Customer Reviews

Ulead VideoStudio Version 6.0

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Having pulled out most of my remaining hair on previous versions,(and putting it in the closet for 2 years) I bit the bullet and downloaded Video Studio 6 on the chance that it was better.
Well, it is fantastic. I have a Sony DV camera and this program has everything that was missing in previous versions. It even has the VCD burner included. This program does it ALL. Capture,Edit,Burn. Lots of great features, very user friendly.
In 2 days I was able to create 3 projects without any problems. Im not a pro by any means, and most pros have given this product a lower rating than most. BUT, if you are looking for an inexpensive way to convert tapes to vcd (or DVD with a DVD burner) this is the best for the money.

When I bought my DVD burner it was bundled with a lot of software that was supposed to allow me to create DVD movies. VideoStudio 4.0 SE was one. I ran into many problems with the bundled software's light versions. I could not capture a video to an mpeg file and ended up with a lot of very large AVI files. The DVD authoring would clip off the last ten minutes of audio. I could not trim the beginning and ending of each clip. I decided that I needed an mpeg encoder, some way of easily editing scenes and a way to author a DVD that contains all the sound.

I took a leap of faith and bought VideoStudio 6.0 in hopes that it would get me where I wanted to go. I have since found out that none of the home software solutions will do it all. There are plenty of professional packages that will do much, much more but they are out of my price range for what I want to do. You will need a professional quality mpeg encoder to put a 2.5 hour movie on a DVD.

I use VideoStudio 6.0 to capture digital video from my Sony Digital 8 Camcorder to a mpeg file. The mpeg encoding is not a professional quality encoder as far as size compression goes. There are some parameters that can be changed, but going very far outside the bounds of the default settings will cause errors or just allow the capture to proceed and not much change in file size. This encoder will compress a 30 minute video down to about 1.5 gbytes. Forget about putting a 2 hour video on a DVD. Picture quality is decent and so is sound quality.

Editing the clips is not very intuitive for one that is new to the video world. But the manual is sufficient and explains most of what is needed. There are many small samples that are included so that you can experiment with most of the functionality. This is good because, when experimenting and learning, you don't want to spend a lot of time just watching video go by while waiting for your experimental transitions, titles and sound clip to come around.

The plug-in for authoring would only let me author a video CD. The DVD option was disabled and would not enable. I had to by DVD Movie Factory to create the DVDs. But it does the job, although not as efficiently as one would expect. It increases the size of the mpeg file when it creates a `movie' mpeg file.

If you want an easy way to capture digital video from a camcorder with an acceptable mpeg encoder, edit the start and end points, add transitions between scenes, add some titles and voice over and create video CDs. VideoStudio 6.0 will do it for you. But you will need additional software to author DVDs.

In the beginning I had downloaded and used the trial version. I liked the the software so much better than Pinnacle Studios and Video Factory! If you install this software correctly (CLOSE ALL WINDOWS PROGRAMS, especially antivirus software!) everything should go great. Its graphical interfase is very easy to use. I noticed alot of high end movie editing software options included in this package. It is a very good deal for the money and a novice user shouldn't have any problems....I highly recommend this product.

This program came bundled with my firewire card and I thought it was just the SE version that was hanging my computer constantly. WRONG! I dished out the money to download the upgrade off their website and guess what - my computer still hangs. It works fine when downloading video onto the hard drive from my camera, but it hangs just about every time that I try to render the AVI files into VCD and DVD format MPEGS. Sometimes it hangs right away when it is 3% done and other times it hangs when it is almost done - > 60%. I tried many things:

1. Taking off all background processes including virus checker
2. Turning off PC and starting with a fresh & clean boot
3. Downloading all patches and applying them to the software
4. Turning off the screen saver.
5. Defragmenting the HD.
...

I also contacted the technical staff and I had a reply within a couple of days. Their reply was the following:

Could you please try the following steps.

1)Clean up temp files in c:\windows\temp
2)Uninstall VideoStudio from Control Panel Add/Remove programs
3)Delete ulead32.ini at c:\windows\
4)Reinstall VideoStudio again
5)Install the latest Microsoft Direct X driver which you can download
from Microsoft website.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/default.asp
The latest version of DirectX Media:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/release.asp?releaseid=11771
6)Upgrade your VideoStudio from 6.0 to 6.02 by installing the patch
that you can download from our website:
http://www.ulead.com/tech/vs/vs_ftp.htm

After you do above steps, please re-import video files into UVS
Video Library to re-edit, then re-render the project file. And to
avoid the unnecessary conflict, please temporarily turned off all
applications includes anti virus, norton utilities, or the other
memory resident program and the Internet connection etc before you render your project.

If you have done these before or problem still persist after following
the steps, then I would suggest you to scandisk your HDD using Thorough
option to check for bad cluster, or check your system to your hardware
technical support/manufacturer, maybe one of the components is producing
heat (faulty memory or RAMs of diff. brand conflicts, cpu fan stops
VGA card cooling fan stops etc.).

Well, I tried it and guess what? Out of over 100 rendering tries, I was able to do 3 total! I am amazed how this software crashes my PC - XP1600+, 512MB RAM, MX400 64MB video, 100GB HD, latest directX driver. This is definitely the worst software that I have ever worked with. I believe that a program that cannot work with background processes and that you have to go through so many hoops to get it to work < 5% of the time is just a waste of my time.

Don't waste your time and spend a little more for something that works. I hope that I have dissuaded anyone from purchasing this product.

If you do decide to purchase this product, I wish you good luck and hope you have the time to mess with it.

I own this for a long time now.

I have never been able to trust this software to do the timeconsuming job overnight. i.e. I capture all the stuff I want and then set it to generate the MPEG2 file (DVD qualtiy) and when I check in the morning. My system is found frozen or the program has exitted with no error message, absolutely leaves no trace of what happened.

The customer support is non existent. I tried reaching the customer support by submitting the form on thier site several times but each and every time I got the fixed, useless, automated message reply.

I would not recommend this unless you do not mind the unstable software, and on tight budget.

I bought this as it is [less money] compared to other and only for home use. Has good features that I have never used as the basic functionality itself is unstable.

Good news and bad, DVD quality is grainy even at best quality recording, sound goes out of sync on VHS transfers, have yet to be able to record 2hrs of DVD w/o running out of disc space. On the good side, easy to use with DV 1394 hookup, quality very acceptable but not a clean copy of DV tape. Documentation is confusing on some very important points, as in setting up the project template. I highly suggest burning to DVD+RW 1st, this will cut down on the expense your will surely incurr on burn only disc's as you make your way through the learning curve.

I had used Ulead 4.0 for awhile, but when I downloaded the trial version of 6.0 it messed that up, so I went ahead and ordered 6.0. Since that time I've not been able to get it to work properly, and it has locked up no matter WHAT I've tried to do with it. I wrote technical support, and 13 days later have yet to receive a suggestion. Buyer beware.

As an addendum, it has now been two months without a response. I received an email after 6 weeks saying I should resubmit my question, and two more weeks have passed without hearing anything back. Might be a good product when it works, but they have the worst customer support I've ever encountered.

When I bought the IEEE1394 card for my notebook, it came bundled with a copy of Ulead's VideoStudio 4. After playing around with it for a day, I figured out the logic behind the storyboard format for editing the various components of a project. After a little more experimenting, I realized that VS4 was a very easy & useful tool. The only shortcoming I could think of was that it couldn't output to any format directly compatible for use in VCDs.

Ulead has quite handily taken care of this problem and added a few cool new tools to boot!

If you've used VS4 or VS5, you'll find the controls are almost exactly the same. The batch capture feature makes capturing (a lot of) scenes from your digital camcorder a breeze. The overlays, filters, titles and transition effects are a snap to use and give your final product a slick, professional polish.

One of my few criticism would have to be the choice of including the DVD/VCD authoring tool as a plug-in. While the DVD wizard is easy to use and produces great results, I think the it would be more useful as a stand-alone application. Also, VS6 claims that the direct MPEG capture mode decreases render time (for making DVDs & VCDs), it seems as though the "buffer" time to capture to MPEG negates any time saved during the final render.

If you're looking for an introductory DV editing application that's easy to use and and still makes your home movies look better than traditional "home movies," get this program. Considering the features and the price, you don't have to think too hard to figure out that VS6 is definately the way to go for beginners and intermediate users.

I downloaded a sample of this product, and was relatively pleased with it. It's interface is a bit on the klunky side, and takes some time to get the feel for it, but it is relatively easy to figure out. The problem is the customer support. I sent a basic questions (does the product work with WMA files using Windows XP?), and got the following response- not once, but twice. Don't buy if you anticipate any need for assistance.
...
We are very sorry for that your inquiry has not been answered for over 2 weeks since it's submitted or answered last time. We apologize that we don't have a quick answer for your problem so far. To avoid the new coming inquiries keep delaying the time for checking your problem, please re-submit the question again by the question form again:
....

Please do not reply this email directly. If there's any new status of your problem, please write it within the form. Thank you very much for your cooperation.

By the way, it happens sometimes that the problems might be eliminated by uninstalling and reinstalling the related hardware, AP, or even the Windows system. Your can also try installing Ulead products on other computer to make sure the product or the CD-ROM is fine itself.

If somehow you have solved the problem by yourself, please also reply to let us know and share the solution with us. So we might be able to help other users who met the same problem. Your generous will be very much appreciated!

Again, we apologize for the late reply and thank you for your patience!

Best Regards,
...

This program came with my firewire set-up, and that should've been my first hint that it wasn't a great program. My first time using it, I was trying to record a 35 minute home movie. After 15 minutes, everything was fine, so I left the room. When I came back, I had an error message that there wasn't enough space on the disk (my hard drive). I have an 80G hard drive! When I tried to record it again, my computer locked up on me. My computer's a year old, but it still surpasses the minimum requirement for this program. Don't waste your money, just keep looking. And don't stop at Easy CD Creator either.