Some of us industry veterans survived the great VHS-Betamax war. Newer recruits are still knee deep in the big muddied waters of Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD.
The skirmish today – tomorrow’s war? – is HD, and the many different ways savvy consumers and pro videographers will shoot, edit and distribute high definition video content.
There’s full-up true high definition, of course – widescreen, full motion, 1080p HD. It’s what the top broadcasters and international filmmakers are using. There’s HDV, a highly compressed video format adopted by major manufacturers to get high def video onto the familiar DV cassette (6mm videotape).
The AVCHD format (Advanced Video Codec High Definition) is the newest high definition recording format, first introduced by Sony and Panasonic.
It records HD at 1080i or 720p video to a DVD, a hard drive, or a flash memory card (the manufacturer chooses which media type it wants to use for each different model).
The video is highly compressed using the MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 standard, one that can also be used for – coincidence of coincidences – Blu-ray and HD-DVD (and cell phones), without losing too much quality.
A number of video software companies say they’ll support the AVCHD format, including Adobe, Sonic, Pinnacle and Ulead. Ulead announced and apparently shipped its solution April 30; Sony promised an AVCHD upgrade for May 1, Pinnacle committed to May 7 (all dates were at or before the deadline for this column). In any case, inexpensive software tools for editing these formats are in the ballpark.
Ulead VS11 Plus
Ulead (now owned by Corel in Ottawa) and its VideoStudio editing software has come a long way over 11 versions – VS11 Plus is the latest, and it is full of new features and improvements. In many ways, it is three products in one.
VideoStudio includes a fully-featured video editor, self-referentially called the industry’s first AVCHD editing solution, as well as a simple DV-to-DVD Wizard and moderately capable Movie Wizard for building basic videos and DVDs.
Ulead VideoStudio 11 has the “Works with Windows Vista” certification, and in that respect you’ll want a fairly robust PC on which to work. Processors running at 3.0 GHz, such as Pentium 4 or Core 2 Duo, two or more gigs of RAM and a 16x, 256 MB or greater display card is recommended to enjoy full high def capabilities.
But even with more moderately featured PCs, it offers a quick and easy way to import footage from a DV camera, and put it almost immediately onto a DVD for personal distribution and viewing.
With the new, advanced templates in the Movie Wizard, you can create more elaborate Hollywood-style openings, and output finished creations to tape, disk or a format compatible with Microsoft Zune, Apple iPod, Sony PSP as well as mobile phones and Web-based video sharing sites like YouTube.
There are incredibly adjustable Overlay tools, for special video effects, PiP (Picture-in-picture) and masking video with transparencies, keys and titles. With the Plus version’s new Expanded Timeline, you will be able to see all the video (and audio, for that matter) layers easily, without scrolling.
There are literally hundreds of special effects built-in, along with filters, colour correction tools, clean-up filters to correct or compensate for less-than-idyllic video material, and more.
HD and surround sound tools are available, and with its unique compression and Pure HD codec, you can burn an HD program of about 30 minutes onto a regular DVD!
Canadian pricing is $118.99 for Ulead VS11 Plus.
Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 11
Pinnacle’s Studio Ultimate version 11 also offers high def editing (HDV and AVCHD), Vista compatibility, and output to a whack of digital devices, from DVD to tape to the Web. Pinnacle has bundled some interesting third-party tools in the program, such as the audio clean-up program called SoundSoap, and the pan-and-zoom tool for still images and scanned photos called MovingPicture.Pinnacle, too, wants a powerful platform on which to work with high def: 2.4 GHz or higher processing, two GB RAM in Vista, specific graphics cards with 256 MB required memory. Advanced editing and effects, integrated DVD authoring, custom key frames, surround sound editing, graphic overlays, scrolling titles, PiP and ChromaKey (green screen) are all supported, as well.
Sony Vegas
For Sony Vegas editors, an upgrade should now be available to edit AVCHD. Sony by now has at least four new AVCHD camcorders, so this only makes sense. The upgrade is free, but the Vegas + DVD suite is US$524.96.
Premiere Pro Plugin
If you have even more resources at hand, be aware that MainConcept, a fine German codec maker, has an AVCHD solution, too. But its plug-in costs US$449, and it’s designed for the Adobe Premiere Pro software, itself priced at US$799.99.
If there’s any advantage to yet another HD video format, and the slowly emerging editing solutions for it, it’s that you won't need an expensive Blu-ray or HD DVD burner to take advantage. A highly-compressed yet still visually powerful video format, AVCHD can be burned on the same standard DVDs you already have, and the same DVD burner you already use.
And now, there are tools to do so for around $100 – that is a first!
The skirmish today – tomorrow’s war? – is HD, and the many different ways savvy consumers and pro videographers will shoot, edit and distribute high definition video content.
There’s full-up true high definition, of course – widescreen, full motion, 1080p HD. It’s what the top broadcasters and international filmmakers are using. There’s HDV, a highly compressed video format adopted by major manufacturers to get high def video onto the familiar DV cassette (6mm videotape).
The AVCHD format (Advanced Video Codec High Definition) is the newest high definition recording format, first introduced by Sony and Panasonic.
It records HD at 1080i or 720p video to a DVD, a hard drive, or a flash memory card (the manufacturer chooses which media type it wants to use for each different model).
The video is highly compressed using the MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 standard, one that can also be used for – coincidence of coincidences – Blu-ray and HD-DVD (and cell phones), without losing too much quality.
A number of video software companies say they’ll support the AVCHD format, including Adobe, Sonic, Pinnacle and Ulead. Ulead announced and apparently shipped its solution April 30; Sony promised an AVCHD upgrade for May 1, Pinnacle committed to May 7 (all dates were at or before the deadline for this column). In any case, inexpensive software tools for editing these formats are in the ballpark.
Ulead VS11 Plus
Ulead (now owned by Corel in Ottawa) and its VideoStudio editing software has come a long way over 11 versions – VS11 Plus is the latest, and it is full of new features and improvements. In many ways, it is three products in one.
VideoStudio includes a fully-featured video editor, self-referentially called the industry’s first AVCHD editing solution, as well as a simple DV-to-DVD Wizard and moderately capable Movie Wizard for building basic videos and DVDs.
Ulead VideoStudio 11 has the “Works with Windows Vista” certification, and in that respect you’ll want a fairly robust PC on which to work. Processors running at 3.0 GHz, such as Pentium 4 or Core 2 Duo, two or more gigs of RAM and a 16x, 256 MB or greater display card is recommended to enjoy full high def capabilities.
But even with more moderately featured PCs, it offers a quick and easy way to import footage from a DV camera, and put it almost immediately onto a DVD for personal distribution and viewing.
With the new, advanced templates in the Movie Wizard, you can create more elaborate Hollywood-style openings, and output finished creations to tape, disk or a format compatible with Microsoft Zune, Apple iPod, Sony PSP as well as mobile phones and Web-based video sharing sites like YouTube.
There are incredibly adjustable Overlay tools, for special video effects, PiP (Picture-in-picture) and masking video with transparencies, keys and titles. With the Plus version’s new Expanded Timeline, you will be able to see all the video (and audio, for that matter) layers easily, without scrolling.
There are literally hundreds of special effects built-in, along with filters, colour correction tools, clean-up filters to correct or compensate for less-than-idyllic video material, and more.
HD and surround sound tools are available, and with its unique compression and Pure HD codec, you can burn an HD program of about 30 minutes onto a regular DVD!
Canadian pricing is $118.99 for Ulead VS11 Plus.
Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 11
Pinnacle’s Studio Ultimate version 11 also offers high def editing (HDV and AVCHD), Vista compatibility, and output to a whack of digital devices, from DVD to tape to the Web. Pinnacle has bundled some interesting third-party tools in the program, such as the audio clean-up program called SoundSoap, and the pan-and-zoom tool for still images and scanned photos called MovingPicture.Pinnacle, too, wants a powerful platform on which to work with high def: 2.4 GHz or higher processing, two GB RAM in Vista, specific graphics cards with 256 MB required memory. Advanced editing and effects, integrated DVD authoring, custom key frames, surround sound editing, graphic overlays, scrolling titles, PiP and ChromaKey (green screen) are all supported, as well.
Sony Vegas
For Sony Vegas editors, an upgrade should now be available to edit AVCHD. Sony by now has at least four new AVCHD camcorders, so this only makes sense. The upgrade is free, but the Vegas + DVD suite is US$524.96.
Premiere Pro Plugin
If you have even more resources at hand, be aware that MainConcept, a fine German codec maker, has an AVCHD solution, too. But its plug-in costs US$449, and it’s designed for the Adobe Premiere Pro software, itself priced at US$799.99.
If there’s any advantage to yet another HD video format, and the slowly emerging editing solutions for it, it’s that you won't need an expensive Blu-ray or HD DVD burner to take advantage. A highly-compressed yet still visually powerful video format, AVCHD can be burned on the same standard DVDs you already have, and the same DVD burner you already use.
And now, there are tools to do so for around $100 – that is a first!
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