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May 2002|Roxio's VideoWave 5 is one of two video production products developed by MGI Software Corporation, which was subsumed into Roxio when the CD-R software powerhouse acquired MGI in late January. MGI's Cinematic (list $89.99 USD) is an entry-level video editing tool. VideoWave, aimed at hobbyist and business users, is a lifecycle video tool designed to capture, edit, produce, distribute, and archive video in various formats to optical, tape, and Web streaming media. If you have a digital camcorder connected to your IEEE 1394 (FireWire) port, you can also output the video edited in VideoWave back to your camcorder. Of a host of items, the most significant features specific to this release are production support for DVD, VCD, and MiniDVD; full support for Windows XP; faster video production and preview, thanks to optimized use of the Pentium 4; an updated MPEG encoder; and support for Windows Media Audio. What's more, VideoWave 5 combines its familiar simple interface with significantly more powerful production capabilities than its predecessors, making it a great value and definite "buy." product overview
To install and use VideoWave, you'll need a typical multimedia PC purchased within the last 12-15 months running Windows 98 SE, ME, 2000, or XP. Having a digital camcorder provides you more flexibility, but with the right peripherals you can also use an analog camcorder as input to VideoWave. VideoWave also accepts a wide range of file formats as input: AVI, MP3, WAV, MPEG-1/MPEG-2, DV-AVI, and Windows Media Audio. You can output in various formats, including MPEG-1 and 2 files, and Real or Windows Web streaming formats. If you have a DVD recorder, you can produce DVDs. With a CD recorder, you can produce mini DVDs (playable on PCs) or Video CDs (viewable on many DVD players). MGI estimates that 90% of all DVD players sold today can read Video CDs. Keep in mind that VCDs offer high-fidelity sound, but somewhat lower video acuity than DVD-Video typically delivers, due to the constraints of MPEG-1. Ease of use starts with VideoWave's easy installation and extends to its consistent, intuitive interface. After installation, if you make changes to your system hardware, you probably won't need to reinstall VideoWave 5. It takes advantage of special hardware features found with contemporary Intel Pentium and AMD Athlon processors and adapts itself as needed. Your initial "Install" loads all the software components onto your computer. Each time you launch VideoWave, it performs a check on your hardware and updates the appropriate components and drivers if required. main work console
VideoWave's main work console has four sections: Story Line, Video Mode Selector, Library, and Preview/Edit Control Panel. The Story Line (1), shown as a filmstrip with frames and transitions, lets you drag-and-drop scenes or videos, graphics, or sounds from the library (3). Unlike other systems, VideoWave is not time-based, but lets you simply drag-and-drop images or video clips in series onto the Story Line. This approach leaves you to focus on the video story, rather than dealing with multiple audio, video, and transition tracks. You may insert transitions, shown as vertical film clips, between video clips. The Video Mode Selector (2) toggles between various main editing functions, like capture, cutting room, special effects, and transitions. The open area at the bottom of the console displays options available with various editing functions, while the Preview Edit/Control Panel (4) provides familiar VCR controls. The bottom portion of the Panel indicates the duration of a video clip, including a TimeSlider for advances or returns to points in the clip. In testing, I found that I really liked VideoWave's optional scene-detection feature. This scans video as part of the capture process, and saves scenes as individual clips at points where the camera was stopped and restarted. You can then edit or use each scene on the Story Line. The Library section shows individual scenes with the conventional Windows Shortcut icon. Note that VideoWave saves your originally captured video (AVI from a DV source), and it keeps edits you make on files in the Library in separate descriptor files. This has the advantage of keeping your original captured content available for further edits. optical production
VideoWave's DVD production capabilities debut with version 5; you access them via the Mode Selector (2). Clicking on the Selector's DVD icon brings you to a whole new production screen. Here you create a new project, selecting output to CD-R or DVD. It would be nice if you knew whether your VCD or other production would fit on its intended medium before trying to produce it. Unfortunately, there are so many variables that the best VideoWave (or other products) can do is to estimate the size when you begin transcoding (rendering the source to the intended format). VideoWave will give you feedback at production time with estimated size, duration of the result, and the like. test findings
I tested VideoWave 5 as a professional wanting to transfer video from a digital camcorder, then edit and produce MPEG, Web streaming media, and Video CDs playable on DVD players. I ran VideoWave under Windows 2000 Professional on my Gateway 1gHz AMD Athlon PC, with 256MB RAM, 60GB hard disk, 16X/40X DVD-ROM drive, 12X/32X CD-R/RW, and 1394 IEEE card (aka FireWire or "I-Link"). The video source was a Sony DCR TRV-17 digital camcorder. VideoWave recognized both the camcorder and my separate USB Webcam. Finally, I used a Panasonic DVD LV-55, as well as several other brands to play the Video CDs that I produced, Windows Media player to view MPEG and Windows Media files, and RealPlayer to view the streaming video output. I did not try producing DVDs or transferring video to tape. The VCD disc was viewable, but occasionally pixilated (when you spread out the MPEG-1 frame size to a DVD screen, you lose clarity), but the sound was crisp. In my test editing session, I quickly used up over 10GB of storage for 42 minutes of captured DV video stored as AVI files. That was in addition to various housekeeping files created and maintained by VideoWave, and two 11-minute, 45-second MPEG files: 107MB for the MPEG-1 version, and 541MB for the MPEG-2 version (Remember: AVI and MPEG-2 files have a frame size of 720x480 pixels; MPEG-1 uses only 320x240.) VideoWave provides only two choices for Real formats: dialup or broadband. The MPEG-1 (56K dialup) Real file took just under 15 minutes to produce a 7MB media file. VideoWave provides many more streaming options for Windows Media Video files. I selected the 56K dialup option, creating ASF for clients connecting with 56Kbps dial-up modems, with multiple bit rate support enabled. It took nearly 20 minutes to produce a 4.6MB Windows Media file. Viewed in their respective players, the files displayed essentially the same video quality. Definitely remember to periodically check your "My Documents/MGI" folder and purge or burn the original captured files to CD-R. To paraphrase the old politician, "A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon my big PC disk didn't look so big after all." wish list
Impressed as I was by the range of features, new and old, in VideoWave 5, the streaming media options, and the facility of the interface, there's plenty of room for improvement here that I hope to see in future iterations of the software. Here's a working wish list: - Bigger manual, or more comprehensive online HELP: Although it is easy to get the hang of 80% of VideoWave quickly—and that's all many will want—learning some of the details can be difficult. The manual is an excellent tutorial, but not a comprehensive reference, and the HELP file covers only the basics.
- Improved Production Support: Having a real-time estimate of whether a storyline will fit on a CD-R is also important, even though this is a difficult endeavor. Finally, a preview of what the results will look like on the target would be helpful.
- Support for Super VideoCD: Playing VCD CD-Rs on a DVD player provides nowhere near the quality experience consumers expect from their DVD players. Mini-DVD is VideoWave's answer to SVCD support now, allowing playback of Super VCDs on a PC's DVD player. Producing SVCD on CD-R for DVD players directly would be much more appealing and would give all us DVD production wannabes—with CD-R budgets—an exciting option.
MGI, roxio, and the future of digital video production
On February 1, 2002, Roxio, Inc. announced it completed the acquisition of MGI Software Corporation. Roxio makes software for creating, managing, and moving digital media—focused, to date, on CD formatting and recording. Roxio's suite of digital media products features the best-selling CD recording software in the world: Easy CD Creator (for Windows) and Toast (for Macintosh). Roxio also makes GoBack, system recovery software enabling PC users to "go back" in time to recover from system crashes. MGI provides best-selling consumer photo and video editing products. Put these two together—with an installed consumer base of nearly 100 million—then execute correctly, and Roxio could become the leader in the overall digital media software space. If possible, Roxio could add even more excitement to the MGI product stable; Nielsen/NetRatings reported that roxio.com was the biggest gainer recently (beating symantec.com and oracle.com) in unique audience visits. I spoke with MGI officials about what this acquisition would mean to users of MGI and Roxio products. Although the product opportunities between these two companies are striking, actual product details are still being worked out. Easy CD Creator's expertise could benefit VideoWave since DVD authoring is quite new. In the area of producing VCDs and SVCDs, VideoWave could gain access to a large number of Creator's device drivers; Roxio's VideoPack 5 already supports SVCD production. Within six to nine months, we might see a sharing of APIs between the two products. Over time, expect this synergy to result in their Video and CD/DVD product lines becoming more complementary and powerful. Over the next couple of major releases, we might even see products with a seamless integration between Roxio and former MGI product lines. www.roxio.com
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