Canopus instead of Pinnacle

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

After reading the reviews on dvdrhelp.com I've concluded that the
extra bucks spent for Canopus are well worth it. The pci card version
acedvio seems to be pretty new? Any experience with it here? It
would appear that they put more money into hardware to help deal with
the shortcoming inherent in capturing old vhs source, perhaps as good
as the TBC tools. Comments?

tks
Don

 

[Susan]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

nospam@wtez.net (Don WA5NGP) wrote:

>After reading the reviews on dvdrhelp.com I've concluded that the
>extra bucks spent for Canopus are well worth it. The pci card version
>acedvio seems to be pretty new? Any experience with it here? It
>would appear that they put more money into hardware to help deal with
>the shortcoming inherent in capturing old vhs source, perhaps as good
>as the TBC tools. Comments?
>
>tks
>Don

Hi Don,

The Canopus ACEDVio is an excellent card and seems to live up to
Canopus' reputation for sturdy but not well-documented hardware. The
little leaflet that comes with it is the standard Canopus joke! You
can get the card by itself, with Canopus' Let's Edit, with Vegas and
with the Adobe Premiere Pro, Encore, Audition package.

If you want to capture old VHS, the outboard 300 capture box might be
better. I have only used the ACEDVio card with S-VHS and Hi8 tapes
played back through high quality decks with build in TBC and it works
beautifully. I do not know how it would handle grubby VHS or 8mm!

The card by itself or with the Vegas or Adobe packages are great
values, but I cannot recommend the Let's Edit package.

Let's Edit has a lot of problems and is not set-up very well at all
for most users. The latest fix (version 1.06) resolves a couple of
major problems with Let's Edit, but the basic bad user interface
remains. Let's Edit has some good upper level features such as chroma
key and a single overlay track, but it is sorely lacking in basic
usability features such as a trim window, audio level meters, a means
of using sub-bins, a convenient means of finding and applying
transitions, a lousy titler, etc.

The stupid program has ten title and audio tracks, but, as I said,
only one overlay track! Basically, the program is just not well
thought out. Ten title tracks! Once in your life you might want to
use ten title tracks. And, ten audio tracks, but no way to manipulate
them except by fiddling around with the rubber-bands.

Let's Edit will import and edit only DV AVI files, and 32, 44 and 48
KHz WAV audio. So, it isn't much value if you want to mix old analog
files with DV and MPG, or if your sound effects and music collection
is 22KHz mono... unless you want to resample all the files.

So, stick with the card and Vegas or Adobe, or use it with some other
editing package you like.

Hope this helps.

Susan

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

On Tue, 20 Apr 2004 19:02:09 GMT, Susan <nospam@nospam.net> wrote:

>nospam@wtez.net (Don WA5NGP) wrote:
>
>>After reading the reviews on dvdrhelp.com I've concluded that the
>>extra bucks spent for Canopus are well worth it. The pci card version
>>acedvio seems to be pretty new? Any experience with it here? It
>>would appear that they put more money into hardware to help deal with
>>the shortcoming inherent in capturing old vhs source, perhaps as good
>>as the TBC tools. Comments?
>>
>>tks
>>Don
>
>Hi Don,
>
>The Canopus ACEDVio is an excellent card and seems to live up to
>Canopus' reputation for sturdy but not well-documented hardware. The
>little leaflet that comes with it is the standard Canopus joke! You
>can get the card by itself, with Canopus' Let's Edit, with Vegas and
>with the Adobe Premiere Pro, Encore, Audition package.
>
>If you want to capture old VHS, the outboard 300 capture box might be
>better. I have only used the ACEDVio card with S-VHS and Hi8 tapes
>played back through high quality decks with build in TBC and it works
>beautifully. I do not know how it would handle grubby VHS or 8mm!
>
>The card by itself or with the Vegas or Adobe packages are great
>values, but I cannot recommend the Let's Edit package.
>
>Let's Edit has a lot of problems and is not set-up very well at all
>for most users. The latest fix (version 1.06) resolves a couple of
>major problems with Let's Edit, but the basic bad user interface
>remains. Let's Edit has some good upper level features such as chroma
>key and a single overlay track, but it is sorely lacking in basic
>usability features such as a trim window, audio level meters, a means
>of using sub-bins, a convenient means of finding and applying
>transitions, a lousy titler, etc.
>
>The stupid program has ten title and audio tracks, but, as I said,
>only one overlay track! Basically, the program is just not well
>thought out. Ten title tracks! Once in your life you might want to
>use ten title tracks. And, ten audio tracks, but no way to manipulate
>them except by fiddling around with the rubber-bands.
>
>Let's Edit will import and edit only DV AVI files, and 32, 44 and 48
>KHz WAV audio. So, it isn't much value if you want to mix old analog
>files with DV and MPG, or if your sound effects and music collection
>is 22KHz mono... unless you want to resample all the files.
>
>So, stick with the card and Vegas or Adobe, or use it with some other
>editing package you like.


Exellent explaination. I got the Let's Edit RT+ bundle about 6 months
ago as a replacement for my DC-30+ (which refused to work on a 2.4GHz
PC).
First impression was great, seamless capture (analogue) with LE
software, however, I need more video tracks. LE is pretty basic stuff
for editing and it only captured Type 1 AVI (fixed now in 1.06)
meaning that video captured with LE will have to be rendered in PR. I
quickly switched to PR and never looked back... Capturing is done with
Scenalizer (it cuts analogue video into 'scenes').
Great card, great video quality from analogue source as well as
firewire DV. Let's Edit is not worth it's money though :-((

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

I've found most of her comments about tools to be pretty dead-on,
however...

"Susan" <nospam@nospam.net> wrote in message news:ugra80phpfme6jsv3c6a4v78c8s4d5uk2t@4ax.com...
[snip]
> The stupid program [Let's Edit] has ten title and audio tracks, but, as I said,
> only one overlay track! Basically, the program is just not well
> thought out. Ten title tracks! Once in your life you might want to
> use ten title tracks. And, ten audio tracks, but no way to manipulate
> them except by fiddling around with the rubber-bands.

Let's Edit has a bunch of integrated audio tools, but more significantly,
it has a "DirectX bridge" (as they call it) that allows DXi audio plugins
to be used on Let's Edit audio tracks. And if one has a DXi plugin
that acts as a VST bridge (as I happen to, for music work), one can
also use VST audio plugins with Let's Edit. That includes the free
"Inspector" VST, which is a real-time audio spectrum analyser that
also provides VU meters. There's a significant limitation in that the
display window of the DXi/VST is only visible when one has selected
"Settings" on the plug-in, so the only way to do a level and spectral
check on a section of audio is to open the Audio FX dialogue,
select the DirectX bridge, start the audio "preview" playback, and
*then* select "Settings" for Inspector.

I agree that it's non-intuitive, and that having visible audio level meters
at all times, or at least a selectable pop-up window like those for
"Show Vector Scope" or "Show Wave Form" for video, but I have to
disagree that there is "no way to manipuate" audio tracks!

 

[Susan]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

"Kevin D. Kissell" <deletethisspamtrapKevinK@paralogos.com> wrote:


>> And, ten audio tracks, but no way to manipulate
>> them except by fiddling around with the rubber-bands.

Hi Kevin,

Obviously I didn't make myself clear. When I referred to the
rubber-bands, I assumed readers would understand I was referring to
manipulating the volume, and not saying that Let's Edit did not have
audio plugins, which it clearly does. And, it also lets you use
DirectX and VST plugins.

>Let's Edit has a bunch of integrated audio tools, but more significantly,
>it has a "DirectX bridge" (as they call it) that allows DXi audio plugins
>to be used on Let's Edit audio tracks. And if one has a DXi plugin
>that acts as a VST bridge (as I happen to, for music work), one can
>also use VST audio plugins with Let's Edit. That includes the free
>"Inspector" VST, which is a real-time audio spectrum analyser that
>also provides VU meters. There's a significant limitation in that the
>display window of the DXi/VST is only visible when one has selected
>"Settings" on the plug-in, so the only way to do a level and spectral
>check on a section of audio is to open the Audio FX dialogue,
>select the DirectX bridge, start the audio "preview" playback, and
>*then* select "Settings" for Inspector.
>
>I agree that it's non-intuitive, and that having visible audio level meters
>at all times, or at least a selectable pop-up window like those for
>"Show Vector Scope" or "Show Wave Form" for video, but I have to
>disagree that there is "no way to manipuate" audio tracks!
>

There are a couple of other audio level meters hidden in Let's Edit,
such as the one that comes up when you are recording voice-overs and
you can get one in the preview screen if you turn on timecode. What I
think LE needs is a separate audio controller that pops up (perhaps
over the bin) that has "slider" controls and VU meters for each audio
track and a master controller. Then, as you played through your
edited project you could adjust the various levels until you had
everything balanced, then make a final adjustment of the overall
level. The final addition would be some way to normalize the project
to a set amount, such as -20db.

When I discussed this with one of the Canopus engineers, a blank
expression crossed his face and he asked, "why would anyone want to
make all those adjustments in the sound? Most people just use the
sound they record and maybe throw in some background music."

I knew right then that this fellow had never actually made a real
video, and had no concept how difficult it is to get the "sound right"
in a project.

Take care,

Susan