Recommendations on Commercial software

[sanjay]

If there was a world where money was not an issue but just performance, quality and ease of use were the key contributing factors I would like the feedback of our forum on what to buy (and the combination) of best software. I know this is general so would like to give my config also. If some of you think that freeware products are superior to the commercial ones, I would welcome that too. Thks.

Camcorder: Sony TRV340
Firewire and a Analog card (2 different cards)
Soundblaster Pro
PC with Win 2K, 1.2 Ghz, 1 GB RAM, 40 GB drive

Thanks.

Sanjay

[Mirror_Image]

The reality is that we live in no such world. A real estate agent would rightly try and determine a prospective buyers's financial means before they spent their time showing you $13,000,000 homes that they could not possibly afford. The automobile dealer and the loan officer would be of a similar inclination.

That being said, I ask a very relevant question:

Is there a budget limit for this project, a hard upper limit? If one could afford the very best, it is likely that one would use professional consultants to present them with options and demonstrations. If it is $100, $500, $5,000, or $500,000, then so be it, but don't go looking for a walk-through of Blenheim Palace is your budget limits you to a fine 20-room house and a nice bit of land on the Thames.

[sanjay]

Sorry, should have been clearer - the budget is what a normal computer user can afford (i.e. $200-$500 for each type of software). Does that make sense ? Thks.

Sanjay

[D_Knife]

Commercial software for what?

Non linear editing?
MPEG encoding?
Audio editing?
DVD authoring?
word processing? - probably not since, Word doesn't need a DV cam

But please try and specify something next time. Nobody is a mind reader here.

Also what country are you from.
I use $ dollars in Australia but I'm damm sure a "normal" (what the hell is normal) computer user in this country would get nothing useful for $200 - $500 unless you use freeware of course.

[yg1968]

It really depends on your needs.

Personally I like the two following programs: Ulead DVD Movie Factory or DVD complete. They are good and affordable programs that might suit your need. They both include burning to vcd and DVD. Ulead DMF also does SVCD. They both have a trial version. Perhaps you should try them because they do not work with all DV cameras.

A less expensive way to go (but more time consuming) is to import DV to your computer with freeware programs such as DVIO or amcap. You can then convert the DV avi file to mpeg with TMPGEnc. Remember that DV avi takes about 14gig an hour of space.