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Mainconcept's MainActor is an ambitious package that includes a great deal of capability. Unfortunately, it appears that MainConcept has overreached their grasp as there are outstanding quality issues, that lead to the package being unusable for DV work. MainActor includes an excellent array of features and transitions. It has a timeline editor with up to 99 audio and video tracks. It can generate output files in a variety of formats, from MPEG to Quicktime to AVI. It even has a Linux version. All of these features are cast aside by poor DV output quality. In moderate to fast motion MainActor creates a great deal of motion stutters and jumps. The effect can be disconcerting. Furthermore version 3.55 of the software can not place AVI files more than 2 GB on the timeline. It crashes quickly when you attempt this. MainConcept has a release candidate of their new version 3.6 posted at their site. This version corrects the AVI loading issue, but at this time does not resolve the motion rendering issues. MainConcept is working hard to resolve the issue, and they have made specific efforts to handle the problem. They have included a new DV codec in the 3.6 edition that will help. MainConcept's DV Codec is a bright spot and bears special mention. The codec produces better results than the Microsoft codec and is faster for many operations. Users have been successful using the codec to allow Premiere 5.1 to work with generic IEEE-1394 devices. Given time this product is likely to grow into a formidable low to mid level application. At this time, it simply can NOT be recommended for DV work. I am working with MainConcept to resolve the issues at this time. Please give them time. I have been asked by MainConcept to remove the above statement from my site, because they do not acknowledge any of the problems I have mentioned. Markus Moenig, MainConcept's software lead, said that this was a problem with my configuration. He did not reply to requests for information regarding incompatible hardware or software. He did not mention any thing regarding my hardware platform. Later on my own, I found that when I upgrade my system to 512 MB of PC133 RAM that I was able to get better output with MainActor 3.6 beta, not completley smooth. Paradoxically my render times lengthened, and preview playback was still unacceptably jerky. Here are the component's used to test the software. TYAN Tiger 133 motherboard Pentium 3 750MHz Slot 1 CPU (Single CPU configuration) 128MB of PC100 RAM Soundblaster PCI 512 StudioDV IEEE1394 card (OHCI compliant) ELSA Erazor X2 GeForce 32MB DDR 4x AGP 4.3 GB 5400 RPM IDE System Drive, 40GB 7200RPM ATA/100 Video Drive (Maxtor) Creative DVD-ROM 2x Windows 2000 SP1 As is Deriguer in the test industry, I started with a clean install of Windows 2000, the service packs and updates from MS. I made sure I had the latest drivers, and then I installed MainConcept on that platform. I am afraid I have to conclude that MainActor 3.55 is not presently ready for primetime. I have to say the most dissapointing part of the whole misadventure was the lack of real response from MainConcept about perceived problems with their product. I would be more than willing to accept that there was an issue with my hardware, or software. However without specific guidance from MainConcept, given the standard nature of my software and hardware configuration, I am not comfortable with that assertion. I still think the software is worth trying for a low end editing solution. Be aware that you are on your own if you have problems. Despite response from a highly placed person at MainConcept, I got no useful or even helpful information, If you can get it running, you should have a good piece of software capable of running a low end edit suite. My advice for MainConcept, forget new features for now, make sure that 3.6 is a solid piece of software that will run well on just about anything in the Windows realm. Here is MainConcept's Home Page.
UPDATE 6/21/2001
UPDATE 8/18/2001
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