ULead, I Don't Know What I'm Doing (Yet!) (Ulead VideoStudio 5)

Member Name: Nibelung

Product:	Ulead VideoStudio 5
Date:	23/07/03 (390 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy first results, Reasonable price compared to some weigthier packages

Disadvantages: Still a lot to learn

Having just gone to the not inconsiderable expense of upgrading my camcorder to one with a digital output to a PC, and having bought a DVD-Writer for my PC, my thoughts turned to the production of 'real' DVDs edited down from my camcorder tapes.

Now that I've got the hardware, the missing link is the editing software. Such software has existed for years - with analogue camcorders, you transferred the picture to your PC via a 'screen-capture' card, and with the advent of digital camcorders, (well those WITH a digital output anyway), the whole process was made infinitely simpler.

The only major problem up to now has been that the only recording medium commonly available was a CD-R (although some camcorders have a two-way digital link which allows for re-recording onto a tape). This has in turn meant that the video format for the finished result was limited to what is called VCD, a forerunner to DVD of a more limited picture definition, not unlike that of VHS tapes, and limited in length by the format of a CD-ROM's 700megabyte capacity.

Since some digital camcorders can shoot to nearly broadcast standards of picture definition, (my new one boasts 520 lines - you only need about 480, not 625 as many people think) this seems a shame.

Fear not, this constitutes one of the rare occasions that I didn't leap in too early.

Having a new more suitable recording medium, i.e. a recordable DVD, gives free rein to software houses to upgrade their editing suites to encompass the burning of the final output in DVD format, and this is precisely what Ulead have done by bringing out version 7 of their Video Studio software. Provided that my final article is less than 51 minutes long, no degradation of picture will be necessary to 'make it fit' the disk. 51 minutes of amateur video - it doesn't bear thinking about!

GETTING IT ALL TOGETHER

In addition to buying the software, which cost
s around £40 at the UK Amazon site, you need to make some alterations to your PC. For a start, unless you already have one, you'll be needing a IEEE 1394 card, more commonly referred to as Firewire, which refers to its ability to pass huge amount of very fast-flowing data in and out of your PC. These cost around £40 (there's that figure again), and are easy to fit and configure, especially if you have Windows XP. It is also possible to use an analog screen capture card as well, for transfer of old tapes onto the PC. None of this is too easy with a laptop though, although some external interfaces are availible.

You also need to make sure that your hard-drive(s) is/are 'DMA enabled'. This can be done within Control Panel, and it makes sure that data flow between camera and PC goes as smoothly as possible, without any dropped 'frames', which would cause jerky action (and we wouldn't want that now, would we?). Although a single one of these would only lead to a 1/25th of a second break in the film continuity, packages like Ulead see a gap in transmission as a signal that another scene has started, sometimes putting a transition/fade in between as well for good measure. Clearly, this could get very tiresome, especially if you have to go through an entire movie taking out transitions that shouldn't be there.

CONNECTING IT ALL UP

Not much to say here - the Firewire card comes with a connecting lead suitable for the camcorder. It's better to run the latter off its mains adapter/charger if the recorded tape is a long one. You don't want to start all over again thanks to a flat battery, however keen you are to get your epic into the 'cutting room'.

SOFTWARE INSTALLATION

Getting the software on board is a reasonably quick process, although it does involve a lot of confusing swapping between loading Ulead software and other utilities like QuickTime RealPlayer. Be careful to make sure y
ou don't let the latter overwhelm your PC - if you acquiesce by hitting a string of OK buttons, it will become the default media player for your PC, and personally, I've got quite fond of the Microsoft offering. As well as the installation disk, you also get a content disk (yes, I'm quite content being a CD-ROM, but I do get dizzy spells in the dark sometimes), which holds other 'stuff' like sample videos for you to practice with..

USING IT - THE IDIOT'S GUIDE TO A FIRST DVD

The great thing about this software is its ability to do at least something with one of your video masterpieces 'straight from the box', although as you learn more, you can start to take charge of the creativity.

With Ulead's main screen loaded, chose the 'Capture' option. Then plug in your camcorder to the Firewire lead - it is detected immediately as a 'hot-pluggable' device, and a still frame from the current tape position is revealed in the central screen. Below this, there are on-screen equivalents of playback control buttons. From here on in, you control your camera on-screen - call me a big kid, but I got a huge kick out of this!

By far the simplest way to proceed is to click on the 'Split By Scene' option and hit the 'Capture Video' button. This starts the transfer of data, and you can watch the film on the 'monitor' as it pours into the PC - you'll need plenty of disk space by the way. My spare 40gigabytes translate as just over three hours spare capacity, so anyone with very little spare room might need to rethink. When it comes to an end, or you reach the end of what you want to work on by stopping the capture, the movie is sub-divided into scenes, and portrayed along a 'timeline' at the bottom of the screen, each new scene being denoted by the first frame 'still' as a thumbnail reminder of what it's about. This is why you can't afford any dropped
frames - even a 1/25th of a second gap constitutes a new scene. To make extra sure this doesn't happen, don't run any extra software. I tried running MS Word to write this opinion in 'real time' with the movie operation, and it nearly locks my machine up (for all its fast Athlon processor and 512megabytes of RAM).

The Timeline method may not suit everyone - I personally shoot movies to the '5 second rule' rather than hanging onto shots that have no movement in them. This gives the finished article a much punchier, professional feel. However, it also leads to a LOT of scenes, and in the case of recording to (S)VCD, rather than DVD, you can easily exceed the format's 99-scene limit. You can of course fuse scenes together to get the total down, but anywhere meriting some kind of transition - e.g. a fade or dissolve must retain a change of scene.

Ulead comes with a natty array of transitions, some of which defy description with mere words. For example, you can have one scene literally push another out of the way. You can have the former dissolve into dots, revealing the new scene behind. However, whilst this is good fun when played with (the first time round, at least), there's no substitute for keeping your audience interested with good film content.

Something else that Ulead comes with, is a selection of video clips, useful as titles or intermissions. You can even add that 5,4,3,2,1 countdown clock that you get to see occasionally on TV when no-one's noticed it at the studio!

To add a scene like this, you merely drag it from its top-right corner of the screen, to the timeline, and drop it where you want it. Another way to use the drag'n'drop facility, is to alter the running order of your own scenes. This can be very useful if you spot something that would make a good title half way through your holiday, or as in the case of a friend on mine, a pithy still photo, as seen thoughtfully pl
aced by road-menders outside a Vet's. CATS EYES REMOVED.

Once your masterpiece has been pulled and poked to your satisfaction, there's only remains saving it and burning it to disk. Curiously, this is listed under the banner of "Share" which is a curious name to give to something that's most likely to bore the pants off anyone who isn't in it!

One minor niggle came to light during the 'burn'. I got a message warning me that I had requested 'rapid eject when complete', with a warning that this may make the disk incompatible with some DVD players. If this is the case, and bearing in mind that I'd changed nothing, having this as a default setting seems a tad dangerous, and prone to misinterpretation.

THINGS I DIDN'T TRY YET

I didn't see any reason to add background music or a voice-over (anyhow, I've no mike). One note here though - your digital camcorder probably has a facility for opting for maximum quality sound on two channels. This is fine, if a little wasted on the built-in microphones. It makes more sense to plump for the lower of the two qualities, as this leaves two channels spare for over-dubbing as I've suggested above. This is probably only relevant if you intend to transfer the edited work back to tape.

SUMMING UP

In short, all you really need to do to create your first DVD, is:-

a) Capture the film from your camcorder.
b) Use the timeline to split it into scenes,
c) Let Ulead insert some transitions,
d) Decide which ones to keep, and which to discard.
e) Add titles and possibly and end sequence too,
f) Record your DVD.

I've now tried this method out twice on my test footage, once to create a DVD and secondly to create an SVCD. SVCD is a slightly poorer cousin of DVD that only needs to use CD-R disk at around 25p each. Mind you, a blank DVD-R is only 75p if you know where to look!

To be hones
t, there's not a lot of difference between the two picture qualities. It only becomes more noticeable if you have to succumb to the dubious delights of the older-still format of VCD. Many DVD players will only play this as an alternative to DVD. Mine's OK with SVCD though.

Obviously, there's still a lot to learn, but I've got an hour's worth of Australia from August 2001 to edit next. This was shot on MiniDV but in a camera with no digital output, which is why it still languishes on tape.

I've tried a few editing suites in the recent past, and Ulead Video Studio 7 seems to be as good as most, especially for an impatient amateur like me who just want to get something up onto screen as fast as possible.

Oh yes, AND it comes with a decent paper manual!

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