Which programs for 64 bit computer?

[Mark Wheelan]

Here is something to look at... cheap. You can still get the last update from Sony.

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/private-...-licenses.html <(DVinfo garage sale)

Vegas 9.0x was pretty good. (although the GPU become ineffective in rendering)

[Mike Burgess]

Well, after suffering four days with no electricity (nor heat); really bad snow storm knocked out power, I can return to normal and get back to my testing of editing programs.

My situation could have been worse though; at least I had no tornadoes. My sympathies and prayers to those of you in the mid-south.

Jay West. Thanks for the note. Sorry I did not clarify. I appreciate your input.

Mike

[Jay West]

No need to apologize.

If there have been complaints about Avid's stability and the quality of the company's support, I am not surprised. Avid is pretty specific about the hardware requirements for its products. Those can be pretty narrow. I suspect a lot of the complaints come from folks whose hardware is not optimal for video editing. You would think that a basic editing program ought to run on all manner of hardware and OS configurations, but the price of the basic programs does not allow for much development testing. (That limited pricing means also that company support is apt to be pretty thin, as well. That would account for complaints about it.) The Pinnacle division of Avid -- has it been spun off? --- is in the same boat, only more so.

Your hardware configuration should be up-to-snuff for Avid Studio but you will not know until you actually try the program. That is why demo/trial versions are so important. Get one and find out if it works or does not.

As for getting a fully 64-bit program, you pretty much have to go up to the "pro" type programs. If you are a student --- usually even a part-time student --- at an established institution, your student id will qualify you for the very steep "academic" discounts on the the like likes of Vegas Pro and Edius 6. Those programs will run very well on your I7-2600 with 8 gig of RAM and the GT video card. (There are also similar discounts for PPro CS 5.5. and Avid MC6, but your hardware is a bit light for comfortably running them.)

If you can find somebody who wants to dump their Vegas, as the previous poster noted, be sure that you are buying an upgradeable version. If they have Sony Vegas Pro 10 and upgrade to 11, they will use the Vegas 10 serial number to activate their Vegas 11. If you bought the previously registered Vegas 10, you probably could run it but you would not be able to get an upgrade to 11.

And, speaking of hardware, how are you set-up with hard disks? Hopefully you have a second hard drive for your video projects. If you have the projects on the same disk you use for the Operating System and the programs, you'll run into bottlenecks that will really slow you down. Basically, SATA drives do not work well with simultaneous reads and writes which is what you do when you have program, OS, and data files on a single disk. For some applications, such as word-processing and e-mail, this bottleneck is not noticeable. It can be a big problem when you have your video data and project files on the same disk that is being read for program instructions and operating system calls. If you have not already done so, add a second large drive (preferably one rated to spin at 7200 rpm) and put your video and projects on that disk. Doing that might (or might not) solve some of your issues with Power Director and Pinnacle 12. It will definitely help with Vegas Movie Studio and Avid Studio. (Also, should help with Edius Neo 3 if you wind up testing it, too.)

[Mike Burgess]

Hi Jay.

I have so much to learn. Yes, I have two fairly large hard drives. And I do load my finished projects on one of them.

I will not be upgrading my computer since I just did that a month ago, so I do have to be mindfull of what programs I can use. I am trying Sony Vegas Studio and Power Director right now. Both seem to run fine on my machine. As for Pinnacle 12, I am not unhappy with it, and would consider upgrading to Pinnacle 15, except that I want to expand my "tool set" and have a program that offering a different set of tools and "looks". Avid Studio (while I have not tried it yet), will probably just be familiar enough to Pinnacle that it would not require too much additional learning, but I could be wrong.

On a side note, do you know of any music programs that I can use to add some nice background music tracks for my "commercial" projects? I need some music that I can use without infringing on copyrights, etc., that does not sound cheap. The "Scorefitter" (Ithink that is what it is called) that comes with Pinnacle is OK as far as it goes, but it is thin sounding (digital synthesized) music and limited. I would like to find something of better quality without getting into legal trouble.

Mike

[Jay West]

I believe Avid Studio and Edius Neo may come with some kind of music soundtrack program. I have not used either product so I cannot comment on what those programs might be or how they do. I do not know if those programs would be part of the demo/trial.

I have been using Smartsound products since Adobe CS2 and have found it useful for my needs. There is a pretty wide variety of material available, some free and most not particularly expensive. You basically pick a style, select a track, and pick a length of time. The program generates the track for the exact length you want. If you go to Royalty Free Music, Royalty Free Stock Music Downloads you can audition some tracks and see what you think.

A few years back, I worked with Acid, Sony's looping program. (As I recall, it came with an unbelievablely inexpensive cross-grade version of Vegas Pro that I bought because I had some projects which needed 5.1 surround sound and AC3 exports which, at the time, was a very expensive add-on for PPro.) I never really got the hang of it and Smartsound was good enought for what I needed. I also work with professional musicians who also have products like Sibelius. Where I've had projects where the budget will not support hiring musicians, but I've needed something specific, I have taken old sheet music to them, had them scan it and generate music tracks with a bit of orchestration.

[Mike Burgess]

Thanks Jay. I will take a look at Smartsound.

[Mike Burgess]

Originally Posted by Brian Drysdale

You could hold off buying and check out Lightworks, the new version is due out soon and there seems to a number of improvements over the current beta version. It has a bit of a learning curve, but it's used to edit feature films and has requirements needed for long form productions. Certainly it's a program for cutting stories.

I don't know if the new version will be 64 bit or if that's coming later.

Announcement

Roadmap

Currently, the beta is a free download, but with limited codecs.

Brian, do you have/use Lightworks? What more can you tell me about it, over and above what is shown on the website.

Mike

[Jay West]

I'd suggest registering on the site and downloading the manual(s). Those might be helpful to getting a sense of how the program works (or does not) for you. Also, check out the forums at LIghtworks because, I believe, that there are some tutorials in there.

[Allen Vodi]

It's nice to be back in the forum. I would like to state that I am NOT a representative of any vendor of either software or hardware. I have been (at a consumer level) editing HD video for more than 4 years with various bits of software, some good some mediocre. I belong to various forums of 3 consumer grade NLE which I own. I do so because it offers one the ability to judge the overall quality and ease of use of the app at hand using the feedback from a large number of similar users.

I will not identify 2 of the NLE because I've found using them either excessively expensive (especially when various add-on features are required to complete a simple video) OR of mediocre quality overall. My personal choice currently is PowerDirector or PD (version 10 only, 9 and 8 were poor performers) from Cyberlink. Before I explain my choice I should point out the drawbacks of this app. There are 2 major items about PD that anyone interested in using it should know. One is that their support is very poor (if not for the user forum many users would be gone). Two is that they do not subscribe to the usual level of external add-ons such as New-Blue-FX which is available for a large number of NLE.

The advantages and requirements of the current version (10) of this app are the following:
- Runs on either Win7, 32 or 64 bit
- In 64 bit mode it makes full use of 64 bit mode
- It is fast, nearly 4 times faster than the 32 bit version of 2 years ago
- It is now very stable (unlike all the previous versions)
- It handles AVCHD editing very well
- It makes use of the full GPU with either Nvidia or ATI graphics
- It is simple to use for serious consumers
- It has a user friendly interface

What the vendor does not warn users of is the need for an overall fast PC (for marketing reasons I suspect). And it shows when the forum is analyzed for a while. If the need at hand is for a simple enough app that edits a large variety of videos and renders them to an equally large number of output formats then this app will do very well. From the feedback that I've read on the forum and my personal experience in using it (over the past 3 years) it will render a complex edited AVCHD clip of 10 minutes in 14 - 18 minutes WITHOUT using GPU acceleration. After extensive testing many of the users such as myself have found that GPU acceleration frequently results in renderings that are not as crisp and close to the original as we would like. The increase in rendering speed offered by the GPU is not as critical on a fast PC.

[Mike Burgess]

Hi Allen.

Thanks for the review. Right now, I have the trial versions of PD10 and Sony Movie Studio HD. Since the PD10 trial version is so incomplete, it is hard to accurately judge the overall program. So I have a couple of questions for you:

1. Can you use various royalty free music sites with PD10?
2. Can you burn a longer than one hour AVCHD video on a dual layer DVD? The trial version doesn't seem to want to let you do this.

Thanks.

Mike

[Allen Vodi]

Mike,

1. PD10 offers Smartsound which I believe is in the trial version. I personally do not use it so cannot comment on it but it is popular with other users.
2. A dual-layer DVD will typically allow for about 1 hour as per your finding. There is no "fit" option in the DVD burn section. However, there is an option (on the burn window) to downgrade to a lower burn profile AVCHD of 720 x 480 (=SD). Another way is to render (produce) the video to a lower profile first (3 are offered on the produce window) which will result in smaller files. This can then be imported into the "content" section of the "create disc" window.

Allen

[Mike Burgess]

Hi Allen. The reason I asked about the length of video possible with PD10, is that with Pinnacle, I can burn a longer than one hour AVCHD video on a dual layer disc. And that is without downgrading. It would seem unusual for PD10 to not at least match that.

Mike

[Allen Vodi]

I agree. There have been users complaining of the identical scenario on the forums. But keep in mind that AVCHD is already a compressed format.

[Dermot Shane]

Originally Posted by Mike Burgess

Brian, do you have/use Lightworks? What more can you tell me about it, over and above what is shown on the website.

Mike

I'm not Brian, but i do use Lightworks - have had it on Xp64 & w7 for a while now.. on my system it's stable. It's a pretty good edit toolset, but it's UI is really it's own... some folks find it frustrating but i have been using it since 1989, so i'm happy with it.

I also own several Avid MC' 6.01's a Avid Symp 6.01 and two Avid DS10.5.2's.. so i'm not limited in my choices when it come to tools i can pick to use..

I also have a licence of both Vegas and PP on a w7 machine but rarely use them...

recent films cut on Lightworks include "The Kings Speach" and "Hugo"... it's hard to imagine that one could blame the tool when folks can win Oscar's with it...

d

[Mike Burgess]

Hi Dermot. Thanks for the answer. I'll have to give it a look.

Mike