Video Editing Bangs per Buck

grahamlthompson

I repeat. The Sony Vegas programme lacks support for AVCHD burning to DVD blanks.  Although I have a blu-ray burner I use far more DVD's for HD than the expensive blu-ray blanks.

Bob++

Unless a reviewer has experience with all the major editing programs the comments will tend to be biased in favor of what we know and have invested time and effort to learn.

There is no 'perfect' editing suite out there and 12Harry is mostly right in his excellent reply above although I believe Magix offers up to 99 tracks (video or audio)   key framing et al. I have no experience with 3D so can't comment on that. I am not sure what 'smart render' does, but loading mts files takes seconds. Output takes longer, depending on the chosen format and how much you do in terms of fades, zooms, pans, titles, colour correction, etc, etc.

One feature I find useful is the ability to render a part of the video, especially where I have done a lot of work,  so that I can see what it will look like on the TV before I finalise it.

As for titles I also have Magix 3D Maker which is far more powerful than I will ever need.

vkmast

It's true that Vegas Movie Studio HD 11 Platinum lacks 'official' support for AVCHD burning to DVD blanks because as they say 'it does not meet industry standards'.
However if you go to 'Tools / Burn Disc / Blu-ray Disc', put in a DVD blank and Render and Burn, you'll get what you want (no menu, w/ PCM Audio, in Pro there's  also ac-3). I for one have done this many a time.

grahamlthompson

Strange then that the full pro version does so AVCHD allows 1080i content on a DVD blank complete with full (and animated if you wish) main and chapter thumbnails just the same as a blu-ray blank does and ac3 5.1 audio.

Also very puzzling as Sony and Panasonic jointly designed the AVCHD codec to allow DVD based HD recording on mini disc camcorders.

AVCHD - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Incidentally something else Magix offers and Vegas does not, the capability to mix your own 5.1 content.   


The codec was designed to allow use of cheap SD media to store full-hd 108oi content.  It's a more efficient codec than the one used on a commercial blu-ray (BDAV).

vkmast

Just to be clear on this, hd burning to dvd is not 'officially' supported in either Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 11 or Vegas Pro 11. Pro 11 allows ac3 audio also, Studio version only PCM audio on AVCHD discs.
And remember that AVCHD discs may not necessarily work in all BD players.

grahamlthompson

You won't find a current blu-ray player that won't play AVCHD.  You would have to go back a long way to find one.

Incidentally Smart Rendering is simply that already compliant footage is simply copied bit for bit from the original clips.  It's as fast as your HDD can copy the data, This would be clips with only straight cuts and no overlay video (eg titles),

This says DVD Architect pro supports AVCHD

Vegas Pro 11 DVD and Blu-ray Disc Authoring

12harry

I'm confused, is the consensus that you can do in Vegas/studio/DVDArchitech/Studio whatever Magic does? If that's MX then it should offer something, being nearly 3x the price of Studio.

Hardly surprising as Sony is one of the originators of these Standards...
Quite apart from which, I don't know of anyone that's recording anything other than  (normal) DVD's - not at least I suspect the price of BlueRay discs comes down a bit!  It's true AVCHD discs would be a "part-way" Option, but it becomes a non-common standard . . . . which depends upon a greater up-take of BD players.

Many of my Vids are under 1min (and viewers are often very grateful), so I don't see there is much pressure to produce discs* that can only be read on a BlueRay player . . . .  these are not yet commonplace, I'd dare suggest, perhaps as folks consider whether they need that 3D-badge. With 3D TV's being more common, that could be a consideration, rather than the relentless increase in screen-size.  
Where 3D fails is in the low availability of "Content" - although this might be solved by On-Line delivery which is set to become significant as Advertisers try to reach "more-eyes" with a limited availability of new content. 3D would provide greater interest, perhaps, in re-processed Blockbusters.


* perhaps "increased quality" might be one reason!

vkmast

I still think 'user beware', because one will find many less current blu-ray players
that may not play AVCHD If one's making these discs for others, this is a point to consider?
As regards the DVDA support, you may be referring to this?
DVD Architect Pro software supports today's popular video and audio formats such as AVI, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and AVCHD so you can make a DVD or Blu-ray Disc that will play on almost any DVD/BD player or DVD/BD-capable computer.
I agree that the wording may not be specific enough.
You might want to see some recent discussion about the matter:
Sony Creative Software - Forums - Vegas Movie Studio Messages
Like others have said, it's best to trial the options one finds interesting and consider what seems important to the user. I and some others like Vegas, others Magix /whatever, and that's quite all right with me...
Merry Christmas to you all

vkmast

12Harry,
"increased quality" is just the reason I do it once in  a while and my WIN7 laptop with DVD-drive and HDMI-to-TV with Splash software plays them rather nice. I don't even have a BD player...

12harry

vkmast - so I'm getting the impression a BD player is NOT needed - but yr Laptop must be pretty high-spec to play (even DVDs),
I have long given up playing my DVDs on my 2-core PC  - the comparison with a DVD-player TV is just chalk/cheese.  My PC is just not up to the task, IMHO.

Fact is that seeing my vids projected quite wide, the quality is pretty good and I wonder if it might be worth more agro - esp. as I would be unable to check the resulting discs, although "Splash" might give the possibility of checking it does play.