Transferring digital video from camcorder to computer to DVD suggestions.... (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

(nervous laugh)

Well....

Yesterday I went out and dropped $125 on the
Pinnacle Media Studio Super Deluxe version that
all of you are talking about.

I installed all the discs including the MediaSuite
pack, and yes, now I have some problems concerning
activating the product.

I am waiting to hear from Pinnacle.

On the other hand, problem aside, this program
looks awesome! Very powerful! Within an hour
I had put together a movie with titles and
transitions. I am now working on DVD menus.

 

[Marko Berg]

I'm currently using Pinnacle Studio 9 Plus myself to edit video shot with a digital camcorder. Ron, please report back to this thread regarding your experiences with Studio 10; I'd be most interested to hear how it's working out for you.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

This is the e-mail I got from Pinnacle:


>> An update for the MediaSuite portion of your upgrade installation is now available. In order to successfully install the MediaSuite software, you will need to download the following update AFTER you have installed the Studio Plus version 10 upgrade discs but BEFORE you install the MediaSuite upgrade disc:

MediaSuite update:
http://www.pinnaclesys.com/SMSpatch


Once you have installed this update successfully, you may go ahead and install the MediaSuite portion of your upgrade. If you have any further questions, please visit our support site for more information:

http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSit...sumer+Support/

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Joseph,

thank You. Going to try it now.

Those of you using Pinnacle Studio....

Could use your help.

I figured mostly everything out on my own as far
as laying out my captured video and adding titles.

The DVD MENU process is kicking my ass.

I selecteda menu and dropped it to the front of
the timeline. I even figured out how to edit the
buttons and change the titles.

But creating submenus and assigning clips to those
menus? I can't figure it out.

The instructions in the book don't help.

Basically, I want to create a main menu with
three categories related to my Florida trip:

Gatorland, Sea World, Magic Kingdom

That is my main menu.

I then want another menu, one each for those
categories (3 submenus total) where I can do
individual chapters of clips related to that topic.

I am just totally spaced out on how to do this.

If anyone wants to help, please send me a
private email (rather than take up space here).

[email protected]

Thanks in advance

 

[Ronald Epstein]

An update...

First of all, that patch that Joseph alerted me
of worked well. I uninstalled the Media Suite
portion of the software, ran the patch, then
reinstalled the suite and all works well

Also just finished creating my first DVD taken
from my High Definition camcorder.

The overall process of making the DVD using
Studio 10 was extremely easy. I pretty
much figured everything out.

As noted in my previous post, I wanted to do
a MAIN MENU and several SUB MENUS, but I just
could not figure out how to do it.

I just had the Smart Movie Maker create
one large menu for me to put all my chapter stops
on.

The disc came out perfect! There was a real
sense of accomplishment in making my first DVD.
I even managed to add music to the main menu.

Here's the problem....

I had 94 minutes of video. Upon burning the DVD
it was indicated that I would only get 68% quality
on my 4.7GB blank DVD. How could that be?

I figured with only 94 minutes of content plus
menus, I should be able to fill the DVD at 100%.

In any case, I am very happy with Pinnacle Studio
10 Media Suite. After installing the patch the
program exhibited absolutely no bugs whatsoever.

 

[Citizen87645]

IIRC with iDVD you get an hour of video at full bitrate on a single layer DVD. Anything more the bitrate has to be knocked down to accommodate.

 

[SethH]

Yep, one hour is all you get. I don't honestly understand why this is the case, but it is. Question for those who know: is it possible to encode in MPEG-4 to fit more on? If so, how many DVD players will play this format?

 

[Citizen87645]

The way I understand it the video is at full bitrate, so it's like flooring the gas pedal. If there is a way to do variable bitrate you'd be able to better balance picture quality with storage capacity, like the studio product.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Let me give you an update...

The Pinnacle Media Suite 10 is back to
showing bugs once again.

Upon rebooting my computer and starting
the program the software tells me I can't
use it because the codecs aren't registered.
This was the problem the "fix patch" initially
solved, but since rebooting, has reverted
back to the original problem.

My Cinema DVD Player won;t work either.

Furthermore, there is an outpouring of
complaints on the Pinnacle support forum
about the bugs in the program.

Seems Pinnacle has a real problem on their
hands with this software. I'm out $125 for
software that cannot be returned.

Fortunately, from what I understand, Pinnacle
is a company that stands behind their product
and they are supposedly very good about providing
fix patches for their software.

I'll keep my fingers crossed.

 

[Paul McElligott]

I've found that Pinnacle Studio always has stability problems with each new version and these are eventually corrected by a series patches.

Version 10 is virtually a from-the-bottom rewrite of Studio based on Pinnacle's high-end Liquid Edition software.

 

[Ken Chan]

First, you clearly fit more than an hour using MPEG-2. The various flavors of MPEG-4 give you about twice as much playtime at the same bitrate, but then it's no longer a DVD-Video disc. It's just a DVD with some MPEG-4 files on it. Few players, if any, will know what to do with it.

And Ron: did you go with FireWire?