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Panasonic's DVD Movie Studio is a collection of hardware and software that offers a complete solution to digital video (DV) camera users. It comes with an IEEE 1394 interface card, a DVD-RAM/R drive and a set of applications for capture, edit and output.
However, there are limitations to both the hardware and software that should be considered before purchasing this system.
The supplied OHCI-compliant IEEE 1394 card is relatively nondescript. It uses a 32-bit PCI slot and provides three six-pin ports (two external and one internal) for connecting DV cameras or other IEEE 1394 devices.
The capture software supports analogue video input, but you'll need to add your own analogue I/O card if you don't already have one.
Panasonic has chosen its own drive, the LF-D311DMS, as the DVD recorder for this system. Unlike DVD-RW or +RW drives, which can write and rewrite to both DVD and CD rewriteable media, the LF-D311DMS is a DVD-RAM/R drive.
This means that the rewriteable media is limited to DVD-R (4.7Gb general) and DVD-Ram discs (up to 9.4Gb). There's no CD-R support. It's also slower than newer rewriteable DVD products, with 6X DVD-Rom reads, 24X CDRom reads and only 1X (1,350Kbps) for DVD-R writes.
With that said, you're less likely to experience compatibility problems with DVD-Rom or consumer DVD players with the DVD-R media this drive supports, while DVD-Rams are highly suited to archival and system backup roles, as they can be overwritten up to 100,000 times and offer full drag-and-drop file copying.
Rather than using a single application for capture, edit and DVD-authoring (like Ulead Systems' VideoStudio 6.0), Panasonic has enclosed two separate packages.
The first is Pinnacle Systems' Studio SE 7.06 which covers capture, edit and export to file, with Pinnacle Express 1.03 covering the DVD-authoring stage of your project. Studio SE follows a familiar format, with a fixed resolution workspace providing a linear workflow from capture to output.
Unlike some batch capture utilities, it doesn't create separate AVI files from the time code information of your DV tape, but captures a single continuous file.
Start and finish points from scenes within this clip are stored as sub-clips in the library pane, allowing thumbnails to be dropped onto the clip sorter or the more conventional timeline view, which also includes tracks for audio, title, narration and background music.
You can record your own narrative or rip CD audio tracks onto the timeline, as well as adjust gain for each audio channels, with rubber band control for controlling audio fades.
A wide range of transitions are included as standard, including 74 standard transitions, 52 alpha key effects and 16 3D effects. The biggest limitation of Studio SE is the lack of certain key features, including timeline track locking, all-colour and contrast correction, as well as speed and strobe adjustment.
Once finished, you can export the project back to your DV camera or save it as an AVI, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, RealMedia or Windows Media file. What you can't do is create DVD-Video files and folders for burning directly to DVD-R with the supplied Prassi PrimoDVD burning software, nor can you transfer your project timeline directly to Pinnacle Express.
Instead, you must use it to capture directly from camera or import an AVI created with Studio SE 7.06, so you'll have rendered your project twice before burning it to DVD, which is time consuming.
The pre-set menu pages are fairly basic and might not appeal to serious users. You can use Pinnacle Express to merge clips or change thumbnails, but you can't add background music, an intro or customise the menus with images or layouts of your own.
Although the supplied hardware is sound, it's let down by the choice of editing and authoring software. That said, Panasonic's DVD Movie Studio provides a complete solution for capturing, editing and DVD authoring at an attractive price.
Price: £382.97 (ex. VAT)
Minimum requirements: Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP; 350MHz Pentium; 64Mb Ram; 300Mb hard drive space.
Contact: Panasonic 0870 535 7357
www.panasonic-industrial.com
See also:
A flexible, well-rounded internal DVD+RW drive with a full set of utilities. 23 May 2002
All Optical Drives (CD/DVD Drive)
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