllers is to not even give them internet connections on their accounting computers. It's just too risky.

What do you think? Tanks again, it really helps to get advice from people who have been there. Do it right the first time, that's my motto.

P.S. I am working with a PC, not a Mac.

If you have a computer that you can keep 100% off the Internet, that is a good thing. It means you can eliminate virus checking and firewall software, which has a big impact on performance. But I only have ONE computer, so I get by with slower performance.

And I agree that you want to minimize and carefully manage changes. That is true for PCs in general, not just video-editing computers. I like to bunch them up, do one package a day, and then not change things for a while if I can.