Corel VideoStudio Pro X2

Like many of you, I am no video editing professional. I just need a simple tool to stitch together the videos taken in my digital camera and convert them into MP4 format.

The original format comes out of my camera is Motion JPG like almost all digital cameras, those files are pretty big. I was hoping by converting to MP4 it would save me some disk space.

But I found the quality of the converted MP4 is rather low, the color is faded and some details, highlights are lost. The output bitrate is **FIXED** at 2000k for MP4 format, That's right, you read me correct, you can NOT change the setting! Contacted customer support, they claim this is normal. So now I ended up having to keep both the original files and converted files -- totally destroyed the purpose of buying it the first place. very disappointed.

I haven't tried editing my videos yet. From other reviews the editing function seems to be ok, but the point is, if the output result is in such a low quality, what's the point having a powerful editor?

====================

OK, Some Updates
I sent two emails to Corel. In the first email I asked if the bitrate
can be changed. This is their reply:

"""""
Thank you for your e-mail. By designed, the maximum bitrate for an MP4 in VideoStudio X2 is 2000kbps.

Unfortunately, we cannot adjust this as of the moment.
"""""

I got pretty angry and sent them a 2nd email stating if this is the quality they can archieve, I would like to return the product. And guess what? Now they reply saying yes the bitrate CAN be changed! It involves several steps to create a different MP4 profile, tedious, but doable. Now the output quality is much better. This is another case that a perfectly good product might be easily ruined by some junior support guy.

Now I would recommend the product. But again, if you just simply need to
slice, concatenate video clips, the ffmpeg tool on linux is very good and it's free.

If you care about video quality, might I suggest Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9 Platinum Pro Pack instead? I could not get VideoStudio to give acceptable quality.

I am primarily interested in compressing about 20 miniDV tapes (not worried about HD video at this point) that I have accumulated over the years. With storage so cheap these days, I want to store the highest quality encoded video on the hard drive of my home theater PC.

I downloaded the free trial versions of Corel VideoStudio Pro X2 and Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9 Platinum Pro Pack and compared the quality of the encoders. Straight out of the box, the Sony's encoders seemed to be more configurable than the ones in VideoStudio.

I created a sample video with my miniDV camcorder that pans/zooms across hardcopies of video test patterns, photographs, text, etc.

I was able to find several compression settings (bitrates, etc.) with Vegas that produced video almost the same quality as the original uncompressed video. But with VideoStudio, I was unable to find any setting that had good quality. The video captured by VideoStudio was MPEG format and had compression artifacts right off the bat, even before further processing.

I also tried using the Windows video capturing utility which captures uncompressed motion JPEG AVI, which was much better. However, after importing it to VideoStudio and writing out the video from the timeline, the output had motion blur sawtooth edges as if the video was not properly deinterlaced. I tried several configurations (including HD 720 30p, NTSC DVD, NTSC MPEG2 720x480) and nothing worked.

It could be that some VideoStudio expert can make this work with some magic potion that has eluded me. But as for me, I will go with Sony which works well out of the box.

I have not tried out all the bells and whistles of both products as video quality is the primary deciding factor for me. Your decision may weigh these other factors higher, resulting in a different purchase. Either way, happy editing.

Even though I'm working in IT I'm so un-geeky when it comes to video anything! We went to the Seattle Music Project and came away with a video of us pretenting to be a band. I couldn't play that thing if my life depended on it. I installed Video Pro, popped in the Video and in 5 minutes I had a playable .wmv, Mp4 that I could send to my friends. I can't wait to learn more and be able to use all the features this offers. It's a great price, easy to use and I can only recommend it highly even for the ungeeky like me.

If you want to do more with your videos than just the cheezy transitions that come with Microsoft Movie Maker, it's time to jump up to a real piece of video editing software. VideoStudio has a lot of pro features and bundles it in an interface that is not well designed. Depending on how deep you want to delve into this software, you can really craft some well edited videos. The support for AVCHD is especially appreciated since many new cameras use this standard.

Wow - this is a good one! This video editor is a great choice for those with underpowered PCs, and a pretty good choice for those with fast systems, too!

Video is moving to high definition faster than a dog to a doughnut. So which do you buy first: a new HD camcorder, or a powerful new computer on which to edit its footage?

Its updated Smart Proxy editing feature lets you create a lower-resolution version of a project that you can use to make edits, apply effects, and create menus, and when you're satisfied with how it looks, you tell the application to pull in the high-resolution source files to create the finished movie.

While the image quality isn't great in Smart Proxy mode, you can see well enough to apply effects; in addition, you can scrub back and forth in the timeline with no lag, and files play quickly and smoothly. In other words, you can use the program just as easily as you could with standard-definition video (and perhaps even more easily, because the proxy-mode footage is at a lower resolution than most standard-resolution footage). Even in the middle of a project, you can easily enable and disable the Smart Proxy mode by clicking a button on the timeline.

But I did find one timeline feature in VideoStudio that I really like: When you drag one clip into the timeline on top of another, VideoStudio will automatically insert your default transition, and you can set the length of the transition by adjusting the clips' overlapping points. It's a neat new time saver.

VideoStudio X2 has a slightly better range of features than Elements, and VideoStudio's tools are easier to see than Elements'. Elements still has a few unique features that I like--for example, better timeline features. I'd say VideoStudio X2 is the better choice if you have an underpowered PC, and Elements gets the nod for those with fast PCs. Great for those into editing with detail.