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U-Lead MediaStudio Pro 6.5 For those new to Ulead and its various iterations
of MediaStudio and VideoStudio products, MediaStudio provides a
full-featured video capture, editing and output solution. The video
capture capabilities capturing from Digital Video cameras, analog
camcorders (8mm and VHS, Hi8mm and S-VHS), as well as TV signals and USB
video cameras. Of course, as the MediaStudio is software only, you do
need a some kind of video capture card or TV tuner card. On my test
machine, I used a very basic Adaptec 1394 card for capturing DV and the
new nVidia Personal Cinema system for capturing analog video and off-air
TV signals. MediaStudio’s video editing module is based upon the timeline editing structure but also offers a rudimentary storyboard option. It provides a diverse range of special effects and transitions as well as a powerful audio editing module. It also includes a Video painting module and a professional and extremely powerful titling, graphics and animation module called CG Infinity. After you have completed your projects, MediaStudio can be used to output your finished files back to DV or analog videotape, or saved as digital or streaming media files (Real Media and Windows Media) for electronic distribution. MediaStudio Pro 6.5 can also save your finished files as MPEG I or MPEG II files, suitable for burning onto CDs, VCDs or even DVDs. Ulead even includes an extra free CD full of source materials to work with and add to your productions. MediaStudio Pro supports the latest Intel Windows computers including Pentium 4 and AMD 3Dnow Processors. However, it will run on 500 Mhz Pentium III with at least 64 MB of RAM. For DV capture and editing, you’ll need Windows 98SE or better and a OHCI compliant 1394 capture card. Many current laptops and notebooks ship with a built-in FireWire/1394 Connector that meets these specifications. The Video Capture Section Depending on your computer’s hardware, you should be able to capture and input video from virtually any kind of source – be it DV or analog videotape, cable TV, CD disk, USB camera, etc. Usually the most complicated part of installing a third party video editing program is setting up and calibrating the new software for your existing hardware. I found the DV set-up to be quite simple. The new plug and play installation recognizes the DV or Digital8 camcorder (it has to be connected via your computer’s 1394 port, powered up and engaged in play mode) and automatically loads the correct drivers and device controls. By using DV Device Control, MediaStudio enables you to easily control the camcorder’s play, fast forward, rewind, etc. from the computer screen instead of having to punch the camcorder’s control buttons. By using MediaStudio’s Batch capture option, you can go through your entire tape, marking in and out points of the various scenes. When you are done with that tape, batch capture can let you walk away, letting your computer and camcorder do all the work. If you want to capture analog video and audio, you need to select the appropriate capture plug-ins and source devices. MediaStudio Pro then works with your installed capture card to digitize the audio and video directly to your hard drive. MPEG Capture! If you are planning to create Video CDs or want to distribute your video to users with older computers, you can capture and edit your videos in an MPEG-1 format. If you plan on authoring DVDs, you can capture and edit your video in the MPEG-2 format. Capturing and authoring in MPEG provides high quality and much smaller file sizes than normal multimedia Windows file formats. For the professionals, MediaStudio Pro 6.5 now supports field-based compression for MPEG2 as well as Variable Bit Rate (VBR) Encoding. These two technologies enable you to create higher quality video images combined with smaller file sizes. By the way, MPEG capture only works if your capture card supports RGB or YUV capture. Otherwise, you can capture normally and then, later, convert your finished project to MPEG 1 or MPEG 2 MediaStudio Pro’s other cool capture features include color calibration capabilities using the bundled vectorscope and waveform modules. This enables you to color correct as you capture. This works best if you remember to capture 30 seconds or so of color bars at the beginning of each tape. Scene detection and “seamless capture” are also very helpful. Scene detection enables the MediaStudioPro capture module to capture video on the fly, and then automatically break it down into separate scenes every time there is a major camera move or scene change. This can be very useful for editing later on. You can use Scene Detection when capturing or later during the clip trimming process. Ulead’s new “Seamless capture” feature is a bit of a misnomer. What this enables you to do is to capture video files longer than 4 Gig in size. Rather than stopping when it reaches the GB limit, MediaStudio Pro can be set to automatically create as many new video files as needed. Upon playback, these files are linked together and treated as one. VIDEO EDITOR The MediaStudio Pro 6.5 video editor module is a result of many years of growth and refinement. It functions as the control center for assembling, fine-tuning and outputting creating your finished video programs. The basic editing GUI consists of five
windows; the production library, timeline, storyboard, source and
preview windows. The production library is where all the video and audio
clips, music, titles, graphics, special effects, filters, transitions,
etc, are stored and accessed. MediaStudio
Pro 6.5 now includes over 100 2D and 3D effects including my favorite,
the fade to black transition for starting and ending your movies.
These effects include various controls to position and manage the
speed and direction of these transitions. The first step is to bring your various video elements into the media library section of the production library. By the way, when initially capturing your clips, you can set up the capture utility to save them directly to the production library. If you haven’t done that, then you need to find the clips on your hard drive and bring them in. You can also being in video, audio and still image files from CDs or other sources. Once you have loaded your captured video clips into the media library folder of the production library, you have a few options regarding your next steps. You can use the Source Window to edit and trim your clips prior to assembling them. You can drag and drop the raw clips onto the time line, building a rough assembly edit and then going back later to trim and fine cut the clips. Or, you can open up the StoryBook folder and drag your clips into that. You can drag and drop the clip icons into the correct order. Once they are all trimmed, you can move the storybooked scene icons to the timeline, preserving their assembled order. If you are planning on doing lots of trimming and re-arranging, or using many effects, transitions, titles and audio layers, you should dump your clips directly into the timeline and edit them there. MediaStudip Pro offers an “automatic A/B roll Layout” which means you alternate inserting your clips. Clip One goes on the top track, Va. Clip 2 goes on the bottom track, Vb. Clip Three goes on the top track, Va. And so on and forth. Depending on your editing preferences, video clips can be displayed on the timeline as filmstrips, filenames, thumbnails or colors. Editors can lock and unlock the tracks to protect finished work while editing other tracks. The TimeLine provides two basic video tracks,
a transition track and several more video layering tracks. It includes
two basic audio tracks with a transition section between them. There are
also additional audio tracks for sound effects, background music and
Voice Overs. The new Voice Over capabilities enable you to record a
real-time narration as you are watching your “finished” video
presentation. This enables you to easily cue the narrative to the
appropriate actions on your tape, instead of timing it out. You can
create up to 99 video and audio overlay tracks.
MediaStudio Pro 6.5 provides a variety of ways to trim and edit your clips on the timeline. You can do rough edits directly on the timeline or in the Sourrce Windows. The Clip Window enables you to do frame accurate cuts. Experienced editors will enjoy the appreciate MediaStudio’a three different Ripple Editing options: No Ripple, Single Track Ripple and Multiple Track Ripple. Ripple editing enables the insertion of new clips into a project without disturbing the relationships between other clips and various audio, video and effect tracks. When editing long and complicated productions, Ripple is a must. You can also do insert edits on the timeline, adding new video or audio over existing clips. You can also insert a whole new scene in the middle of an existing clip, essentially splitting the existing clip into two. Adding transitions is as easy as selecting them from the Effects Library within the production library and dropping them into overlapped areas on your timeline. Once in place, you can customize the effect’s direction, intensity and duration, etc. As you edit using MediaStudio Pro you can check your work by using the Preview Window or Instant Playback. You can preview your whole projector or just parts of it. MediaStudio Pro 6.5 also supports scrubbing, enabling you to drag your mouse back and forth across your project and to see and hear what you have. If you are editing DV video, you can preview how your finished video will look once it is recorded back to video by connecting your DV camcorder. As you preview your video, it plays back on your camcorder. To see it on the computer screen, just disconnect the 1394 cable. The audio editing module provides “professional” control of audio, music and sound effects. The Audio Editor enables users to create standalone audio files from video clips, as well as to mix, insert, and replace the audio clips throughout the timeline. The Audio Editor enables users to adjust sound levels, pitch and speed of audio files. Various effects such as echo, fade, reverse and stereo pans are also available. The CG Infinity module is used to create full motion titles and graphics that can be inserted or superimposed over your existing clips in the timeline. CG Infinity is a powerful and full featured object-based titling and animation program that provides precise control of styles, paths, key frames and object attributes. Titles can be created using any TrueType font and can re-sized, rotated, colored, etc.. You can distort and control the perspective of the letters. CG Infinity lets you change font, kerning, leading and letter alignment. For graphics artists, CG Infinity is a very powerful tool for creating unique designs, animations and graphics. Artists can modify the text and graphics with animations, movement, shadows, positioning, transparency, soft-and hard edges as well as use of gradients, fill colors, textures and special effect such as blinking lights and lens flares. Video Paint is a extremely powerful
rotoscoping program that allows users to paint directly over any
captured video frame or series of video frames. It is truly amazing.
Its wide range of painting tools includes Paintbrush, Airbrush,
Crayon, Oil Paint, and many more. You
can add all kinds of creative and interesting 2D and 3D effects.
Video Paint also includes video retouching tools to change and
improve segments of a video frame, as well as powerful image and cloning
abilities. You pick the effect you want to apply to a clip and then hit
preview to get an idea of what it will look like.
You can adjust its intensity and other attributes before finally
rendering the video clip with the new cool effects. Depending on the
length of the clip, the effect you choose, and the power of your
computer, this process can take seconds or it can take many minutes. This new DVD authoring module walks the user through a variety of different steps to create the CD DVD including the development and creation of scene selection menus, various chapters, and the creation of an introduction video. The Bottom Line I was only able to hit some of the highpoints in this article. MediaStudio Pro 6.5 is suitable for those new to video editing as well as to professional video editors and prosumers. This new version provides a wide range of capabilities and features to make video editing easier and more powerful than ever before. I found that on my beta review copy, running on a Pentium 4 and Windows ME, I would get occasional program and system crashes when I first started capturing clips and editing them. With a little additional reading of the manual, I discovered that one is supposed to exit the capture program using the editing module to trim and arrange clips. I also re-installed the program and re-booted a couple of times. After all that, everything seemed to run a lot smoother. The Ulead MediaStudio 6.5 is a powerful video
editing and multimedia creation program. Beginners can be quickly be up
and running, creating basic programs suitable for family events. The new
features and capabilities make video editing easier and more
controllable than ever before. With additional study and/or a strong
background in computer-based graphic design, video professionals can
utilize the extremely powerful CG Infinity Module and PaintBrush module
to create extremely complex video graphics and animations. These tools are designed for the graphics professional and may take a typical video editor a long time to master. With a street price of 495, the full version of MediaStudio Pro 6.5 may be a bit of price and feature overkill for the home user. However, for the pro who needs professional graphics, animation and titling functions coupled with DV support and DVD/CD burning capabilities, this product should be in the short list to be considered. If you do not need the high-powered CG Infinity and VideoPaint application modules, you can get MediaStudio 6.5 Directors Cut for only $189. This might make much more sense for the typical end user who does not need the power graphics capabilities and does not have the time or technical background to learn how to use them. MediaStudio Directors Cut includes a basic titling application built-in on the TimeLine window. It is not as fancy or impressive as CG Infinity but it is included in the basic price and is a lot easier to use.
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