Merry Christmas!

It's the Christmas season again. :) As a Christian and a person who was born in December 25, I always like Christmas a lot. This year there will be something different, but it's still not the time to tell why. Maybe a few days later I will let you guys know why it's a little different.

Last Christmas I helped to hold the Christmas party in InterVideo Ulead because I was a member of Ulead Employee Welfare Committee. This year we will not have a party for the Christmas in InterVideo Ulead, but we do have a party for joining the Corel family. As some of you already know, Corel had completed the acquisition for InterVideo Ulead in December 12. On that day, some Corel management people came to Taipei and met us in the employee meeting to announce the acquisition. And after the meeting we had a cocktail party to celebrate the event. If you wish to know how it goes, you can check the party photos in my flickr album.

I took some pictures of Corel people in the party. For example, this one:
This is the CEO of Corel Corporation, David Dobson. I think I like him, and he is much more handsome than what you see on the picture. Will he take Corel InterVideo Ulead to another higher stage? Maybe, we will see.

And I photoed another Ulead people here:
This is Tobias Openshaw. Most of time we call him Tobie. He is the editing manager in the Strategic Marketing Division of Ulead and was the product marketing manager for Ulead's video product line. He is also the photographer to take photos in the parties in InterVideo Ulead. He is very active in film editing and helped Ulead on the promotion for VideoStudio / MediaStudio Pro a lot. Before joining Ulead he was an armorer for some independent film in USA. You can see his filmography on IMDB as well.

He is a really nice person, and I like his pose here when I was trying to take a photo of him. :)

We enjoyed the cocktail party for a while, and that reminds me about the past life I had with Ulead. Well, it's not bad, isn't it?

Tomorrow I will join the Christmas activities in the church, maybe I will come back and share the feeling I have in the church.

It's a little late here in Taiwan. I think it's time for me to go to bed. Merry Christmas to you all, and may Gold bless you.

Related articles:

• 2006/12/12: Corel Completes InterVideo Acquisition
• 2005/12/18: Christmas Party for Ulead HQ and InterVideo Taiwan
• 2005/12/26: Status updates for the Christmas party of Ulead HQ and InterVideo Taiwan

Taipei chosen to host Wikimania 2007

After weeks preparing the Wikimania City Bidding Contest, the jury had announced that Taipei is been chosen to host Wikimania 2007 in September 25 (Monday). As a Wikipedian and a member of the Taipei bidding team, I'm very happy with the result. But we did not happy for too long because we have realized that now there are more responsibilities to be put on us (mostly the pressure is from ourselves). Now it's not just a bid or contest, it's a real thing to host a international conference. I think we need more blessings and wisdom for the preparation of Wikimania 2007.

Last Thursday night I made the bidding banner by using the newly announced Ulead PhotoImpact 12. Well, it's not difficult to make it. Just a little editing and then the bidding banner is done. Nice looking and sweet. :) I've been used to use Ulead products to make my life to have more fun (and sometimes to do some serious things). Now I'm considering to make some video for Wikimania by using MediaStudio. BTW, the most difficult thing is not how you use the tool. Most of the time it's how you can get the idea to edit the video. And now I would definitely need some idea to make that video. Fortunately I still have 11 months for the video so I can take my time for the idea. :)

I know some people in other bidding team do not like the decision the jury had made. But take it seriously, if the jury chose your city to host Wikimania, we people in the other end of the earth will also have the issues that you have. BTW, I think maybe those people do not understand this because sometimes people just cannot see things in a much neutral point...

All I can say is that we Taipei team will try our best for Wikimania 2007 and we are looking forward that you can join us together to work on Wikimania in Taipei. At least, we are all sharing the same vision of Wikimedia Foundation and we share our knowledge to benefit the human beings via Wikimedia projects like Wikipedia.

People who work on non-profit Wikimedia projects are volunteers and devote themselves to share knowledge in their leisure time. It does not conflict with my job in Ulead, if you have doubts on that. :)

Viva Taipei!! Go for it!!

Think Different, Do Smarter, Work for Joy

Today I decided to change the name of this blog. Something is changing but I think if you care about Ulead then you will know what is going to happen soon.

These days I was thinking about redesigning my blog, not just the style but also the content. I have some plans to do but I'm a little busy now. However, I will try to write regularly here.

Some old Uleaders might still remember the working attitude "Work Hard, Work Smart" from the founder, Way-Zen Chen. But now I have my own working attitude as "Think Different, Do Smarter, Work for Joy", and I think the most important part should be "Work for Joy". Without joy, work would be just boring. I think I'm lucky because I still have joys in my work. And I wish you readers would also have joys in your works.

Since my last post, Ulead had released the 1st official service pack for MediaStudio Pro 8. If you are interested, go ahead and try it.

FIFA World Cup Germany now is going on and will have its final winner in a few days. I did not notice this soccer game until I watched Italian versus Australia. Now I'm crazy about this game. I'm sorry to know that Germany just lose the semi-final and got the 3rd position. I'm sorry not just because we have a subsidiary in Germany but also I voted for Germany as the winner of FIFA WCG in the "Guess the Winner" game in Taiwan (that means now I lose a chance to win a Sony VAIO. What a pity). Now the Portugal vs France semi-final is going on and I wish the Portugal team could win because they have a good and interesting coach, but who knows? I might be wrong again. Anyway, in a few hours we will know who is the one to compete with the Italian team in the final game.

Few hours later it would be a big day to Ulead, just wish everything can go well.

Oh yes, several days ago, Eric Chen, the product marketing manager of DVD MovieFactory, have discussed with me about the possibilities to hold some activities on my blog to send out some free copies of DVD MovieFactory 5, the first consumer HD/BD authoring software. If you wish to know the details then you can keep an eye on my blog.

And, the author of a great book, Getting Results with MediaStudio Pro 8.0, now is cutting the price of the book down to clear his stock. I think the price is affordable to someone who wants to try video editing. It's not only useful for MSP users, but also useful for video-graphers because it covered most topics on video editing from beginners to professionals and has some excellent tutorials for readers. If you wish to know video editing, I think this book is a must buy.

Wish you all have a nice day, and so does Ulead.

Something New in Ulead Today - DVD MovieFactory, VideoStudio and MediaStudio Pro

Today I just got the box of Ulead DVD MovieFactory 5 from Eric Chen, the Product Marketing Manager of DVDMF. I know some people wish to see the box version of DVDMF5 in these days, so I will put some pictures here.

The front side of the boxThe back side of the box
The Blu-ray notice and the tech support card
The user manual
According to Eric, Blu-ray is still supported in this version. However, at this time it can only offer to burn a Blu-ray data disk because the Blu-ray spec for video is not finalized yet. I think it's no doubt that DVDMF 5 is still the first consumer software that offers both Blu-ray and HD DVD burning. When the Blu-ray video spec is been finalized, I believe Ulead will release the Blu-ray video burning pack ASAP.

Paper to introduce digital media and Ulead products
The installation disk

This box is a small size one for selling in Costco and some shopping malls. For selling DVDMF 5 in computer stores there will be a regular size for the box. Soon you will see the box to be available in the store in U.S. and some other regions.

I had took some pictures of the regular size box of DVDMF 5, but I left them in my office PC so I cannot post now. Maybe I will update them to this post later on Monday.

OK, now for the second news.


After a few days waiting, today Ulead VideoStudio 10 Plus box version is been shipped in U.S. and in European. Now you can put your order to Ulead Mall to buy a box of UVS 10 Plus now. :) If you have any opinions or ideas on this, you can post to Ulead VideoStudio forum.


The 3rd news is, we have released the first Service Pack Preview of Ulead MediaStudio Pro 8 today. You can download the release note for complete information on the features and updates included in the service pack. If any feedbacks or opinions, you are welcomed to post to Ulead MediaStudio Pro forum or send them to the service pack feedback page.

However, this download is only a preview, check the Disclaimer before you install it. The real service pack will be released a few weeks later.

Wish you would enjoy with these new releases.

Ulead VideoStudio 10 now is available

Ulead VideoStudio 10 now is available on Ulead website. If you are interested, check the product page.

UVS 10 supports High Definition video editing and supports true Dolby Digital 5.1 editing. For more detailed information on UVS 10 features, check the features page.

In most video editors you will be limited by only one UI layout to edit your video. Sometimes it's not convenient for users to use the interface. For example, a left hand user might not feel comfortable when the editing options are been listed on the right side of the interface. In this version of UVS, you can have some freedoms to set the UI layout.

Layout settings in Ulead VideoStudio 10

As you can see there are 4 UI layouts you can set in UVS 10. After you set it, the UI layout will be like the followings.

UI Layout 1

UI Layout 2

UI Layout 3 (it's the default UI layout)

Layout 4

Although it's a minor change, but I think it improves the usability of the interface for some people. :)

In this new version Ulead has improved the rendering performance to be much faster. If you are using a dual core CPU then you might be glad to know that UVS 10 runs faster on dual core. You can see the benchmark chart of UVS 10 with different Intel CPUs as following.



The burning module of UVS 10 is coming from the newly released Ulead DVD MovieFactory 5, so UVS 10 also supports to burn video files as VCD, DVD (both single and double layer) and HD DVD.

I know some of you come to my blog because you wish to find a pirate copy of UVS 10 by using Google or MSN Search (yes, I can see where you are and what search keyword you used in Google or MSN Search by using some blog tool). However, if you think UVS 10 is good, please be good to be a legal user because we engineers make a living by selling the products we made.

Thanks for your co-operation, and wish you would like this new UVS version.

Enjoy!

First HD DVD disk authored by Ulead DVD MovieFactory 5.0 user

A user of Ulead DVD MovieFactory 5 called WiFi-Spy had released a HD DVD demo disk image file in March 30th to let anyone who may interests to test the disk on their HD DVD players. WiFi-Spy claimed he shot the content in the International Consumer Electronics Show 2006 with a High-Definition camcorder, Sony HDR-HC1 and is eager to know if anyone can play the HD DVD demo disk on a real HD DVD player. Soon, a Japanese user found the disk image file and gave it a try on the newly released Toshiba HD DVD player HD-XA1 yesterday and he has found the HD DVD demo disk can be played very well.

The Japanese user has burned the HD DVD disk on a DVD-R and play the disk successfully on his new Toshiba HD DVD player. He has recorded the playing as an video and you can check the video in his blog.

I think it's a good news to Ulead and the HD world because now users can use DVD MovieFactory to author their home-made videos as HD DVDs and play them on a real HD DVD player!

At the present time, there is still no other consumer HD DVD authoring programs available and Ulead is the company that can say we have HD DVD supports that works and the price for DVD MovieFactory is acceptable for home users. I know there is still some more steps Ulead needs to do, but it's already a good sign to us. :)

Note: Toshiba HD DVD player HD-XA1 now can be purchased in Japan since 2006/3/31. If you have friends in Japan, you can ask them to buy one for you from Amazon Japan. If you do not have such a friend in Japan, you can wait till April 15th or pre-order in Toshiba and ChannelIntelligence.

Support Taiwan to join the World Health Organization

Since the outbreak of SARS in Taiwan during year 2003, it has illustrated how Taiwan can help the world to prevent the spread of contagius diseases. However, due to the political status of Taiwan, Taiwan now still cannot be a member of World Health Organization and cannot help to assist the global society on the health wars. Also, Taiwanese people cannot get enough information directly from WHO when new diseases are announced. So, if you agree to let Taiwan help the global society and to let its people to devote their knowledge on this, please go to the sign page to help to express your opinions. Also you will get more information about this topic in the page.

Thanks for your attention.

First review on Ulead DVD MovieFactory 5

Personal Computer World just gave a review for Ulead DVD MovieFactory 5, and they gave Ulead DVD MovieFactory 5 4 ponts out of 5. I think it's a good news for Ulead.

Generally we have got many good responses from DVD MF 5 users, I wish the good responses can go on. As you can see, I love Ulead products, not just because I'm an employee of Ulead, but also I'm a real user of Ulead products. It's lots of fun to use our products to do some creations. :)

Wish you guys would also like DVD MF 5, too. Cheers.

About fake Ulead VideoStudio 10 Plus version

I have noticed there are many users now searching for VideoStudio 10 Plus via Google and MSN Search these days, just like the situation for DVD MovieFactory 5 few days ago. Follow the Google/MSN Search links you might find some download links for VideoStudio 10, but I want to let you know that those links will not let you get the right VideoStudio 10 release. VideoStudio 10 Plus now is still not released yet (but soon), so if you download it from those links you might get some fake version and it might crash your systems. I've told you this, don't come to me or go to the Ulead forum if you got any problems with those fake versions.

You've got the warning.

New Features of Ulead VideoStudio 10 Plus

Vidoman, a best tester of Ulead VideoStudio 10 just talked about the new features of the Plus version of VideoStuio 10 on Ulead User-to-User Forum. If you wish to know, check the information on the forum.

I will quote some features he mentioned on the forum here in blue text:

HD Editing with Smart Proxy.
You will be able to use Smart Proxy editing just like MSP 8. This will make editing HD content as easy as HD even on mid-range machines.

Pure HD Authoring & Output
You will be able to produce Blue-ray and HD DVD discs, create WMV-HD, MPEG-2 HD, and MPEG4 HD, to playback on devices such as the Xbox 360.

Pure HD Upscaler
High quality upsampling of SD video for use in high-definition projects.

6 Overlay tracks.
That's right, Video Studio 10 Plus will have the capabilty of 6 overlay tracks, that's' a total of 7 video tracks.

Enhanced Multi-Trim Editor that includes Ad-Zapper to automatically detect commercials in TV programs, for easy removal. AccuCut Editing with Timeline Zoom lets you find any frame for trimming it , even in long clips.

Anti-Shake Filter
Yes they did it, they added an Anti-Shake filter, that if I may say so, rivals those that cost about $80. I know this first hand. I have done a comparison of a competitor's filter, that I purchased for about $80 , and in my opinion the Ulead Anti-Shake beat it.

Audio Enhancements
Pitch Shift filter raises or lowers the key of the audio clips without altering the length.

Auto-Rotate will automatically rotate digital camera photos to insure slideshow photos are presented correctly.

Divx and MPEG4 support.
You will be able to output ttemplates for creating video for iPods, PSPs, Smartphones, PDA's and other devices. You can import and export DivX with the appropriate codec.

It is also suppose allow you to use your remote control on Windows Media Center PC's to capture video and burn DVD's.

However, these are not the full feature sets. You have to wait a little for the release. :)

Ulead DVD MovieFactory 5 now is available

Ulead DVD MovieFactory 5 now is available on Ulead website. If you are interested, check its product page.

It now includes Ulead PureHD(c) feature to let you author your video as high definition disks such as Blu-ray and HD DVD, but it still remains the feature to let you author as DVD5 (4.7GB) or DVD9 (Dual Layer DVD, 8.5GB). Also it improves the usability and menu authoring functions. You can see the feature comparison between DVDMF 4 and DVDMF 5 in this page. I know some of you keep searching information about DVDMF 5 on Google and MSN Search in these days. Now you can have a chance to see it or own a copy of it.

Enjoy!! :)

InterVideo Ulead at CeBIT Show 2006

Want to know what will InterVideo and Ulead demostrate in CeBIT Show 2006? You can check the press release on Ulead website and the CeBIT Show Information on InterVideo website.

If you want to know some updated details, check the following Ulead employee blogs:

Peter Lin's Blog - General Manager of Ulead Japan/Euro (in Japanese, but you can see some photos)

Kai-Hu@Euro

Cheers! :)

New Ulead DVD MovieFactory 5 announced

Today Ulead announced the new Ulead DVD MovieFactory 5, an new release of the consumer DVD authoring package offering easy disc authoring, an expanded range of creative options and the first disc authoring package to provide future-ready support for both HD DVD and Blu-ray disc formats. If anyone is interested in detail information, check the news release.

It will be available in late March in US.

I remember when we were trying to do the MTBF process for DVDMF 5 in just 2 days before the Chinese New Year Eve, we stayed in office over-night and wait for the Quality Assurance engineers as real end-users to use DVDMF 5 to author meaningful DVD/HD/BD disks and test all the functions of DVDMF. An usual MTBF process time in Ulead for a software package like DVDMF will be 6 hours, that means the program cannot fail the function or crash and should work properly as we defined for at least 6 hours. But if any step in the process takes longer than 10 minutes then the step will be counted as 10 minutes only (for example, the transcoding step might take 30 minutes but we will only count it as 10 minutes). If any QA engineer see any major function failed or crashed then RD engineers must find out and fix the problem ASAP and the counting time might be restarted, so we might finish the MTBF process in about 8 to 12 hours in the end (that's why we stayed over-night). The longest MTBF time record in Ulead in my memories (for the past 5 years) is made when we were testing DVDMF 3.5 Suite 2 years ago. I think the record is 15 hours?

Finally we finish the MTBF process for DVDMF 5 before the Chinese New Year so we can have a very good vacation during the Chinese New Year period. Well-done, the whole DVDMF team! :)

I do not know the software developing process in other companies, but I think in Ulead the process is good, which makes Ulead products to be more stable. But that does not mean they will not have problems in some cases. Just as I say in many forums: "Nothing is perfect but we can try our best to find the solution for the problem." Wish you guys would like this new DVDMF version. :D

Sorry if you see my blog is not in correct form on Internet Explorer

Just found my blog will not be shown correctly with Internet Explorer. After some research, I found it's the problem of TrueFresco Site Referrer. When some visitors come with a very long URL, the site referrer will cause the blog not to be shown correctly. Just removed the site referrer code in my blog template and check again on IE, this time it's still not right because the original blog template made by Douglas Bowman will only be viewed correctly on FireFox.

I think I should be responsible for this because I only use FireFox now. I only use IE when I want to read some articles on Microsoft websites and do Windows Updates.

Maybe I should try to modify the blog CSS code to have my own blog template that will work on both FireFox and IE. :)

Want a free copy of Ulead DVD MovieFactory 4?

Do you want a free copy of Ulead DVD MovieFactory?? Joshua Walter at DigiCamReview.com now is holding a March 2006 Competition to give 4 free copies of DVDMF 4.0 and a SD memory card away. If you want to get them, go to his website and check it out. :)

Awesome COOL 3D Artworks

Max-UK 3D Artwork - Armor, used under permission.

Ulead COOL 3D (C3D) and Ulead COOL 3D Production Studio (C3DPS) are 3D titling and animation softwares that you can use to create 3D logos and 3D animations. Before COOL 3D 3.5, people in Ulead only think COOL 3D can be marketed as a web animation and 3D titling tool. But when we saw Popov Vladimir (from COOL 3D Deisgn) to use COOL 3D to do 3D modeling and really did a good job, we were amazed by his talent and how COOL 3D can be used for, so we decided to include some 3D artworks from Popov in COOL 3D 3.5 (with Popov's permission) to let people know the capabilities of COOL 3D. And when we were developing COOL 3D Production Studio, the next version of COOL 3D 3.5 (we called it COOL 3D 4.0 at that time), we added a feature to import 3D Studio files and a Lathe Object Editor and FreeForm tool in C3DPS to let people do the 3D modeling more easily (these features were all done by me). I think we really did a great step in COOL 3D Production Studio. In today, Ulead COOL 3D Production Studio is still one of the best-selling products in Ulead, not only because it does good in web animation, 3D titling and 3D modeling, it now can also be used in DVD menu button creation and to create video animation frames in Ulead DVD and video products and other non-Ulead softwares.

It's really amazing to see someone using your tools to do some awesome artworks, especially when they are doing very well. Max-UK is another user of Ulead COOL 3D Production Studio. The first time I know him is in Ulead's official user web-board. At that time I enjoyed answering people's questions and help to solve the problems that people have with Ulead products in the web-board. Then I saw Max showed up in the COOL 3D board and kept posting about his amazing artworks by using C3DPS. After that, Max created a Renderosity user page to show his fine C3DPS artworks. He started from some 3D space ships, and now he is working on some 3D armors (the armor image you see in this article is also made by him a few days ago). He said he will continue to post some more 3D stuffs by using C3DPS, you can go to his Renderosity user page to see more.

Max, you really did great on this. It would be a pleasure to me to see your artworks. :)

Interesting Technology - Multi-Input Touch Screen

Just found the video on the net, and it reminds me about the movie, Minority Report. In the movie, Tom Cruise uses a light-sensing screen with his fingers to control the computer to search the criminal database for information. This video is much like the idea in the movie, but the computer screen in this video is a touch screen which can accept multiple inputs at the same time, also it can sense the finger pressure user pressed on the screen. If this video is not a fake, then I think it might change the user interface of many softwares in the future.

Update: I just found the video is really not a fake. You can find more information in here.

In my opinion, mouse and keyboard are really not suitable for human beings to input data. If we can find an new way to use the user interface, then we can make our lifes much better. Multi-Input Touch Screen might be a way to go, Voice Recognization might be another. Hey! What will happen if we integrate MITS with Ulead PhotoImpact or Voice Recognization with Ulead InstaMedia? That must be very interesting! :) However, it's not me to make decisions to support these technologies or not.

Technologies we see today is only a fiction yesterday. The world is really changing fast and we have to catch up. Maybe it's the destiny of a engineer.

Australian magazine PC Authority just give Ulead MediaStudio Pro 8 a positive review

Today I just know from the Yahoo MUG group that the Australian magazine PC Authority just published a positive review in its March issue for Ulead MediaStudio Pro 8, however, it's still not published on the website of PC Authority. If you want to see it first, you can check the scanned image of the review provided by a MUG user, Richard Neale.

Hi Richard, if you do not want me to share the link, just let me know. :)

MSP8 got a 5 of 6 points in this review, I think it's not bad. As I've wrote in the Amateur Video Editing Group at Yahoo, I like MSP more than Ulead VideoStudio because MSP has much more freedom and possibilities to let me edit my video. I know there are still something in MSP needed to be improved, but that's what I thought about MSP, easy to use, creative and stable. I really like MSP a lot but will MSP survive in this competitive world? I (and many other Uleaders) do wish it will.

If you have any comments, let me know.

Peter Lin and Ookawara are blogging again

Peter is the Vice President of Ulead Asia-Pacific Sales Center, and also the General Manager of Ulead Japan and Ulead EU. Since last April he was blogging about his thoughts and feelings on his family, Japan and Ulead, but in October he had stopped the blogging for some reason. Now he is back on blogging again. Peter is a Taiwanese but because he is familiar with Japanese culture and is graduated from the Nihon Denshi College, a specialized information technology institution in Japan, so he moved to Tokyo with his family. If any of you can understand Japanese and wish to know something about Ulead or Japan, you can go to his blog to read some.


Ookawara, the Board Director of Ulead Japan and a Japanese, is also back on blogging on his life again, but it's still in Japanese. He usually writes about wine, sakei, movies and some Japanese cultures in his blog, maybe you will have fun on reading his blog.

Yesterday is the last day of the Chinese New Year vacation of Ulead headquarter in Taiwan. After this weekend we will go back to the office on next Monday. Just wish it will not be a mess day. :)

Some Chinese New Year Traditions

In this year the day of Chinese New Year Eve is at January 28, and now it's the first hour of the new dog year. In this day Chinese people will go back to their hometown and have a dinner with their family members around a round table to talk about what they did in last year and the wishes in the upcoming new year. Before midnight the elders will gather all the young people in the family and give them some red packet money for wishing them to have lucky in the new year. Before the young man get the red packet money, he or she must say something good to make the elders happy then he or she can get the money. In the tradition it becomes a happy time just like Christmas in the western world.

In the Chinese tradition, if a man or woman is married, then he or she cannot get red packet money anymore. Instead, he or she will become the one who give the red packet money to the young family members and to the elders. So, now I'm the one to give the red packet money in my family because I'm already married. But fortunately, I do not need to give the red packet money to many people because there are not too many family members.

The day after the Chinese New Year is a day that a wife should go back to her parents' family. I'm not sure the reason why all Chinese wifes should go back to their parents' family on that day, but we've been following the tradition for so many years to make it an ancient tradition. So on January 30 I will go to Tai-Chung county of Taiwan with Rebecca to visit her mother. I can predict that the traffic will be a jam, but we still have to go back because it's been some time Rebecca does not see her mother.

I have introduced 2 Chinese traditions in the Chinese new year period here. If you are interested in more, just let me know.

Happy Chinese New Year! Wish you to have a good day.