Video editing help

[tabath]

Hi

just looking for some advice on learning sources. I've got a whole load of DV and analogue tapes of family events etc lying around and have decide its time to get them into some sort of order and backed up so I want to get them onto my computer edit them ( very basic) to cut out the crap and then save them .

At the moment I have a core 2 duo with 1 gb HD, and am planning on using the inbuilt editor that comes to vista to start with - however if someone was to tell me that one of the cut down editing packages from adobe etc would speed things up I could probably swing to the cash for that.

What I am looking for is a site/books that takes a novice through from importing the video , editing ,rendering , archiving, what resolutions to use etc , basically the whole process.

For example I imported my first movie from my sony dv cam this week, imported it over the firewire connection in avi format. Did some basic editing using windows movie editor and then rendered it? to dvd quality - this gave me a file size of just over 8gb for about 45 mins worth of footage( my daughters school play actually), so won't fit on a DVD, its this non familiarity with codecs and resolutions for outputting stuff that I need to rectify. I mean do you guys keep a backup of your original AVI files or just saved your edited stuff in the output resolution? Hoping for some good advice on where I can learn about this stuff

Cheers

[digip]

Hi

just looking for some advice on learning sources. I've got a whole load of DV and analogue tapes of family events etc lying around and have decide its time to get them into some sort of order and backed up so I want to get them onto my computer edit them ( very basic) to cut out the crap and then save them .

At the moment I have a core 2 duo with 1 gb HD, and am planning on using the inbuilt editor that comes to vista to start with - however if someone was to tell me that one of the cut down editing packages from adobe etc would speed things up I could probably swing to the cash for that.

What I am looking for is a site/books that takes a novice through from importing the video , editing ,rendering , archiving, what resolutions to use etc , basically the whole process.

For example I imported my first movie from my sony dv cam this week, imported it over the firewire connection in avi format. Did some basic editing using windows movie editor and then rendered it? to dvd quality - this gave me a file size of just over 8gb for about 45 mins worth of footage( my daughters school play actually), so won't fit on a DVD, its this non familiarity with codecs and resolutions for outputting stuff that I need to rectify. I mean do you guys keep a backup of your original AVI files or just saved your edited stuff in the output resolution? Hoping for some good advice on where I can learn about this stuff

Cheers

For basics to advanced Movie Maker tips, I always used: http://www.windowsmoviemakers.net/ and Papa Johns site.

http://www.windowsmoviemakers.net/Links.aspx

He also has some custom stuff to make HD videos, but Vista already comes with the ability to do this, it only pertained to XP coming up to speed and quality of Vistas HD output in moviemaker.

For codecs and such or compressing DVD's, just save the movie as a normal WMV or even AVI, but let the burner software(like Nero) do the compressing for you since they will end up having to recreate the data to fit on the dvd anyway. MovieMaker doens't like third party codecs and can cause it to crash. In fact, I usually go into the Movie Maker settings and disable all thrid party codecs except xvid and a few nero ones.

Movie Maker can also save directly to DVD, but if you want to add menus and such, Nero is the way to go and will convert the video to VOB files for you with more control over the files.

If you have a finished dvd or iso you want to shrink and compress, DVDshrink will do the job, even though you will have to find your own copy on the net because they don't have it on their site due to legal resons(it can rip copywritten DVD's so they can't host it, but it also works well as legit self owned dvd ripper and compressor, so its a great tool if you can find a copy)

http://www.doom9.org/ also has a lot of video editing links, codec reviews, tutorials and forums on video editing in general.

[tabath]

For basics to advanced Movie Maker tips, I always used: http://www.windowsmoviemakers.net/ and Papa Johns site.

http://www.windowsmoviemakers.net/Links.aspx

He also has some custom stuff to make HD videos, but Vista already comes with the ability to do this, it only pertained to XP coming up to speed and quality of Vistas HD output in moviemaker.

For codecs and such or compressing DVD's, just save the movie as a normal WMV or even AVI, but let the burner software(like Nero) do the compressing for you since they will end up having to recreate the data to fit on the dvd anyway. MovieMaker doens't like third party codecs and can cause it to crash. In fact, I usually go into the Movie Maker settings and disable all thrid party codecs except xvid and a few nero ones.

Movie Maker can also save directly to DVD, but if you want to add menus and such, Nero is the way to go and will convert the video to VOB files for you with more control over the files.

If you have a finished dvd or iso you want to shrink and compress, DVDshrink will do the job, even though you will have to find your own copy on the net because they don't have it on their site due to legal resons(it can rip copywritten DVD's so they can't host it, but it also works well as legit self owned dvd ripper and compressor, so its a great tool if you can find a copy)

http://www.doom9.org/ also has a lot of video editing links, codec reviews, tutorials and forums on video editing in general.

Thanks for the info, much appreciated.

[TheFu]

http://www.videohelp.com/ has many of the answers you seek.

AVI isn't a format, it is a container. Almost any type of video and/or audio can be placed inside an AVI container. Same for OGG.

1st, VHS resolution should never be up converted to DVD resolutions. google will help you find all the different common video resolutions. There are hundreds in use, however. http://forum.videohelp.com/topic174200.html

Consider SVCD, xVCD or VCD as a format alternative for VHS tape conversion. These are MPG1 and MPG2 encoded. These formats work in almost any recent DVD player. I'd guess over 95% of DVD players will play these formats.

If your playback device supports xvid, mpg4, or divx, you can get 2-4 times the video onto a single DVD disk with only minor impact to quality. The downside is that only special DVD players support this format, so you can't just assume a disk will play everywhere. I'd guess less than 10% will play, but if it is just your players, then there's nothing to lose. These divx playback devices aren't really more expensive AND any computer will still be able to play the files.

Perform all your editing in MP2 format, then convert to the final playback only format. Avoid WMV, MOV, RM formats unless those are your final target containers. Why - proprietary formats that aren't well supported outside commercial software.

For editing MPG2 files, I like VideoRedoPlus. Best $49 I've ever spent since it includes commercial detection (comskip-based) and single frame accuracy of cuts. With AVI files, usually you need to cut at key frames only or risk corrupting the video file.

Avoid converting formats. Don't take a DV -->AVI --> DVD since you lose too much detail when you do that. Don't get me wrong, it should work, but the final output will not be as good as a DV-->DVD file. Every CODEC loses something, avoid the loss. For example, if you have AC3 audio, please don't convert it into stereo. Just copy the AC3 or DTS over into the final video file.

BTW, a 1GB disk seems a little small. I hope that was a typo and you meant 1TB disk. 1 hour of MPG2 is about 2GB of data, dependent on scene activity and audio quality.

[X3N]

the best program ive used so far for easy video editing is Sony Vegas and then using Sony DVD architect to author the DVD.

If you want to really get into the nitty gritty adobe premier is the best choice for video editing but it has a higher learning curve.

[tabath]

http://www.videohelp.com/ has many of the answers you seek.

AVI isn't a format, it is a container. Almost any type of video and/or audio can be placed inside an AVI container. Same for OGG.

1st, VHS resolution should never be up converted to DVD resolutions. google will help you find all the different common video resolutions. There are hundreds in use, however. http://forum.videohelp.com/topic174200.html

Consider SVCD, xVCD or VCD as a format alternative for VHS tape conversion. These are MPG1 and MPG2 encoded. These formats work in almost any recent DVD player. I'd guess over 95% of DVD players will play these formats.

If your playback device supports xvid, mpg4, or divx, you can get 2-4 times the video onto a single DVD disk with only minor impact to quality. The downside is that only special DVD players support this format, so you can't just assume a disk will play everywhere. I'd guess less than 10% will play, but if it is just your players, then there's nothing to lose. These divx playback devices aren't really more expensive AND any computer will still be able to play the files.

Perform all your editing in MP2 format, then convert to the final playback only format. Avoid WMV, MOV, RM formats unless those are your final target containers. Why - proprietary formats that aren't well supported outside commercial software.

For editing MPG2 files, I like VideoRedoPlus. Best $49 I've ever spent since it includes commercial detection (comskip-based) and single frame accuracy of cuts. With AVI files, usually you need to cut at key frames only or risk corrupting the video file.

Avoid converting formats. Don't take a DV -->AVI --> DVD since you lose too much detail when you do that. Don't get me wrong, it should work, but the final output will not be as good as a DV-->DVD file. Every CODEC loses something, avoid the loss. For example, if you have AC3 audio, please don't convert it into stereo. Just copy the AC3 or DTS over into the final video file.

BTW, a 1GB disk seems a little small. I hope that was a typo and you meant 1TB disk. 1 hour of MPG2 is about 2GB of data, dependent on scene activity and audio quality.

Just got back off holiday, thanks for taking the time to reply, will follow up all links and google research on the other info you gave. Again thanks - really enjoy having a new project to work on!!