Video editing : Premiere vs. Media Studio

[kornermi]

Hi,

I'm thinking about getting either Adobe Premiere 6.0 or Ulead Media Studio Pro 6.5 for video editing purpose. Can anyone please compare those two sotware and list pros and cons?

1. I'm an amateur.
2. Currently capturing only analog video. will upgrade to DV later on.
3. Like to get a software which takes up less computer resourses (CPU, memory, .. etc. tons of memory and vast hard drive space, but still using Pentium 2 on a BX board...)
4. have a Matrox capture board. will upgrate more recent Matrox board or ATI all in wonder radeon in near future. Do those softwares have any known compatibility problem with either board?
5. Finally, those 2 are quite pricey. Can anybody recommend cheaper but virtually equally capable software?

Thanks.

 

[sathyan]

ask this question at rec.video.desktop (newsgroup)

cheaper but less capable options are available. it depends what you want to do
at around $100:
Ulead VideoStudio
Pinnacle Studio 7
MGI VideoWave

digital video takes enormous resources, there's really no way of getting around it. Premiere is probably the biggest resource hog but it supports dual processors which you may have

at a minimum I'd suggest
BX is a good stable chipset
600MHz or dual 450's
NT-based OS (2000, XP) with non-essential services turned off e.g. network, virus scan, findfast, firewall, etc
512MB RAM
7200 RPM system drive formatted NTFS or FAT32
5400 RPM dedicated video drive (on a separate controller if using IDE) formatted NTFS, defrag before each capture

SCSI and RAID would help but is not essential for amateur use

 

[kornermi]

Thanks a lot for the reply. One more question, though. I know NTFS has better security feature than FAT32, but is there any reason that NTFS is preferable for video capture?

 

[duragezic]

IIRC, if you are using windows 2000/XP, you can't format a FAT32 partition greater than 32gb. I don't know if NTFS has any other advantage when it comes to size of partitions like that but I guess for large partitions/drives, it's recommended to use NTFS.

 

[NicColt]

>Can anybody recommend cheaper but virtually equally capable software?

Get Sonic's Video Factory for $69 and add the MPEG2 codec for a cpl bucks more, I've used Premiere and Studio and they are an absolute pain in the ass compared to Factory. I'm now using Vegas Video which is it's bigger brother but the only thing this guy can do more is Multi linear editing and Factory is simple linear editing. Thing is I've never needed multi linear editing since I got Vegas.

Today for example I captured a TV episode in MPEG2 which was 330Megs, opened up Vegas and opened the file which took about two minutes. I cut out the commercials in about 5 minutes. I then choosed to render/save it as a SVCD which took 45 minutes. Used Nero to burn a SVCD which took 4 minutes. and there you go, 1 SVCD of a clasic episode done in SVCD.

 

[bob332]

if you are a amateur i wouldn't mess the expensive programs. i use premiere and have a love/hate relationship with it. it is extremely touchy. you will need a lot of cpu resources. lots of mhz, ram, hdd size with video. get a cheaper software bundle and get better hardware. i am running a 1GHz Athlon/512MB machine and this is not enough, in my opinion. my next machine will be something dual, maybe 2 x athlon 1800 or faster with atleast 1GB ram.

 

[sathyan]

FAT32 has a limit of 4GB for maximum files size which is about an hour at DV compression or 12 minutes AVI uncompressed; NTFS has virtually no limit (terabyte) on the size of each file. So for all but short or highly compressed clips FAT32 will not cut it.

Some people find different applications easier to use than others. Also if your Matrox board has hardware compression that may encourage certain choices (Premiere tends to be more widely supported). I have found a storyboard-based app like Pinnacle Studio easier to use as a beginner, then I preferred using a timeline for greater control (most of them have this). So definetely download the trial versions. My advice: Do not buy Premiere or MSP until you've experimented quite a bit. Many people without hardware-assisted capture tend to prefer Sonic Fury's solution. Also there is a Premiere LE which Sony bundles with its iLink Vaio's but I don't know where else you can get it.

 

[NicColt]

>with atleast 1GB ram

I have to agree, I have 512Megs of ram right now and I'm working with a 6 Gig file and I think I need 2Gigs of memory. gawd this is painfull