Hi

I have 2 questions if I may. I am new to the camcorder world & video editing. I would appreciate any advice from the guru's out there.

Question 1.

I have recently bought a Sony widescreen camcorder (HC39E) and Ulead Videostudio 9.0 for editing. The software has an option to use 'Widescreen 16:9', which I selected for my first project. After burning to DVD, and playing on my widescreen TV, the titles, menu's etc. added by the editing software appear ok in widescreen format, but the original video footage appears letterboxed. It seems the software has converted an already 16:9 picture to widescreen. Obviously not what I want.
The next project I didn't select the 'Widescreen 16:9' option, the finished DVD original footage appeared ok in widescreen format, but the titles were now 4:3.
Does anyone know how to work around this?


Question 2.

Which format is best for editing? I have the choice to bring in footage in either original DV or DVD(MPEG2) amongst others. If I intend to burn the finished video to DVD, which format would be best to edit the raw footage in? Or would it make no difference other than when the timely conversion takes place, beginning or end of the project.


Thanks in advance for your help

Regards

Neil

[MarkE19]

It is always best to capture & edit SD video as DV (AVI). If you compress the footage and then start editing you are likley to cause more problems than it is worth due to the amount of information that has been thrown away. Keep it as DV for as long as possible and you then have a 100% quality copy of the origional, so when HD DVD recorders are around you can get even better quality from your footage. To this end I keep all my origional tapes and also make a DV tape backup of the edit, as well as making DVD copies.

Mark.

Hi Mark

Thanks for the advice, what you're saying makes a lot of sense. I'll stick with editing in native DV format.
I won't be able to make a DV tape backup of the edited version unfortunately, as my camcorder doesn't support that. But I believe i'm correct in thinking that the DVD (of which i'll keep a master copy) can be re-edited at a later date, and/or copied to a different medium.

Again, thank you.

Has anyone got any ideas on the mixed format question??

Cheers

Neil

[MarkE19]

By the sound of it your camcorder is not setting the widescreen flag. A couple of previous threads that may help can be found Here & Here.

Mark.