Video
PSYOPS and their amazing Cola commercial
27/05/08 08:13
Wow, now that's some advertisment... catchy tune,
surreal landscape, cute characters, great story
progression. I do not think I have ever watched a
publicity 4 times just to catch new tidbits I'd
missed. If you haven't seen their work check out
http://www.trapcode.com/gallery/psyop_coke.mov
or their main website at http://www.psyop.tv. They have
done some great advertising work.
Cyberlink PowerProducer & PowerDirector limitations review
06/05/07 13:08
Although the features have seemed to get ok reviews
on the Internet, no one seems to be talking about the
limitations of this software. Being a paid user of
PowerDirector 6 I thought I would state a few
problems in hopes that people will be aware of them
before they purchase the software. (all of the
support is done on a private email basis, so there
are no public forums to see what other users are
experiencing.
Here is a simple list of limitations that I have come up against. I will try to expand the list as I use the program.
Although there are no public forums (that would be a great way for users to help each other) they do respond rather quickly to technical support questions. So far always well within the 24 hours they state on their site.
In my personal opinion, they do somethings well but with these above limitations (especially the first) they have a ways to go before becoming a solid video editing utility.
Here is a simple list of limitations that I have come up against. I will try to expand the list as I use the program.
- files are not upgradeable, this means that something you make in PowerDirector 5 will not be usable in PowerDirector 6
- PowerProducer is very sensitive to file placement. This means that if you move one of your source files (for instance a video clip to another hard drive) the PowerProducer file is unreadable with no way to fix it (unless you remember what the files were and here they should go)
- Templates from one version are not compatible with a different version. For example, if you purchase DVD templates from them for PowerDirector 5 those templates will not be usable in version 6.
- Although templates can be edited, there are limitation. You cannot add or make new navigational buttons or navigation destinations and you cannot seem to make new title boxes either.
- Sometimes a jpg photo file from your digital camera may be readable on your computer but it will not be readable by PowerDirector.
- PowerDirector5 could sometimes get large amounts of clips/ photos out of order in the timeline when adding or changing a clip.
- PowerDirector 6 installs 4 DIVX shareware packages that supposedly should not be uninstalled because PowerDirector uses some of the codecs in the shareware installations. However you can delete from your desktop the links like "Buy DivX for Windows" and are not obliged to buy this shareware to use the PowerDirector software.
- The new subtitle feature of PowerDirector 6 can only make one subtitle track (the text does look very clear on the previews, a good thing)
- These Cyberlink applications always tries to connect to the cyberlink website when you start them up. The latest PowerDirector has an option to deactivate this connection but earlier versions do not seem to have this option.
- Personally I had a lot of trouble burning the DVD directly from the software and would simply make the DVD folder and use NERO to burn the actual DVD. Ihave not retried this with the latest versions.
- You cannot install 2 versions of the software
at the same time. This means that if you had a
photo album with custom movement on it the only
solution is to either manually write down
everything you did to every picture and recreate it
or as their technical support recommends, render
everything out to video from the old version ,
uninstall the old version, and then import it into
the latest version.
Although there are no public forums (that would be a great way for users to help each other) they do respond rather quickly to technical support questions. So far always well within the 24 hours they state on their site.
In my personal opinion, they do somethings well but with these above limitations (especially the first) they have a ways to go before becoming a solid video editing utility.
Making DV tapes into DVD with subtitles is not so easy
31/07/05 00:57
Well, I've had a couple of PAL DV tapes from our
wedding a few years back and I've kept telling people
who didn't understand the french ceremony that I'd
make an NTSC DVD with subtitles. Should be easy
right? Everything is digital.
Well, 4 years later, after lots of casual attempts, I finally dug in, said it will be done, and cleaned about 20 gigs of space on my hard drive to get to work. Yes you can buy software that should help make DVD's but either they are easy and cannot make subtitles or they are hard, expensive, and say they can do everything if you read their manuals.
Complicating things was my 2ghz/1.5gb server at the other end of a Microsoft terminal services connection so I do not have an actual monitor on the machine making the video.
The source of any useful information turned out to be http://www.videohelp.com with lots of reviews, how tos, and links to everywhere under the sun. Here is a summary of what I did using free software. NOTE: CyberLink's Power Producer & NERO were included as OEM with my CDROM but I guess they cannot be considered free for everyone.
* Power Producer quickly converted the PAL DV files to NTSC/DVD format in 2 hours
* Subtitle Workshop was used to make the subtitles and export them in ..SRT/SubRip format (3 hours to make the translations, and about 2 hours to enter the information)
* Subtitle Creator converted the .SRT directly to .SUP format (just a few seconds)
* VobEdit took the DVD filesystem created by Power Producer and deconstructed (demux) the video and audio components (about 15-20 minutes)
* DVDAuthorGUI reconstructed the video and audio components and integrated the .SUP format (about an hour but by then I was reading Orson Scott Card's Speaker For The Dead and was just occasionally checking the status)
* NERO to burn the DVD to a 4.7gb DVD disk.
So, at the end, a quick test in VideoLAN seems to show everything in the right place though I really should go through to check that the subtitles are not too out of sync.
Anyways, it is a possible project but it really seems to take a long time, almost 9 hours not counting the numerous failed attempts with other softwares.
So, yes it can be done with enough harddrive space but with all of the testing (another hour to check the sync and then to test on a real NTSC player, not to mention making any changes to the subtitles after seeing them in action) it is not for the weak of heart.
Well, 4 years later, after lots of casual attempts, I finally dug in, said it will be done, and cleaned about 20 gigs of space on my hard drive to get to work. Yes you can buy software that should help make DVD's but either they are easy and cannot make subtitles or they are hard, expensive, and say they can do everything if you read their manuals.
Complicating things was my 2ghz/1.5gb server at the other end of a Microsoft terminal services connection so I do not have an actual monitor on the machine making the video.
The source of any useful information turned out to be http://www.videohelp.com with lots of reviews, how tos, and links to everywhere under the sun. Here is a summary of what I did using free software. NOTE: CyberLink's Power Producer & NERO were included as OEM with my CDROM but I guess they cannot be considered free for everyone.
* Power Producer quickly converted the PAL DV files to NTSC/DVD format in 2 hours
* Subtitle Workshop was used to make the subtitles and export them in ..SRT/SubRip format (3 hours to make the translations, and about 2 hours to enter the information)
* Subtitle Creator converted the .SRT directly to .SUP format (just a few seconds)
* VobEdit took the DVD filesystem created by Power Producer and deconstructed (demux) the video and audio components (about 15-20 minutes)
* DVDAuthorGUI reconstructed the video and audio components and integrated the .SUP format (about an hour but by then I was reading Orson Scott Card's Speaker For The Dead and was just occasionally checking the status)
* NERO to burn the DVD to a 4.7gb DVD disk.
So, at the end, a quick test in VideoLAN seems to show everything in the right place though I really should go through to check that the subtitles are not too out of sync.
Anyways, it is a possible project but it really seems to take a long time, almost 9 hours not counting the numerous failed attempts with other softwares.
So, yes it can be done with enough harddrive space but with all of the testing (another hour to check the sync and then to test on a real NTSC player, not to mention making any changes to the subtitles after seeing them in action) it is not for the weak of heart.