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Will I be a happy customer?
Due to the not so wonderful world of Avid Xpress Pro video editing and Adobe Encore DVD authoring, I thought I might explore this last resort before I’m getting ready to jump off a bridge;
I’m on XP Pro, 3GHz, 1GB RAM.
Have been using Avid for many years and love its ‘no frills’ type of editing – I can cut very fast and feel comfort in the fact that it’s kinda part of an ‘industry standard’ when it comes to non-linear editing.
Now, the bad part: In any given 4-8 hour block of editing (and especially during color correction), the damn thing crashes at least 2-3 times, my computer locks up and I have to force quit my machine and start from where I last saved. Drives me bananas, especially when I’m sitting and working with a client next to me.On to DVD authoring; I’ve been using Adobe Encore ever since it was released a couple of years ago, and love its tight integration with After Effects and Photoshop. I love its clean and simple interface, and with version 2 has some great features. Has been working flawlessly until now:
I’m currently working on a project for a client that includes multiple video files, each with a dozen different subtitles.
The subtitles have been created (including an image script) in a special subtitling program by the client.
Long story short: When I try to build and burn my project in Encore, it crashes! Every time I try to rebuild it.This project is ready to go but I can’t finish it!
Now, this is a mission critical incident and I’m ready for plan B – which means getting another software package, just so I can finish this job for my client (more work for me in the future).
So, on to the $64,000 question: If I switch Vegas, will I be a happy customer?
Pros? Cons?
TIA,
– Max
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8 Replies
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The best answer we can give you is to install the demo and give it a whirl. Naturally, the people in this forum think it’s a great app. However, not all people think so and you have to make that ultimate decision. Feel free to ask questions about things you don’t understand, though.
Edward Troxel
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Yes, that’s a great idea. I went to Sony’s Web site and the download page for the trial version.
It states that the trial version:* does not allow MP3, MPEG, or AC-3 files to be imported
* does not allow file preparing
* does not allow burning of externally prepared demo projects larger that 500MBBy “MPEG”, does that mean I can’t import already encoded MPEG-2 files?
“File preparing” – I can’t put together an entire project from scratch and then do a test burn?Thanks,
– Max
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Basically, yes. MPEG2 and AC3 are licensed features that are usable once purchased. But you can’t use these features until then. Plus, DVD Architect will not let you actually do a prepare because it would require the use of MPEG2 and AC3 to complete. You can get a feel for the procedure, though.
Practice with DV files in Vegas to see how you get along with editing. The first thing you’ll probably ask is “Where’s the razor tool?” Answer: There isn’t one and you don’t need one. Just put the cursor where you want to split the video and press “S”.
Edward Troxel
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Hmmm… I would hate to spend $600 for another piece of software and then find out that it’s not working either when I try to burn my project to DVD.
Do you know if it works nicely with the Sony DRX-510UL external DVD burner?
– Max
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Although I do all my editing in Vegas and think it’s a great program, I use Encore for dvd production ( the integration with photoshop is very handy for me). Encore has never crashed my machine… a six year old dell 866mhz. So what does this mean? I don’t know…. maybe find out what is really crashing your machine?
good luck -
It sounds to me like your immediate need would be to identify what in your imported subtitle files is crashing Encore, and fix that – maybe via Adobe support?
Are the subtitle files in a format Encore reports that it supports? If so, can you open them in Wordpad or something and manually check that they conform to expected format?
It might be a case of some missing punctuation marks or other not-quite-standard output from the suibtitler. At worst, you could put in a few subtitles by hand to get out of this jam, and review your options later under less stress.
On the Avid crashing front, plenty people run Avid Xpress Pro without crashes – I have a colleague who is one of them. He does swear by two gig of RAM though, and was meticulous in meeting the Avid recommended hardware requirement.
Jumping to a new app late and under “crash” pressure seems like a recipe for unhappiness – particularly when Vegas is at the far end of the spectrum from the Avid school of editing, and you may have unresolved hardware issues affecting your system causing Avid Xpress Pro to go down …
Good luck with it.
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Some people have had issues with burning to their DVD burner. In those cases, they PREPARE with DVD Architect and then BURN with a dedicated burner such as Nero or Record Now. Because of the possibilities of burning with these dedicated programs, burning should never be an issue.
Edward Troxel
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If you like the demo but you aren’t sure about the cost of the package, the ‘studio’ version is under $100 and it’s exactly the same program but you’re limited to just a few tracks and AC3 is not licensed.
Where are you located? Maybe someone could volunteer a couple of hours to demo Vegas for you.
Stephen Mann,
MannMade Digital Video,
San Jose, CA
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