Ulead Video Studio

[Hugh Allen]

I am about to upgrade in order to edit analogue and dv and am being persuaded to have the ATI Radeon 64mb DDR card. I am not too happy that the ATi website for the product suggests that only Ulead Video Studio software is compatible. True/false?: And if the latter what are the problems for, say, MGI or Pinnacle software instead. Views on best alternative cards also appreciated please.

Hugh Allen

[Zogg]

You didn't specifically say that the card was an ATI All-in-Wonder card. A standard Radeon card doesn't have the video inputs, it has to be an AIW version.

I have been using mine for a month now and all in all I give it about a 7 out of 10. Since the AIW relies on the cpu to do the capture, a h/w based capture card like the Dazzle VC2 would probably be better, but for a general purpose card that does a pretty good job at everything the ATI is a good choice.

You can capture in various formats (AVI, MPEG1 & 2) and those files should work in most applications. In fact they have for me except in Pinnacle Studio 7, but maybe it was me. Right now I am evaluating Ulead VideoStudio 6 and it seems to work pretty good. I may go back to version 5 since that came with the card.

My recommendation is for the absolute best video get a separate card like the Dazzle. If you can live with something that is very good but not the best, then the ATI is a good way to go. You'll just have to experiment with the settings a bit though to find what works best for you.

[Hugh Allen]

I think you may have misunderstood. The card spec that I refer to is at www.ati.com/products/pc/radeon64ddr/index.html andspecifically says it is VIVO. Is it me or you?

HGA

[tvc]

All I can tell you is that the Radeon cards are not compatible with the better editing software. I'd personally recommend that you go with a 3D-only card like a GeForce4 plus a dedicated capture card OR a DV-converter like a DV camcorder with analog in or the Sony analog-to-Firewire. This will greatly simplify captures for you, short of going to a full-blown professional solution like a Canopus or *shudder* Matrox.

[Zogg]

Okay, it's a VIVO card. It doesn't have the TV tuner that the AIW has, but does have an S-Video input.

I agree with TVC that the best solution would be to get a 3D card and a separate capture card.

However, I do disagree with the assertion that the ATI output is incompatible with most software. That might have been true in the past, but I have used the last three versions of their software and it has worked fine. There is a registry tweaking tool that is painless to use and will adjust the MPEG2 output file to be SVCD compliant. I didn't find it mandatory to use it, though.

[tvc]

What I mean to say is that ATI cards have compatibility problems with captures in applications like Adobe Premiere and some other semi-professional solutions. Only Ulead seems to be compatible. Now, I haven't checked out Video Vegas and some other programs, but no Premiere support is a huge pain for me. However, if someone does know how to make an AIW card capture in Premiere without taking up 1GB/minute and not having the capture settings reset themselves, I'm all ears. I'm still in a learning mode here when it comes to this oddball configuration.

To me, Sony's Firewire DV-analog standalone converter + any OHCI-compliant Firewire card is the easiest and most compatible solution overall short of all-out professional solutions. Analog capture cards are strange creatures not to be taken lightly. ATI's abysmal customer support and drivers (that required a reformat of my XP install) should be warnings to people to stay away from those cards unless they can live with the included software and not ever want to upgrade.