Studio8 user

[kirkfrey]

OK, I bought Studio8 Deluxe to capture our video tapes and author them to DVD. I like Studio8’s interface but the product is just too flaky. I am thinking about sending it back (thanks Buy.com!).

My issues with it are:
Support seems to suck
I can’t burn a DVD thru the program – it gives me a “disc failed with unknown error” – (it used to work on a previous install) Pinnacle has been no help so far
It seems to be VERY sensitive to any number of things – other programs running, installing other programs, sneezing in its general direction, etc.

It seems as though the ADVC100 is a popular for a capturing device but what authoring/burning software is fairly inexpensive and works consistently? I have a Dell 450 Precision workstation – Xeon 2.4 GHz with 1.5 gig of RAM (I do 3d imaging also).

[JDaCunha]

Have upgraded your Buy.com bought version to latest 8.5.21??? It should remove lots of bugs since early versions.

[bertmartin]

Get your money back if you can!!! I tried for a year to use Pinnacle crap but each update brought more bugs.

I use Sceneanalyzer with my ADVC100 to capture. Ulead's Video Studio also captures and the editor works well. I recommend Video Studio 7 for authoring and burning. Good luck.

[donpedro]

If you are interested.... here is my story

Pinnacle Studio 8 and DV home video editing

Just to clarify... Pinnacle Studio 8 is software that I use. Pinnacle Studio 8 Deluxe is same sofware bundled with analog/digital card and Pinnacle Studio 8 DV is budled with digital (FireWire) card. So I am not sure which part is giving you trouble but maybe my post can help you.

[mustang581]

donpedro, if you do not mind me asking, is it possible to create chapter points for a dvd project using Studio8. basically what I want to do is take a 60min avi or mpeg2 file bring in to Studio8 and create chapter points every 5 minutes, then burn it to DVD. at this point I'm not to worried about menus just to be able to skip forward or backwards.
please let me know if this is possible and maybe a hint as to how to do it.
thank you.
Al

[donpedro]

Yes. You can create chapter points. You have to do it manualy (60 diveded 5 = 12 .... Not a problem ) but it is prety easy. They don't have any "automated tool".

Do you have Studio 8 ? It will be easier just to tell you where in Help file it is

[jarroyo]

In Studio 8 you can say "Create a new scene every xx seconds" automatically. I do exactly what you described by just setting the xx = 300. This option will create these "chapters" either during capture or during import.

To set this up, go to Setup->Capture Source ... and select the appropriate radio button under "Scene detection during video capture". Again this works during import or during actual capture (i.e. import an AVI or MPEG file which you did not capture with Studio).

[donpedro]

jarroyo, You are correct "during capture or during import". It is called "Scenes" and not "Chapters" For me, that is not what I am looking for. Here is explanation.

When I capture, I always capture based on time code. So new scene is when scene was changed (turn off or on recording). When scene is longer and I am sitting in front of PC I can make new scene by pressing "space bar". This way when I edit my video it is very helpful. Now on the end I have 60 minutes of final cuted video. Sometimes scene is changing every 2 seconds. Now what I want to do is automaticaly set chapter point every 3 minutes on my final product. So I have to do it manualy, which is not a big deal, but that is what I believe was asked here.

[mustang581]

donpedro, I do have Studio8 and I was looking around the helpfile but could not find an answer or maybe I was just looking for the wrong thing I was looking for some automated tool but as you mentioned it does not have this, thank you.
jarroyo, thanks for your reply I wil give this a try.

[jarroyo]

Don Pedro,

Im not sure I am following you. If you set it up for automatic scene every 300, it will create a point ONLY every 300 regardless of scene changes. So for a 1 hour tape you will have precisely 12 scenes. If you then drop a menu before the first scene it will automatically create 12 chapters for you (if you let it, it will ask you first).

In fact what I usually do is capture by scene. I then do all my transitions. Then I select all the scenes in my timeline and do a "combine scenes" command. So at this point I only have 1 scene that lasts 1 hour. I set it for automatic scene selection every 300 seconds by going to setup->"capture source" and click OK. I then select the one scene I have and do a "Detect Scenes" and bingo, rather quickly my video is broken into 12 scenes of 5 minutes. I then drop a menu in front of my first scene and I have a complete video with chapters every 5 minutes.

[mustang581]

jarroyo, I'm playing around with a short mpeg2 file that I brought into Studio. if I'm understanding you correctly this is what I'm doing, I do a right click on the clip and select subdivide scenes (every 20 seconds) I end up with about 5 different scenes. I then dropped them on the time line and drop a menu in front of the first scene, let it detect chapters automatically and I end up with a menu with five selections. I then combine the clips on the timeline and edit the menu to remove so I only point to the first chapter.

donpedro, could you point me to the page or chapter in the help file that u were reffering to. thanks.

[donpedro]

mustang581, if you type in Index word "chapter" it should point you into right page. Another way to get there is in "Contents" folow "Disc Menus" / "Editing menus on Timeline". I just found out that you have to have menu on your timeline to do that. I never tryied create DVD without menu before

[Bob W]

OK, I bought Studio8 Deluxe to capture our video tapes and author them to DVD. I like Studio8’s interface but the product is just too flaky. I am thinking about sending it back (thanks Buy.com!).

My issues with it are:
Support seems to suck
I can’t burn a DVD thru the program – it gives me a “disc failed with unknown error” – (it used to work on a previous install) Pinnacle has been no help so far
It seems to be VERY sensitive to any number of things – other programs running, installing other programs, sneezing in its general direction, etc.

It seems as though the ADVC100 is a popular for a capturing device but what authoring/burning software is fairly inexpensive and works consistently? I have a Dell 450 Precision workstation – Xeon 2.4 GHz with 1.5 gig of RAM (I do 3d imaging also).

I bought Studio8 Deluxe also at BestBuy and returned it two weeks later. All I can tell you is the program is nothing but a pile of bugs and yet to be discovered problem. Also the program will only recognize a capture card from Pinnacle. Every aspect and function of the program I found had problems causing computer crashes and lockups resulting in cold boots to restore the system. Take it back as even if you somehow get it to work it takes forever to encode. A much better program to do basic capturing, editing, authoring, and burning is NeoDVD Plus which you may read about here.
http://www.mediostream.com/products/neodvdplus/index.html

[donpedro]

jarroyo, I guess our approach to editing is different. What kind of material do you edit ? I edit my family video. Which means that I reorder scenes, or I use same scene twice, or that I cut a lot of material from begining or end of my scenes.

Now... I tested your steps and I couldn't do "Combine Scenes". Here is what I did.

1. Get one file with one scene. (I believe you can use even file with more scenes).
2. Put that one scene on time line twice. Same scene. So your scene is repeating on timeline.
3. ??? No combine available ???

[jarroyo]

Don Pedro,

Ah, now I understand what you do. I do 99.9% family videos as well, but I leave them chronologically as taped. I think that once you move them out of sequence you cannot combine scenes. You also cannot combine scenes that are outside a physical clip. So you are right, my approach would not work for you.

My approach only works if you have everything in the same order as in the captured file. Sorry for the confusion.

[mustang581]

so, just to be clear on this point. I can break up a video clip into chapters as long as it is Continuos and I have to use at least one menu.
thank you all...

[donpedro]

mustang581, there are two terms here. Chapters and scenes.

Chapters : Used only as a point where you can skip when you play your DVD in DVD player. It doesn't have anything to do with fisical file or scene

Scene : Studio 8 can (not phisically only "marks") split your clip into small parts so you can easy edit your video and move scenes back and frward. When you create DVD menu, you have option to create Chapter point at same place as your scenes, which is unusable in my case but it works great for jarroyo.

[mustang581]

I have one more question, since it seems I have to use menus I might as well go all out. is the following possible: have a menu (m1) with two options one would be play (all chapters) second would be to a secondary menu (m2 - a chapters menu) in the second menu (m2) I would have four more options, something like option 1 (chapters 1 to 4) option 2 (chapters 5 to 8).
I have been playing around with studio but have not been able to get something like the above, also have a problem on the menu return when I start using more than one menu.
thank you for any assistance.

[donpedro]

I don't think that what you are asking is possible. Problem is that whenever during playing it comes to "menu return" it will return. I used multiple menu like this.

Mx= menu "x"
MxCy = capter "y" in menu "x"
MxR= return to menu "x"
Mx(MxCy; Mz)= menu "x" with buttun to chapter "y" and button to menu "z"

M1(M1C1;M2;M3) ... existing chapters in clip after M1C1, M1C2, M1R
M2(M2C1;M2C2;M3C3;M1) ... existing chapters in clip after M2C1, M2C2, M2C3, M2R
M3(M3C1;M1) ... existing chapters in clip after M3C1, M3C2, M3C3, M3R

I hope it make sense. I doesn't look like for me right now

[ktnwin]

I have this approach to create chapters in PS8:
1) combine all the scenes into a single scene. If you saved your edited movie to DV tape, then recapture it back again, it's only one scene
2) manually go thru the movie to look for the place I want to put chapter markers, split the scene right there. I do this for all the places I want to put chapter
3) now, add a menu at the beginning. PS8 will ask if you want to automatically add chapters for each scene, say YES.
This is my error free method, it works every time.

[chrishazel]

OK, I bought Studio8 Deluxe to capture our video tapes and author them to DVD. I like Studio8’s interface but the product is just too flaky. I am thinking about sending it back (thanks Buy.com!).

My issues with it are:
Support seems to suck
I can’t burn a DVD thru the program – it gives me a “disc failed with unknown error” – (it used to work on a previous install) Pinnacle has been no help so far
It seems to be VERY sensitive to any number of things – other programs running, installing other programs, sneezing in its general direction, etc.

It seems as though the ADVC100 is a popular for a capturing device but what authoring/burning software is fairly inexpensive and works consistently? I have a Dell 450 Precision workstation – Xeon 2.4 GHz with 1.5 gig of RAM (I do 3d imaging also).

I have to agree, that's what I was saying 2 days ago, they suck! That was one of my problem for 1 week before I finally decided to help myself since I don't get any help from Pinnacle. 1st of all upgrading to the new version makes S8 crash consistently that was my finding after re-istalling it doing everying else with it nothing changes then i thought about not upgrading to 8.5.21. it works fine!(it works with my system) Now about "disc failed with unknown error" 1st is I defrag my system,format or erase media from other softwares not fro S8 before burning then make sure you don't have a corrupt file..that makes it not DVD compliant and S8 doesn't accept it, one of those is creating to many chapters which is in my case is the problem or scene on top of each other, one of the screen is blue ot just plain black means it's corrupted. Now I'm happy with myself I ...Chris...resolve my problem and of course this forum gives me lots of Ideas. Good luck!!! :P

[mustang581]

jarroyo, I was wondering if you could offer any ideas on the following problem.
I'm working on a project in which I want to use two menus I get to the point were it all seems
to work but the return option is giving me trouble.
the following are the steps I'm going through.
1. Take the video clip and break it up into scenes (every 5 minutes)
2. Drag all the scenes to the Timeline
3. Place a menu in front of the first scene & let Studio assign chapters automatically.
4. I then edit the menu so I only have two options 1.Play Movie 2.Chapter Selection (to be added later)
5. set a return marker at end of movie to Menu1
so far so good...........
6. I add a second menu after the first menu1 (no auto detection of chapters at this point)
- this menu2 will have six options 5 for chapter selections and one to return to menu1
7. I link the chapters manually to each of the 5 options and menu1 to the six option
8. open menu1 and link menu2 to "Chapter selections" option
so far so good...........

at this point I can preview the menus within Studio and see that they are linking properly.
the problem that I'm having is that the when I press the return button (on the simulated remote)
it goes back to menu2 instead of menu1, the only return that I have goes to menu1.
not sure if this is behaving properly or not or will it work after I burn it.
don't want to do that just yet the video is about 2 hours long.

the other option I have tried is placing the second menu2 at the end of the video, but this keeps messing up
the chapter order.

any ideas would be appreciated,
and thank you for your previous responses.