Is Corel VideoStudio Pro X2 really worse than Vegas Movie Studio 9 ?!?

[vantechmag]

I wonder mainly because X2 offer image stabilisation, is probably much easier to use in (even in advanced mode, according to tons of users) and work probably faster on my notebook...

1) But I want maximum quality first, so I wonder if following review from Amazon might be right???? Or did he make some crazy setting, so I really can get the same high quality (virtually as the original DV footage) with both alternative?

2) Then want I to optimize the footage with nice high contrast (like the effect of a S curve in a photo editor and max black and white points) so I wonder if that's possible, too??

3) And I generally want a golden / sunny tone, both for indoor and outdoor scenes... So is the color correction, white balance and tone adjustments in X2 good enough for manual adjustments???

4) And I guess X2 work with Keyframe effects (with a start, max and end point) just as Vegas Movie Studio???

Yes, I have not any Video Editor (except WMM in Vista) yet and five high class ero films on big DV tapes that I did edit with a fine video mixer board and huge Sony DV recorder 1998 and then release on VHS

But I naturally want to release my films on DVD in good time and first make a delicious youTube video, with 4:37 min of the delicate theme (that actually is like a mix of the first Enigma and "Erotica" by Madonna) in highest possible quality!!

- The strange review in Amazon -

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1HCX8JM89630L
***00 Video quality is lacking, November 30, 2008
By Geek Daddy

If you care about video quality, might I suggest Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9 Platinum Pro Pack instead? I could not get VideoStudio to give acceptable quality.

I am primarily interested in compressing about 20 miniDV tapes (not worried about HD video at this point) that I have accumulated over the years. With storage so cheap these days, I want to store the highest quality encoded video on the hard drive of my home theater PC.

I downloaded the free trial versions of Corel VideoStudio Pro X2 and Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9 Platinum Pro Pack and compared the quality of the encoders. Straight out of the box, the Sony's encoders seemed to be more configurable than the ones in VideoStudio.

I created a sample video with my miniDV camcorder that pans/zooms across hardcopies of video test patterns, photographs, text, etc.

I was able to find several compression settings (bitrates, etc.) with Vegas that produced video almost the same quality as the original uncompressed video. But with VideoStudio, I was unable to find any setting that had good quality. The video captured by VideoStudio was MPEG format and had compression artifacts right off the bat, even before further processing.

I also tried using the Windows video capturing utility which captures uncompressed motion JPEG AVI, which was much better. However, after importing it to VideoStudio and writing out the video from the timeline, the output had motion blur sawtooth edges as if the video was not properly deinterlaced. I tried several configurations (including HD 720 30p, NTSC DVD, NTSC MPEG2 720x480) and nothing worked.

It could be that some VideoStudio expert can make this work with some magic potion that has eluded me. But as for me, I will go with Sony which works well out of the box.

I have not tried out all the bells and whistles of both products as video quality is the primary deciding factor for me. Your decision may weigh these other factors higher, resulting in a different purchase. Either way, happy editing.

[minidv2dvd]

geek daddy doesn't have a clue. minidv cam tapes should be captured to DVavi not mpeg as he did with corel and not motion jpeg like he did with some windows program.

so use windv to capture the tapes directly to DVavi, then import the files into your editor.

i never used either of those ones but i do use vegas pro and highly recommend it.

[filmboss80]

I'm always amazed to read misleading software reviews written by people who did not take the time to learn how to use the software properly. A straight DV-AVI capture from a mini-dv camcorder tape makes an unmolested duplicate of the original digital video. As long as you stay with DV-AVI, the footage will look as good as the original, whether you're editing in Vegas, Corel / Ulead, Premiere, or whatever. (The exception is when you add effects, transitions, and titles to a particular piece of footage. Reencoding will take place in the affected segment.)

The main differences between the editing software choices have more to do with features and user interfaces than output quality, as long as your capture and output settings are correct.