Comparison to Studio 7 on Pinnacle's web site

Mekon wrote on 4/5/2002, 10:51 AM
Below is a link to pinnacle's comparison chart with Studio 7 and three other video editors, including VF, kinda interesting.

Some of the things are just plain wrong (no rolls or crawls?, no anti-alising of text?) but some of the other things I'm less sure of. Does VF have scene detection? I thought the capture program did, that it split the scenes into separate AVIs. Is this correct?

Pinnacle's suggestion of lack of CD audio in VF is just plain dumb, as is the lack of DV Capture (separate program). They neglect to say that their title program is separate as well.

Pinnacle's Product Comparison Chart

Comments

SonyEPM wrote on 4/5/2002, 11:19 AM
The Pinnacle comparison contains many errors, and is, of course designed to show off their product at the expense of all others.

Contrary to what Pinnacle says, VF DOES have:

Scene detection
integrated capture
smart capture
rolls and crawls
anti aliasing
CD audio
output to video
unlimited duration output


jimcho wrote on 4/5/2002, 11:40 AM
They are actually comparing with VideoFactory 1.0 (though they don't specify to try and confuse).

What is more disconcerting is PC mags latest review and comparison chart. Besides having obvious errors (no fast/slow motion?!!!), I just don't get how two obviously inferior products, Studio 7 and VideoWave 5, have managed to outscore VideoFactory 2?!!!

Are they that incompetent? Or is there something else going on here?

One only needs to read the user reviews located at Amazon.com, Shopper.com, Epinions.com and others to see that VF gets virtually unanimous praise while the others get poor to mixed reviews.

Why does VF get a bum rap from the media?
Mekon wrote on 4/5/2002, 3:31 PM
Now, the only thing I did not know that VF did was Smart Capture. I thought that this was their low-rez capture feature, where you can fit a whole hour of DV into 350MB, and once you are done editing, do a full-rez render from the orignial tape. Does VF do that?

D.
Mekon wrote on 4/5/2002, 3:50 PM
A couple of reasons for this:

1. Reviewers are under time pressure; they just install, look at the product for a couple of hours, and write the review. I have learned that a lot of VF's best features are "in the UI". The cool features are not a simple menu command, but can be achieved via direct manipulation of the timeline. This is hard to discover by just casually using the product, you have to get into a significant project and take time to learn the tool.

2. A lot of reviews are by the numbers. How many transitions? How many effects are in the box? As we all know, that is not a way to judge video editing software.

3. VF is more powerful than most of the other consumer video editing tools, but I must say here that it is not as easy to learn as some. Remember VF is just a cut down version of Vegas, which is a pro-level tool. If you were using a cut-down version of Premier, for example, it would not be much easier to use, it would just do less.

D.
Mekon wrote on 4/5/2002, 3:55 PM
The one thing I am a bit concerned about is the lack of batch capture, which I noticed is in Vegas. A film-school buddy of mine says that this is a critical feature.

I am not entirely sure what this is. Can't you just hit the capture button and capture a whole tape, with VF creating clips based on scene detection?

D.
Former user wrote on 4/5/2002, 6:08 PM
I use both programs. I have features in both that I like. The main feature I like in Studio 7 is the Scene Detection. VF's scene detection only works if you are using a digital tape. It is based on Time and date changes. Pinnacle actually scene detects a change in a scene. Sometimes it is false, but most of the time right on. If you are using analog footage, this is invaluable. When I first got VF, I had a hard time seperating scenes in order to edit. I found myself doing a lot of pre-editing to break down the scenes. This is one feature that I think VF should incorporate. Even if you are using digital, if you do not stop the camera, you have no way to mark scenes as they are being captured. In studio you can break scenes on the fly.

Otherwise, I think most of the comparisons are just outdated. And I also think both programs are valuable tools, and actually make a good combination. Pinnacle doesn't have to render a whole AVI for output, but you don't have two video tracks. Only a video track and a title track (pinnacle). Pinnacles title tool allows you to mix font styles and sizes on the same page. VF has more built in effx, better audio processing and is more stable.

Not trying to start a debate, but just stating some of my experiences.

Dave T2
jimcho wrote on 4/6/2002, 12:10 AM
DaveT2,

I also like the analog scene detection. It's a feature that VF needs to have, but only if it works as well as Studio's. If it works as poorly as VideoWave's, you may as well leave it out.

But as long as there is no analog scene detection, SF should make it easier to enable the trimmer window. Going to a hidden "internal" tab isn't too friendly for most people. And it's very useful tool for people with analog camcorders.
jimcho wrote on 4/6/2002, 12:29 AM
>>1.Reviewers are under time pressure;

I don't buy this argument. This isn't the first time they reviewed these products.

>>2.A lot of reviews are by the numbers. How many transitions? How many effects are in the box?

If it were that easy, VF would have won easily!

>>3. VF is more powerful than most of the other consumer video editing tools, but I must say here that it is not as easy to learn as some.

Agreed, but the unique tutorials make learning easy. And all packages need a significant learning curve. There's just more to learn with VF!

Although subjective opinion plays a role in these reviews, I have a feeling that advertising dollars plays a larger role.
johnmeyer wrote on 4/9/2002, 12:03 AM
I use both products extensively. VF 2 beats Studio 7 (and Studio DV) on almost every count, especially usability, stability, and performance (and of course, features). The only reason I continue to use Studio is that VF doesn't print to DV tape from the timeline. Anyone who understands what this feature is all about will recognize that it is in a different category from how many transitions one product has vs. another, or any of the other features mentioned.

The reason?

It can save HOURS on every single project, and can almost DOUBLE the project size you can create in a given disk size. How much would it be worth to you if I could change the start to finish time of your next project from five hours to one hour?

I believe the initial marketing literature for 2.0 last summer said that this feature would be included, and I'm still bummed that it wasn't. I'm dying to dump Studio 7, and also dying to switch my various clients (including the local school district's computer lab) from Studio, but this feature is just too fundamental.

Just to be clear, print directly to tape lets you send cuts-only scenes directly back to DV tape without having to render anything. Only video that has been altered (transitions, color changes, titles, etc.) must be rendered. The majority of the minutes in any corporate, event, training, or home video is nothing more than the original footage that has been cut and rearranged. In the DV world, forcing the user to re-render this is almost criminal.

Please, please Sonic Foundry, send the good folks at Pinnacle back to doing nothing but building high-end post-production hardware: Put this feature in the next release of VideoFactory!

John

P.S. While VF does have scene detection and can capture more than 18 minutes at a time (on a FAT Windows system), it is worth the extra money to get Scenalyzer Live (SCLive). Why? Because VF capture is a kludge, whereas SCLive is easy to use and has both timecode scene detection (for DV) and optical scene detection (for analog). Highly recommended!

Sonic Foundry: Why not license the code? In addition to the features noted above, SCLive also lets you scrub and play any AVI file through your DV camera onto a monitor just by clicking and dragging. Very useful! Now if you could put that code into VF so that all native and pre-rendered code could be instantly previewed through the camera (and on any attached monitor), you would jump way ahead of the competition.
SuddenCraving wrote on 4/9/2002, 4:21 PM
"P.S. While VF does have scene detection and can capture more than 18 minutes at a time (on a FAT Windows system), it is worth the extra money to get Scenalyzer Live (SCLive). Why? Because VF capture is a kludge, whereas SCLive is easy to use and has both timecode scene detection (for DV) and optical scene detection (for analog). Highly recommended!"

Why is VF capture a kludge? i am considering purhasing it, for basic purposes. Please expand on your comment.
johnmeyer wrote on 4/9/2002, 5:24 PM
VF is a kludge for many small reasons:

1. It feels like a separate program. The Pinnacle comaparison that claims that it is a separate program may not be technically correct, but unfortunately it is correct from the standpoint of how you, the user, feel when you bring up the capture feature. It feels like you just traveled to another state.

2. The interface has three identical buttons next to each other labeled: "Capture Video," "Capture Tape," and "Capture Image." There is no image to guide you as to which each means, and the pop-up help stupidly just repeats the text that is already on the button.

3. Whenever you capture from a DV tape, a dialog always pops up asking you to name the tape. I'm sure this is designed to help you log video from different tapes, but I've never been able to figure out how to use it. Asset management (logging scenes and tapes) is definitely NOT a strong point of VF.

4. You can't see any of your clips stored in various directories on your hard disk. For instance, I have about twenty AVI files on the drive I use for video capture, and I have the VF capture program open now, and I can't see any of these files, nor can I navigate to where they are.

4. The menus do not seem logically structured. I'm never sure where anything is going to be.

5. Print to tape is handled through the CAPTURE program! This has been true since the beginning of VF, but it was dumb then, and is even dumber now. Search this board and you will find countless posts from newbies who are trying to figure out how to get their video back out to tape. VF 2.0 overlaid a what amounts to a wizard on top of this kludge (you click on "Make Movie" in the "File" menu and then select "Print Your Movie to DV tape." At the end of the render, it brings up the CAPTURE program, but with the program set to send the video to tape. It still isn't the right way to run a railroad (when was the last time you heard THAT expression?).

6. You are asked to save a project when capturing video. I am sure that other users have figure out what this is all about and why it is useful. It probably is designed to help group video assets together, but I've never been able to make head nor tail of it. The bad part is that if you go to "Save" on the file menu, all you are saving is the (useless) project file. "Save" has nothing to do with the video itself, which I find confusing.

I have used close to a dozen different programs for capturing video, and I can honestly say that there is not even one single feature in the VF capture program that is something I wish were in another program. I like VideoFactory 2.0 a LOT and highly recommend it, but the capture program is a real dud.