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When I read the original press
release for Pinnacle Express (PEx), it sounded too good to be true. It was
heralded as a unique development, in partnership with Philips, that
would allow DVD quality movies to be burned to normal CD-roms, yet be played in a standard domestic DVD player. The sums added up too - it was
stated that up to 20 mins of full DVD quality could be burned on a cheap
650MB CD-Rom.
I was aware of the technique of
producing VCDs, but had never bothered to attempt it myself - partly
because I did not have a compatible DVD player, but also, as I
understood it, the quality was no match against a DV-produced movie -
barely meeting VHS standard. Also, it seemed too
time-consuming to bother getting to grips with - and my free-time is too
precious to waste on trivial pursuits.
So I patiently awaited the release
of this 'wonder' product (which was a long time coming), only to be
stunned to discover that it was basically a VCD-authoring product in
disguise. The 'virtual DVD' capability originally talked of (which I now
know is called Mini-DVD) never materialised. This format was said to
have poor compatibility with existing DVD players, but there may be more
to it than that because. the package does in fact include the DVD format
in its output options, but only to a DVD recorder using DVD recordable
disks - a luxury which I cannot justify at this time. Why the Mini-DVD format was not
included as an additional option has not been explained.
It
was with less than my usual enthusiasm, therefore, that I began putting PEx
to the test. Knowing very little about the subject, I took time-out
to find out more about the VCD and SVCD formats, and to acquaint myself
with other consumer authoring solutions - including DIY methods. From
what I read, there seemed to be hope that the formats could well provide
adequate quality for normal home viewing on a modest-sized TV screen
and, if the SVCD format was chosen, it may even be suitable for low-end
commercial use (training/publicity videos). It also appeared that, in
the price range of PEx, there is no competitive product that offers the
same functionality, or similar ease-of-use (now, where have I discovered
that before?). Some do not even include the ability to add menus.
Maybe then, I thought, there is an element of 'cutting edge' about this
product. Interest (or rather - curiosity) rising - I began to play......
The
computer that I used did not have a 1394 interface so, instead of
capturing a movie, I transferred a DV-AVI file from another computer
(using a USB data link), and worked with that. The movie was about 18
minutes long, and consumed approximately 4GB of disk space.
When
I brought the movie file into PEx, I used the (default) Automatic Scene
Detection method. This was a slow process, but eventually produced dozens of thumbnails in the menus when I
switched to Step 2 (Preview). "What on earth am I expected to do
with these" I wondered. The manual didn't help much, but it
confirmed that these were, indeed, 'scenes', and that this was,
apparently, the basis for thumbnails in the menus. How this was going to
relate to the final production was not clear. (The cause of this
confusion, and a satisfactory conclusion, was not apparent until much
later on).
The next step was
to examine the scene editor, which displays the full list of scenes as a
scrollable, vertical, 'story board'. The editing facilities are quite
crude in comparison to the editor that I normally use, but are quite
effective in handling 'out takes', and trimming scenes. Anything more
adventurous however, like re-arranging scene order, can become messy, as can attempts to replace cut segments. These things are
possible but, if the movie requires a lot of this kind of editing, it
should really be done in an external editor and imported as a completed
movie. By careful use of the
scene-combining facility in the editor I was able to reduce the number
of scenes in my test movie from over 70 to just 9. The movie was
videotaped during the construction of a building, and the 9 scenes
(which I knew would appear as 9 items in the menus) now highlighted
each construction stage - such as walls, roof, ceilings etc. This stage
of the movie production process was completed by systematically going
through each scene to select a suitable thumbnail picture, and enter a
short title. I was quite pleased with the overall result, but it was not
achieved without some effort, and a lot of patience. This is not a
criticism of PEx - any authoring program would require the same input,
and PEx handled the job in a very user-friendly way.
With
the Scene Editor closed, I was back at the Preview screen, and I viewed
the result. Everything seemed to work fine - scenes could be chosen at
will, and played from that point just like playing a DVD. The remote
control also worked like the real thing. I felt like I was really
getting somewhere, and was beginning to warm to working with this new
(to me) medium. Now it was time to start working with the Menu
Editor..... I played around
for a while with the standard backgrounds (a reasonable selection), then
tried importing one of my own. This was very successful, with all the
formats that are supported (a generous variety). The only lesson I
learned here is to ensure that the image is close to 4:3 aspect ratio.
If not, PEx will scale the image to fill the screen, which may introduce
visible distortion. Next, I
experimented with various styles of frames for the thumbnails. Again, a
reasonable selection are available which should meet most needs. There
is no way to produce your own however, which is not surprising. I was
quite happy however, with what was offered here. Then
I tried out various thumbnail layouts. The range is fairly
comprehensive, and I had little trouble in choosing a suitable one. I
liked the idea that each menu could be different - which improved the
'personality' of my test project, but it was disappointing to find that
each layout was fixed - without any chance of re-arranging the
thumbnails, or the position of the text. Being
able to change the style of text was a welcome addition, but there was little chance of 'tuning' the text, such as using bold,
or changing the colours. I should not be too critical here though - on
this occasion I was able to quickly settle on a style that suited very
well. I put the
finishing touch to my menus by adding a musical background, using one of
the included compositions. This is another attribute that may be
customised by importing an external sound file (.wav or.mp3),
although they will need to be cut and looped to a suitable length outside PEx first.
Before committing my masterpiece
to CD, I used the Preview mode to check it out, then moved swiftly on to
the burning stage, anxious to see if the final disk would play as well
as that on a TV. There are
very few options to stage3 - just choose the number of copies and the
burn speed (I nearly missed that). I found it strange that the
media type and format are not set here too. I guessed that this must be
part of the preview process (will it fit the disk?), but I would have
preferred the choice of these to be more prominent - together with all
other setting options. Transcoding
to SVCD format is a fairly slow process. I was using a fast 1GHz machine
with lots of ram (512k), but it still took 85 minutes for the 17minute
movie. Burning took a further 21 minutes at X2. (Subsequent
transcoding to VCD was faster - 30 minutes, and a 12 minute burn).
I did not have a DVD player to
test out my shiny new production initially, so I used the software
player in my PC (Asus DVD2000 - based on PowerDVD). Like all other soft
players I have subsequently tried, this will only play VCDs complete
with menus - SVCD mpeg2 files must be played as files. MS Media
player will only play VCD mpeg1 files as files, and SVCD files, not at
all. Not having seen a VCD
playing before, I had no pre-conceived expectation of quality, but I was
not particularly impressed with what I saw. It was similar to a poor
quality VHS copy. This was not my major concern however..... ....I
found that there were significant glitches in-between each of the menu
scenes. I tried playing the disk in several software players, and
in stand-alone players, and the results were the same. Some
players held the last frame of the previous scene as a still, others
inserted a black screen - but none of the players I tried gave a smooth
transition between menu items. This is a severe shortfall, and can only
be overcome by a radical rethink in the way movies are edited and
authored in PEx. There is a
fundamental flaw in linking menu items with the 'scenes' as displayed in
the editor, yet this is the concept implied by the manual, and
encouraged by the way PEx's User Interface is ergonomically structured. It
became obvious that the Menu items should not be scene 'markers' at all,
but rather links into individual movies. This actually made a lot more
sense, and I subsequently made several (S)VCDs based on this approach,
using an option in the Edit screen to force a return to the menu at the end of each movie.
Armed with the experience of my
first attempt, I spent some time making several different types of (S)VCD.
I stayed with the 'separate movie' Menu approach throughout, which
worked well. It also gave longer playing time, as it cut down on the
number of Menus required - each menu is a movie file in its own right,
lasting anything from 40 seconds to nearly 5 minutes. Realistically, I
would not expect a VCD to have more than 5 menu items, or an SVCD more
than 3, which would fit on one or two menu screens at most.
Turning my attention to the visual
quality of the productions, I have to admit that this is a little
disappointing. I was not expecting miracles here - given that over an
hour's worth of video is now expected from the humble CD, which normally
only yields about that length of audio alone. The
trouble is, that I got so interested in the subject, I have since spent
a lot of time assessing other transcoders outside of PEx. I have
now seen just how good VCDs and SVCDs could be if the right transcoding
process was used. In my assessment, VCD can be as good as VHS, and SVCD
about equivalent to SVHS (Hi8), but not with PEx. However, I have found
a way to overcome this. Comparing
Digital with Analogue here is a little difficult, because the Digital
process shows its deficiency where there is a lot of movement (such as a
pan) in a highly detailed scene (the distortion is called 'mosquito
noise'), and the Analogue process fights for
sharpness and colour accuracy. But the overall assessment I give above
is a good guide to what we should expect. Do not expect the quality of a
Hollywood DVD - our humble PC equipment is no match for the 'megabucks'
hardware employed to produce these.
Initially I did not have a DVD
player, but I acquired one on approval to do these tests. I also hawked
my CDs around local stores, checking out various well known makes. At
home I viewed the results on a 33" Thompson 4:3 screen TV, using
RGB connection for best quality, but at the stores, most TVs were budget
14" sets. On the large
screen TV, providing I was not too close, the results were reasonable for average family audiences, with higher definition being noticeable
with SVCD. Neither formats got close to the quality achieved directly from a DV
camcorder, or from a commercial DVD, when the embedded transcoders were
used. CD Format
compatibility with DVD players was a minefield. In general I found that
most players were happy with VCD if CD-RW disks were used. About 60% of
players would play SVCD. The biggest problem was getting the players to
accept CD-R disks, even though a high percentage had dual-lasers. Out of
the 15-odd players I tried, only one (Panasonic) played all varieties of
CD-R disks without 'jumpy' or 'blocky' video. I tried the same kind of
disks on many of the machines with CD-A and mp3 recordings, and these
played perfectly. I guess this is what the published CD-R/CD-RW
compatibility specifications refer to in hardware players. The strange
thing is that, from what I read surfing the net, cheaper 'no-name'
players are more likely to accept CD-R disks than those from the 'big
names'. I put this down to the fact that they probably use standard PC
player mechanisms internally, rather than in-house DVD-specific
components. Obviously,
if you are making movies for an unknown destination machine, you should
stick to VCD on CD-RW.
My expectations of Pinnacle
Express were high when it was first announced, but I was less than enthusiastic
when it was released. Never having seen a VCD
playing in real life, but having heard stories of poor quality, I
could not see a future in it. I was prepared to wait patiently until DVD
writers became affordable. Over
the weeks that I have been playing with this thing however, I have had a
complete change of mind. The results (if the transcoder
workaround is used) are very good. The video quality, using the
supplied, and embedded, transcoders however is barely acceptable. This
is a real disappointment, and I feel Pinnacle should work hard to put
this right. If not, then PEx will fade into obscurity, as Studio Online
has done. The 'scene based'
paradigm is also a big mistake, and will lead new users completely down
the wrong track. Neither the help files, or the Manual offer any
direction in this respect. The fact that each 'scene', that is assigned
a thumbnail in the menus, is stored as a separate file on the target CD,
and that players do not merge these files seamlessly, shows that the PEx
authoring process is flawed. Once it is realised
that Menu items should stand-alone as separate movies, or be played as
separate sections of a movie as a whole, things begin to fall into
place. The Scene Editor
itself should be regarded merely as 'coarse cutting tool'. It is not one of PEx's most redeeming
features. The Menu Editor on the other hand is quite comprehensive, and
I have little real criticism here. That's
all the bad stuff, now let's look at the positive side - There
is very little competition for PEx out here at the moment. I have not
found a single application that will author VCD, SVCD, and DVD, complete
with menus in this budget price range. What it does, it does quite well
overall, and I look forward to using it more and more as time goes on.
If only Pinnacle could sort out the transcoder problem (or provide a
plug-in interface), and allow imports other than DV-AVI files, then the
future of Pinnacle Express will be secured. Even now, If I was asked
whether I would recommend buying it, the answer would be 'yes'
(particularly since I know that there is a transcoder workaround). To be
able to master a movie, well over 1 hour long, in VHS quality to a
standard cheap CD-RW disk, has got to be a facility worth having!
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