Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"Back in April 2010, we announced our plans to take Lightworks open source. We always said the first step would be to make the application freely available so that a large community of users could start becoming familiar with it. We are very pleased to have reached this first milestone. Now you can freely download the most intuitive and advanced editor available. This is not a trial download. From here forward, you will always be able to download and use the latest version of Lightworks for free."

An open source video editor? Sounds like it might be too good to be true, but looking at the list of features, it's quite impressive. Amazingly, it was used to cut "The King's Speech" together - and that says a lot for software that's still in beta! Unfortunately, I've been unable to figure out how to use it yet - when I start a new project and go to import the video files, my AVCHD videos are not available for import. Turns out this file format isn't supported - which is a real shame given it has become a standard consumer format. Still, Lightworks may be the video editing you're looking for if you happen to have video in a format it can support...

"Import, edit, enhance, and encode your videos with the easy-to-use interface preferred by users the world over. Add video clips in practically any format, cut-out unwanted scenes, correct and enhance your video and audio, then encode to the format of your choice using custom settings or templates for popular formats."

TMPGEnc 4.0 Xpress is a software "classic" amongst video encoders; the company has long been known for their high-quality, flexible, and powerful video encoding software. I reviewed version 4.0 back in 2008, and gave it high praise for its ability to import almost any video format and crank out a high-quality video in a variety of formats. It's now in version 5.0, and with the addition of multi-track timeline-based editing, this is the biggest change yet. Unlike many other video editing programs on the market - I'm looking at you Adobe Premiere Elements - TMPGEnc Video Mastering Works 5 leverages not only CUDA support, but Intel's new h.264 encoding acceleration built into the new Sandy Bridge CPUs.

"SAN JOSE, Calif. - Sept. 21, 2010 - Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced Adobe(r) Premiere(r) Elements 9 software for both Windows(r) and Mac. Available for the first time on the Mac platform, Adobe's No. 1 selling consumer video-editing software* enables users to turn raw video footage into professional-looking movies in minutes and share virtually anywhere with friends and family."

I have a real love-hate relationship with Premiere Elements. On the love side, it's incredibly easy to use and generates excellent quality output. It's flexible in terms of output formats - I can create MPEG4 h.264 files at 1080p with two-pass VBR encoding at whatever bit rate I want...many consumer-level apps can't do that - and does basically everything I need it do. I find the user interface easy to figure out, the text tools are nice, and I have a nice, fast work-flow when using the program.

On the hate side, it crashes...a lot. I've never seen an application crash as often as Premiere Elements does. It crashes when editing a video, rendering a video, editing text, even exiting the application. I haven't seen an application crash this often since the days of Windows 95. It's been like this for years - check out this post of mine from 2008. Premiere Elements crashes so much that in version 8, Adobe introduced an error reporting wizard that asks you what you were doing when the application crashed, asks you for your email address, and presumably sends them crash information. I say "presumably" because in all of the crash reports I've submitted - and I'd estimate I've submitted at least 50 of them in the past year - I've never heard back from Adobe tech support. Worse, Adobe as a rule doesn't release patches or updates for their Elements software - if it has a glaring bug, it will not get fixed. Adobe simply expects the user to buy the next version of the software that has the fix. Appalling, isn't it? Read more...

"Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum software has everything needed to produce spectacular HD movies. Edit video in nearly any format including HDV and AVCHD. Powerful features for video compositing, color correction, and soundtrack creation help you get feature-film results in your home studio. Use the surround sound mixing tools to create 5.1 soundtracks. Choose from hundreds of professional 2D and 3D video effects, titles, and filters. Upload movies to YouTube, burn to Blu-ray Disc, or author DVDs using beautifully designed themes or your own custom menus and graphics. Exclusive Sony Show Me How interactive tutorials help you get started fast."

Every year, like clockwork, Sony releases a new version of Vegas Movie Studio, their attempt at a consumer-focused video editor. I say "attempt" because as much as I keep trying to like Vegas Movie Studio, year after year, I end up throwing up my arms in frustration at the baffling user interface it has. Sony was kind enough to send me Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9 last year to review, and after spending a couple of hours using it, I ended up with a bunch of jumbled review notes, and a pretty high level of frustration. I never completed the review, because I just couldn't get into using it..sometimes that happens with reviews, and it's always frustrating when it does (and it makes me look bad as a reviewer). I just couldn't force myself to complete the review. Read more...

In 2008, I was involved in an early beta of the new Windows Live Movie Maker, and I interacted with a friendly Microsoft Product Manager for that program. When the Zune HD came out, I started a little email campaign to get Windows Live Movie Maker to support the Zune HD with an optimized output profile - I really wanted to see Microsoft support their own product.

If you look to the left, I've taken a screenshot of the Mobile Device output profiles from the new Windows Live Movie Maker beta (a.k.a. Wave 4), and wouldn't you know it, there are output profiles for the Zune HD device, and the Zune HD 720p profile, for video output via the dock. Sweet!

I'm not claiming credit for this of course - it wouldn't have been added unless many people asked for the same thing - but hopefully my attempts to connect the right person on the Zune team to the right person on the Windows Live Movie Maker team helped move things along. You'll also notice they've added two Windows Phone profiles - another great sign that the Windows Live Movie Maker team is paying attention to what the rest of Microsoft is doing, and making attempts to be in sync.

This has been a historic flaw of Microsoft's; previous versions of Windows Movie Maker were still using 320 x 240 Pocket PC profiles from five years ago. It's like no one on that team was told newer and better devices had come out, and they weren't called Pocket PCs any more.

Unfortunately, the Windows Live Photo Gallery team didn't get the memo - unless I'm mistaken, there's still no way to batch resize (or resize even one photo) to a Zune HD-sized screen or a Windows Phone screen. Since the Zune software will resize the photos upon sync for the Zune HD, this isn't much of a problem - but neither ActiveSync nor Windows Mobile Device Center will resize images today for Windows Phones, so this is a clear oversight. Guess I'll keep using Picasa for that! Read more...

"TrakAxPC is a user friendly, feature rich multimedia editing suite which allows users to be creative using any combination of media, be it audio, video or photos. With trakAxPC, users can now mix and edit audio, videos and photos within the same application at an affordable price and directly upload their creations to YouTube to share with family, friends and the world."

If you like mixing your own music or creating movies and video slideshows, then you might want to check out the new version of trakAxPC Pro. If, like me, you've never used an editing program such as this and find you don't know what to do, or find the interface a bit overwhelming, then in the support section there are a number of very helpful video tutorials showing you how to use it and achieve what you want. Check it out and give the free trial version a try it if you think it will suit your needs.

"Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 & Adobe Premiere Elements 8 software gives you power and ease of use so you can do some amazing storytelling with photos and videos. Create extraordinary photos and incredible movies, and use them together in cinematic slide shows and more."

Another year, another version of Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements. It still feels like v7 of both products are "new" to me, but Adobe has locked into a yearly release cycle for both these products so I shouldn't be surprised. I'm a big fan of Photoshop Elements and use it daily. I happen to believe that a large number of people using Photoshop really don't need it, and encourage people to give Photoshop Elements a try whenever I can - it's a very capable program that can do everything most people need to do. There's certainly a place for the full-fledged version of Photoshop in the marketplace, but I think people buy into the "I need to have Photoshop, nothing else will do" a little too often.

Premiere Elements? I have mixed feelings about this program. On the one hand, it's delightfully easy to use - everything is fairly intuitive about it, and after having used it for a few years I can work really quickly with it. The down-side is that, in general, it's not a very stable program. Prior to v7, I'd describe it as "crash happy". Things got much better with v7, but I still had trouble with it on a fairly frequent basis. What boggles the mind is that Adobe seems to be the only company in the world that never releases software patches or updates for their Elements line - they don't fix bugs, or address new codecs, they just release a new version and presumably fix the problem in the new version. As an example, Premiere Elements 7 chokes on the AVCHD Lite files from my Panasonic DMC-ZS3 camera. Is there going to be an update to fix this problem? Nope. Will it work properly in v8? Yes, it's likely that it will. So I'll very likely give v8 a try and hope that things get better with it again...

"Pegasys, Inc., the company that makes digital video easy, announces the upcoming availability of its TMPGEnc Authoring Works 4 software. It's the perfect, all-in-one media authoring solution for any video enthusiast. It is easy enough for a beginner to understand, and sophisticated enough to meet the demands of an experienced videographer. The U.S. release date is scheduled for November 13th, 2008...With the capability to author the high-capacity Blu-ray format, users can enjoy high definition videos with menus without worrying about disc capacity. This allows the saving of high-definition videos taken with an AVCHD or HDV camcorder and keeping it in high definition. Add in support for high quality 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound or linear PCM audio (up to 192kHz/20bit) and the result is a superb audio/video presentation."

Aha - so this is the mystery product that they were teasing us all about a few weeks back. I have to admit that I'm confused by this product - it seems like it has a lot in common with TMPGEnc Xpress 4.0, and I'm not sure if you'd want to buy this if you have Xpress 4.0, because most of us have DVD burning applications already. I'm not alone in my confusion - our very own onlydarksets from the forums has posted a spreadsheet trying to make sense of how TMPGEnc products differ from each other.

"New Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 7 & Adobe Premiere® Elements 7 software with Photoshop.com Plus** membership combines two powerful yet easy-to-use products, so you can do so much more with your photos and videos. Easily create extraordinary photos and incredible movies, use them together in cinematic slide shows and other creations, and stay connected with your favorite people and memories."

Photoshop Elements is a superb program, and provides most of the photo editing needs for beginner to enthusiast users - a good number of people that dish out the megabucks for Photoshop CS3 would be well served by Photoshop Elements. It's a bit hard to decode exactly what's new, but looking at this page, I'd say they've added the ability to combine a mask with a paint effect - they're calling it Adobe Smart Brush. Might be dodging and burning on steroids? The description is pretty vague. They have Adobe Photomerge as well, which allows you to combine several near-identical photos to get the best parts of each one. It's listed as "new" but this feature is in Photoshop Elements 6, so Adobe calling it new is confusing. Adobe really needs to come up with a better list of what's new and what's not - they can look to Ulead for how it should be done.

One of the new features of this software, and seemingly what they put most of their efforts into, is actually a software service: Photoshop.com Plus. If you sign up for the yearly service, you get template updates, 20 GB of online storage for your photos and videos, online album sharing, and the rather-vague-sounding "access your photos and videos from anywhere". Read more...

"There's a whole new way to make movies today. Real movies. Polished, tightly edited movies that tell your story with perfectly-timed movement, close-ups, even music that feels just right in every frame. You can do this and more using the all-new muvee Reveal. In minutes, muvee Reveal takes your video, photos and music and automatically edits them to make the movies you always wanted to make."

The people at muvee told me they were working on something new, and it looks like this is it! Reveal looks to be what AutoProducer had been inching towards for a few versions now: a full-featured video editing suite, but with the muvee twist of auto-producing as the main method of assembling your videos. Manual controls include automatic brightness, color correction, rotate image, red eye reduction, focusing in on specific details, image sequence, and more. They've also added support for 720p and 1080p HD video, and video output in WMV, WMV-HD, QUICKTIME, MPEG4, H.264, MPEG2, MPEG1, AVI, 3GPP. Video input formats are WMV, Quicktime, MPEG4, H.264, MPEG2, MPEG1, DV-AVI, 3GPP, AVCHD, HDV. Nice to see AVCHD in that list since so many HD cameras not shoot in that format. Read more...

"CyberLink Corp. (5203.TW), innovative solutions provider for the connected digital lifestyle, today launched the latest version of its video-editing software PowerDirector. Featuring end-to-end high-definition format support, PowerDirector 7 allows users to turn their captured videos into professional-looking movies with ease. Key features in PowerDirector 7 include: High-definition support throughout – from capturing, to editing, enhancing, production, and disc-authoring, users can enjoy the best in video quality, and Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. Full support for Blu-ray Disc authoring – including BDAV and BDMV formats. Advanced video-editing tools – support for 6 independent PiP tracks, key frame controls for personalized effects and motion paths, 3D slideshows with soundtrack beat detection, for pro-like results. Greatly enhanced Magic Tools and user interface – users can enjoy quicker access to all functions, 1-click fixing and editing, and improved usability. DirectorZone – the new web community for PowerDirector users, it allows for upload, download and sharing of customized templates for DVD menus, frames, motion objects and more; direct access to Flickr and Freesound – users can browse and download thousands of photos and audio tracks to use in their productions."



I have to admit I have very little experience with Cyberlink products - in fact, until I started looking at the hp tx2000, I had never had any hands-on time with Cyberlink software beyond their software DVD player of bygone years. Cyberlink continues to move ahead with a wide array of digital media software, and this latest release looks feature-packed - the Flickr integration looks slick for those of you who are Flickr users. Unfortunately they don't have a free trial available yet.