Vegas Movie Studio is a fabulous application, there is training available for it if you need it, and best of all, if one day you feel you need a more robust application, VF files (which are what Vegas Movie Studio generates) will open in it's big brother, Vegas 5 or 6.

Been there. Started with Studio 8, got 9 as soon as it was available. Went through many months of grief and aggravation. Spent countless dollars and frustrating hours, but eventually wound up with a very well-behaved system running Studio 9 flawlessly. As long as the source video was DV, captured through my camcorder.

But I wanted to also capture via TV tuner card, and Studio could not control it because it lacked (at the time) WDM driver support.

At that point. I bought Screenblast. (Vegas Movie Studio in a previous version...) It took a little while to adjust to using a timeline exclusively, as I'd often used Studio's storyboard. But I very quickly recognized Screenblast's power and the ability to have more than 1 video track. The big derog was the burning software, Sonic's MyDVD, which was just about universally slammed here on the forum. It sounded so lame, that I never even installed it. I'd edit in Screenblast and burn with Studio 9.

Then came Vegas 5, with a vastly-improved DVD Architect 2. I bought that and haven't looked back. I still use Studio occasionally, because of its Smart Sound capability. (I just create an appropriate-length Smart Sound file in Studio, save as an audio-only avi and bring it into Vegas, where everything else is done.)

I have no experience with Movie Studio's DVD burning counterpart, but users here say that it's basically a repackaged DVD Architect 1, which didn't have powerful enough features to attract my attention. It's reportedly much better than MyDVD, however.

My impression of your situation is that you need to be careful: you speak of using MPEG files from a capture card. These can be VERY problematic, unless your card/capture software combination writes good files. Often times, there are timestamp issues hidden in the MPEG files that result in A/V sync problems.

You'll have a captured file that appears to play correctly in the preview window, and in Windows Media Player, but when you burn it to a DVD, the A/V sync begins to slip until it's so bad that it's unwatchable. The inclination is to blame your video editing software, but it's often not at-fault. Until I discovered what was causing my problem, (bad capture software) I had this problem manifest itself with Studio, Ulead Videostudio 7 and Vegas 5/DVDA-2.

Of course, as you have read, (or will read) editing with MPEG source video is not recommended with most video software. It can work, but often presents problems and compromises.

If I had a lot of MPEG source and only needed to do simple tasks, such as cuts & very basic transitions, I'd look at VideoRedo and Womble's MPEG VCR . They are able to do a very good job on a project like that and write out MPEG files very quickly. I did try out the Womble program on one project, and it worked very well. Of course, the output had to be burned to DVD with another product, but I had that covered with Studio & DVDA-2.

Thanks, everyone!

cbrillow:

When Studio isn't crashing, I've not noticed any A/V sync problems after editing MPEG files. OTOH, my capture card does HW compression and the software (Beyond TV) is configured for CBR (constant) not VBR (variable); could that be the reason why I haven't noticed any A/V sync issues? I can't say I've burned many DVDs with my current configuration; perhaps the problems would become manifest if I did?

Can you clarify your statement about "editing with MPEG source video is not recommended with most video software...it can work, but often presents problems and compromises"? Are you saying it's a "lost cause" and that it's not worth it? Or just not worth it with Vegas Movie Studio+DVD?

Also, if my MPEG files *are* problematic (due to card/capture issues), would it make any difference which product (Vegas Movie Studio+DVD, Pinnacle, VideoRedo, Womble, etc.) I use to edit them? If not, and if the price is about the same, why wouldn't Vegas Movie Studio+DVD be the best choice?

Lastly, so you don't recommend using Vegas Movie Studio+DVD to do the actual DVD burning? Ugh.

Thanks again, for your comments!

"Can you clarify your statement about "editing with MPEG source video is not recommended with most video software...it can work, but often presents problems and compromises"? Are you saying it's a "lost cause"?"

I wouldn't say that it's a lost cause, but it's not ideal for a couple of major reasons. First, MPEG is a heavily-compressed format, and the compression scheme produces "groups of pictures" which represent a sequence of frames based upon commonality and differences calculated by examining changes from frame-to-frame within the group. It's a very clever method, but the bottom line is, you don't have a full frame to represent each frame of your source video.

This means that the frame information must be recreated when you play it, which is the job of the MPEG decoder. It also means that the same thing must be done when you have MPEG video on your timeline, which can make playback/preview slow and/or jerky if your hardware isn't the fastest.

If you haven't noticed any sync problems, it could be because your hardware/software combination could very well be writing good files. But you didn't mention how you made the determination that the sync is ok, because you said that you've burned few DVDs. Remember, the type of problem I mentioned is 'hidden' and often not observed by playing back with a software player on a computer. Sync problems caused by timestamp problems often only show up when rendered to MPEG and put on a DVD.

If I were in your position, I'd try to prove that your MPEGS are good. There's a freeware application called PVASTrumento, which can examine your files and locate bad timestamps. I mentioned Womble, because it has a built-in tool to test for, and -- supposedly -- correct 'em.

Also, to give you more confidence in your MPEG files, burn a few test DVDs (at least 1 hour in length) from this material and see if you have good sync. Given that you have a hardware encoder, I'd think there's a very good chance that your files are going to be ok.

If you have good source files, I'm sure Vegas MS + DVD will do a great job on them. And, as Spot mentioned, that would put you in line for eventual upgrade to Vegas/DVD Architect. That's a great lineage!

And, something that may have gotten lost in the posts - the dvd burning app in Vegas Movie Studio is superior to what was in the previous version. It is using DVD Architect 1, which is a step up from what was there before, apparantly.

Thanks for the additional info and for an explanation as to the pitfalls of editing MPEG files. I've wondered about this for quite a while. Finally, I think I understand!

Is some software better than others to edit MPEG files? I had heard that TMPGEnc MPEG Editor was one of the better editors compared to some others that apparently introduce sync issues--even prior to burning to DVD. As I mentioned, I had never encountered this when editing with Pinnacle and would hope I wouldn't with Vegas MS + DVD, either. Again, just for editing, not burning.

Someone mentioned editing AVI files; don't they have the same compression/sync issues--perhaps even more so, considering how much smaller (at least some) AVI files seem to be? DivX files, I guess. Perhaps my ignorance is showing here, too. Can Vegas MS + DVD or other tools edit AVI/DivX files?

I'll look for PVASTrumento to test my captured MPEG files. In the meantime, what would you recommend I use to burn test DVDs? I've lost all confidence in Pinnacle.

BTW, I've downloaded the 30-day trial of Vegas MS + DVD but haven't installed it yet.

There are many different types of AVI files, as AVI is a basically the description of a "container" that may be filled with media in several different formats. What forum denizens often mean when they say "AVI", is a specific type known as DV AVI. This is the type of file you get when you capture in Vegas via the vidcap function, and is one of the two main formats -- the other being MPEG2 -- that you can capture with Studio.

While some codecs, such as DivX, can produce very compact files with good quality, DV AVI has a standard disc space consumption of about 13gigabytes/hour of video. DV AVI is a compressed format, but the ratio is only about 5:1, whereas other codecs often exceed that by many times, with varying results. DV AVI is constrained to this ratio by the specification.

NLEs almost always handle DV AVI with greater facility than MPEG, and there are far fewer reports of A/V sync problems with it as the source material.

As for burning -- I don't think you'll be able to do that with the trial version of MS+DVD, but I may be mistaken. It used to be that the trials were restricted in this way because the MPEG encoder that they used required licensing, which comes only with the purchased versions.

If you don't have anything else to encode the files and prepare your video_ts and audio_ts folders, you may be stuck using Pinnacle to burn. If you are able to prepare these folders properly, you may be able to burn with Nero, if you have it. (You've probably seen that mentioned on the Pinnacle forums...)

I use Vegas but a coworker here uses Movie Studio+DVD. I saw a project he was working on for a couple of weeks and it was great. He edited the video and burned the DVDs without a hitch.

As Spot said earlier, using that version will make you want to upgrade to full Vegas. I am in the process of selling him my Vegas 5.0.

Good luck.

Since there are many different types of AVI files, what determines whether the file can be edited? Is having the "playback codec" installed (such that the file can be played in, say, WMP) sufficient to be able to open the file in an editing program like Vegas MS+DVD?

What are "NLEs"?

I don't have Nero; just Roxio. It's been a long time since I burned with Pinnacle. In fact, I forget how to do it! I'm assuming I can take the edited content output from Vegas MS+DVD and easily burn it with Pinnacle? (assuming it doesn't crash)

Burn from Vegas MS+DVD

Thanks, dmcknight. Does the 30-day eval permit that?

I'm going through the install now. What's this about it installing MSDE and without warning?

I already have SQL Server installed on this PC.

DOH!

Sorry, I didn't realize you meant during the 30-day period.

Someone earlier said burning is disabled during the trial. Vegas MS creates standard Video_TS folder that should be compatible with your burning software.

"Is having the "playback codec" installed (such that the file can be played in, say, WMP) sufficient to be able to open the file in an editing program like Vegas MS+DVD?"

In general, yes. But it doesn't guarantee that you'll have satisfactory performance, either during editing or in outputting a new file. Your mileage may vary. ;^)

NLE = non-linear editing This distinguishes the process from tape, which is a linear medium.

"I'm assuming I can take the edited content output from Vegas MS+DVD and easily burn it with Pinnacle?"

My suggestion was -- if you can't prepare a DVD directory structure with Vegas Studio+DVD because of MPEG encoder license issues -- to do it in Pinnacle Studio. That would be the "Make Movie" function, which assembles and prepares the video_ts & audio_ts directories. Once those are in place, you could burn with Studio. Or Roxio, since you have that.

To put it another way: You may not be able to render to MPEG from Vegas Studio. You may have to do an intermediate render to DV AVI and then take that into Pinnacle to render to MPEG and prepare DVD folders. These are things that I'd try, if I were in your situation.

dmcknight said:

"Someone earlier said burning is disabled during the trial. Vegas MS creates standard Video_TS folder that should be compatible with your burning software."

Under normal circumstances, yes, but I don't know about the demo. If you already have compliant MPEG, maybe it does. The issue I brought up really was centered around not having a license for the MPEG encoder. If you can't encode from the Vegas MS demo, then your MPEG would have to come from another source. So if the MS DVD creation software does create the folders, it's not doing it with MPEG from Vegas MS+DVD.

No way I can test this, so it's pure speculation based upon reasoning.

I completed the eval install and attempted to open an MPEG file. It said something about the eval not supporting that format.

I was able to open and traverse some WMV files that I had downloaded from the 'net. The product didn't crash the entire time, so that already places it above Pinnacle. ;^)

It wasn't immediately clear to me how to (say) edit out frames from the material, but I'm assuming that's a no-brainer once I figure out the interface.

Can anyone confirm whether the eval prevents the opening/editing of MPEG files?