@CubeAce Techsmith makes an awesome editor for screencasting, called Camtasia. I've used it for years and it may well be considered a standard for this use case.

The mighty Camtasia. My first MEP tutes, back in the MEP 15 days, were done with screen captures using Camtasia.

@Photo_G @AAProds

I'm just wondering why it has never come up on any of my web searches for a video editor or that I have never seen a review for it. It didn't do Staples any good 🙁. I do notice everything supplied is royalty free and the screen recording options look very good.

Ray.

@CubeAce thanks for the information. I am sure there was an explosion of sorts with people stuck at home. And there were thousands of NLE's sold via Humble Bundle. Vegas, VPX, Pinnacle Studio, and Videostudio Pro. I mean thousands of each brand. Hitfilm Pro even had a run at it a couple of years ago to the outrage of their users because of the low price.

For many, it's a way to get their feet wet into editing with a full featured editor that usually exceeds their needs at a great price. And some, if hooked, will upgrade (like me) to the newer versions.

@CubeAce

Hi

I used to use Camtasia a while ago, alas no longer as my needs simplified over the years, not to mention it is expensive.

. . . . I'm just wondering why it has never come up on any of my web searches for a video editor . . . .

Probably because it is aimed at the commercial screen capture, presentation market rather than a general video editor.

John EB

Did somebody receive an answer from HumbleBundle regarding the issue with missing Mercalli V5 ? My support ticket is still in progress without any news.

@Daniel-Kehl Same here.

I seriously doubt that HB will be including Mercalli ..... they've never done the "addons" in the past.

Nowhere do you see Mercalli offered on that page anymore.....

@Reyfox @Daniel-Kehl Understood, but it never hurts to ask. I guess we're just hoping for the best. 🙂

HB support did say that they were looking in to it, and it is still listed on their site today...we shall see...

@Photo_G OH!! I stand corrected! Time to clean my glasses!

Since it is there, then they should honor it. It's there for everyone to see. Not giving it is false advertising.....

I think I'll add my "voice" (I do have Mercalli 5 anyway) to this with HB. Submitted the necessary information including a screenshot of the HB page showing Mercalli V5 Suite.

So, we will see what happens....

@Reyfox @Photo_G @Daniel-Kehl

While I agree the offer is there I think they literally miscalculated as they quote the base price for VPX 12, not as Magix would have advertised it, not showing the base price of the product but the combined value of the package.

Still, fingers crossed.

Ray.

@CubeAce @Reyfox @Daniel-Kehl It's also listed as included at the VPX 12 base price in other places too, like Newegg.

@Photo_G the other software with additional addons (like VPX11, VMS16 Platinum) clearly stated that the additional plugins that were offered when the software was retail would not be included.

As I wrote above, I seriously doubt they are going to ask proDAD for Mercalli, which costs $299, to give it to them.

What they might do is offer to refund the purchase cost...... To me, I already have Mercalli so it's not a deal breaker if they don't supply it.

Usually, the number of installs you also get with a HB (at least with Hitfilm Pro) was limited to 1 installation, not 2.

@Photo_G

Hi

It also says you will get the latest version which clearly you don't as that would be an upgrade as opposed to an update of which VPX 12 already has all of them. You do get Magix support (You will get replies from raising a ticket) for one year though and technically the cheaper upgrade offer from VPX 12 to 13 which as we know can be got any time after support runs out.

The problem with looking at adverts on the internet is that is almost impossible to get action taken against companies that base their websites in other counties where consumer rights vary. Magix development is in Germany but where is their sales website based? I doubt they would get way with that EULA in the European Union.

All contact information for Newegg for instance ends up at

Newegg.com
18045 Rowland St.
City Of Industry, CA 91748

So I'm sceptical.

I just got it and, honestly, already uninstalled it after like 45 minutes. It's pretty terrible, TBH. On my AMD machines I cannot use Decode Acceleration with the AMD [i]GPUs as there are tons of green frames (looks terrible, and is absolutely unusable). Does not happen with Nvidia, though.

The Slow Motion looks absolutely terrible, and performs worse on my Laptop than Resolve Studio with Optical Flow at the highest quality setting (plays in real time).

The Mercalli 2.0 Stabilization works great, though. Can't say the same about the VEGAS Pro Stabilizer, which is awful (not even sure why that is in there, if they will continue to bundle Mercalli 2 and sometimes give Mercalli 5 as a bundle)..

I already have Resolve Studio, so I was really only looking to use this when I was mobile with a laptop and wanted to edit without running the RTX card ( = good battery life while editing). Video Pro X, for all its faults, has significantly better playback performance than VEGAS Pro; it's also - generally - a more stable. The UI responsiveness seems better than VPX 11, so they did improve it in that area.

The HitFilm Pro Humble Bundle was worth it more for Ignite Pro than HitFilm Pro, as HitFilm Pro is overpriced for upgrades/updates and they've really slowed down in terms of updates (so not much value in them). Ignite Pro (R.I.P. - glad I'm on Windows, in hindsight) is a good package for VFX work. That being said, it doesn't seem to work in Fusion Studio 17 (but does in Resolve Studio on the Fusion page, oddly). That's only one Installation, but it was worth it, and you could always just buy two and just put one on each machine e.g. Workstation + Laptop.

I did get a Movie Studio Platinum upgrade that I'll never use for NewBlue TotalFX 7, though. Thought about buying 2, but I'd only have gotten that if Video Pro X was usable, since it really is not great when it comes to the stock FX package. I got that mostly for Titler Pro 7, though.

Personally I think someone at Humble Bundle made a mistake. VPX 11 from Humble Bundle did not come with any third party plugins supplied when that was offered.

Ray.

@CubeAce Wasn't VP X11 where they introduced VEGAS image stabilization? IIRC, it was the only option at that point. Then in VP X12 they included the full Mercalli Suite, according to the MAGIX update history below.

https://www.magix.com/us/video-editor/video-pro-x/update-history/#c1428297

VPX 11 introduced VEGAS Stabilization, but it also had Mercalli 2.0 stabilization, which was always better.

So the VEGAS Stabilization was just put in to pad things out and give them one more "new feature" to advertise. I haven't tried a piece of footage that would lead anyone on the planet to choose VEGAS Pro Stabilizer over Mercalli 2.0. Ever. ProDAD is pretty much always superior.

@browj2 yes, TFX7 for $49USD was a "steal" if you ask me. I have no idea how much money they made on it, but it certainly benefits the consumers. I think Magix is trying to get MEP/MS/VPX to be more "visible" by offering this.

As for Mercalli V5 Suite, when I bought it (at a really really low price) for Vegas, it also came with Magix serial numbers too. I've not had a need yet to use it. The IBIS in my G9 is excellent, and after all the years of shooting video from SVHS to today, learning how to stand and even pan has paid off. Looking at a DJI Ronin SC gimbal.

Depends on what NLE you use.

If you use something like Resolve Studio, Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro or some others the FX aren't that useful. Most of the Essentials/Elements overlap with stock FX that are better - as they were developed a LONG time ago in a market where NLE developers were happy to allow third parties like NewBlue to provide the basics (which is why most Prosumer NLEs resorted to bundling tons of NewBlueFX products in lieu of developing their own).

There days, they don't compare as favorably, unless you use an NLE that hasn't really kept their stock stuff up to date (VEGAS Pro) or still uses a priority model favorable to bundling (Video Pro X/Movie Studio).

I do think Titler Pro is worth it on its own. The plug-ins are useful because Titler Pro can use them for FX design when doing Motion Graphics or Titles. 90% of them I would never use in my NLE, but 75% of them I would use in Titler Pro where my NLE's stock FX are inaccessible.

There are a few transitions (8-10) that are legitimately good, though, and I would probably use them. If I had to guess, that's likely where most of my use of these plug-ins - in my NLE - would go to.

The Mercalli 2.0 Stabilization works great, though. Can't say the same about the VEGAS Pro Stabilizer, which is awful (not even sure why that is in there, if they will continue to bundle Mercalli 2 and sometimes give Mercalli 5 as a bundle)..

@Former user Mercalli 2.0 is not included in Video Pro X13, unfortunately, nor is the v5 Suite (at this point) - which will probably influence my decision to upgrade later, even though I'm really liking X12 so far. It's also one reason that I'm hoping to receive the Mercalli 5 Suite license from HumbleBundle, because it's superior but also very expensive.

I've used the Vegas stabilizer in Vegas and for what I needed it for, it worked just fine.

Here is a video that compares Mercalli 5 Suite with Vegas Pro stabilizer. You will be surprised at some results.

@Photo_G @Former user @AAProds @Daniel-Kehl @AAProds @johnebaker

I have always taken offers from third party sites with a pinch of salt as long as the basic program has been available. It always varies from what was originally offered on the Products' actual website.

Spot any differences?

Ray.

@CubeAce I pointed this exact link out to Magix support last week and was told to contact HumbleBundle as they would have the activation code...proDAD support essentially said the same thing. This update history page would also lead you believe that it would be provided when upgrading to X13, but Magix confirmed that the V5 Suite is not included with V13.

Actually, you can activate TotalFX 7 on two computers. Just checked. Assumed you could not because someone on another forum said it was only one activation per license.

So, yea... gobs of value there...

The Mercalli 2.0 Stabilization works great, though. Can't say the same about the VEGAS Pro Stabilizer, which is awful (not even sure why that is in there, if they will continue to bundle Mercalli 2 and sometimes give Mercalli 5 as a bundle)..

@Former user Mercalli 2.0 is not included in Video Pro X13, unfortunately, nor is the v5 Suite (at this point) - which will probably influence my decision to upgrade later, even though I'm really liking X12 so far. It's also one reason that I'm hoping to receive the Mercalli 5 Suite license from HumbleBundle, because it's superior but also very expensive.

MAGIX has a really bad habit of playing musical chairs with bundled content. Replacing Mercalli 2.0 with VEGAS Stabilization is a tremendous downgrade. Probably should have seen that coming, though.

If you do a lot of smaller edits for social media, I can see using this over something like Resolve. Resolve is really... for "bigger projects." Sometimes I have a smaller thing I need to do and just want to throw a few videos in there and get it done quick.

I'll probably add this back when I see use for it, since I can put the NewBlueFX stuff on both machines. Without the extra FX to plug the (many gaps) in the stock set, it would hurt to use this :-P

MAGIX has bundled Mercalli 5 Suite as a 1 year license with some products, so even when it shows up... read the fine print.

P.S. Probably nitpicking, but I really dislike how it creates Samplitude Wave Projects for every video, and you cannot force it to save all of these in a specified location so they little your footage drive unless you're copying everything to the project directory.

@Photo_G @Trensharo @AAProds @Daniel-Kehl @AAProds @johnebaker

I have always taken offers from third party sites with a pinch of salt as long as the basic program has been available. It always varies from what was originally offered on the Products' actual website.

Spot any differences?

 

Ray.

Keying and Flares is in the Humble Bundle, but FXHome's stuff typically is included - as it has been in the past.

NewBlueFX Filters Ultimate is not worth mentioning because anyone who cares about that will just buy a Movie Studio Platinum upgrade for $49 and get TotalFX 7, which includes everything they make. And I'm not sure the Ignite plug-ins are even worth installing if you do that, due to functional overlap.

Beyond that, the top section is for VPX 13, not 12. So, those features are assumed to not be there.

The only really bad thing about the VPX11 thy had on Humble Bundle last time was that it didn't have support for AMD Hardware Acceleration.

It seems the issue I'm having is that videos are importing with the wrong color space. So, I'll try footage from a different camera to see if it gives the same issue with AMD GPU chosen in settings. I'm not even sure if that clip was shot on an iPhone or Android phone, as it can have something to do with the type of HDR iPhone devices shoot these days (Dolby Vision, etc.). I'll have to load in some footage from a cinema camera and see what happens.

EDIT: NewBlue Transitions don't work in Video Pro X. That's /sadface, because I think the Transitions are the best part of that TotalFX bundle - outside of Titler Pro 7,.