Help with dv tape transfer and edit to dvd!!

[biccus1]

Hi

I have dug my old dv camcorder out and need to produce some dvds from the old holidays etc

Ok i have got a firewire port and lead so i have transfered the first tape to the pc hdd through firewire and windows media player

So i am now left with a 9.3GB avi file but i have got about three more tapes to add to this one but they do need editing yet

How do i go about editing joining the four together adding some sort of menu and burning to dvd? (when i say menu can it be done like the ones you buy in a shop so i can say click to different days?)

Sorry but never done this before!

I have windows xp with loads of HDD space approx 400gb also windows movie maker!


I also have in software nero which will burn dvds!

Also Pinicale studio ver 9 SE which i have never loaded before!

Can anyone help plz as off to some freinds (also on holiday with us) at weekend and said i would bring it with us

Thanks shane

[melliott1963]

Hi,

In order to join all four tapes together you'll need to capture every one first. The good thing is that you've got plenty of space to do this.

Movie Maker will certainly allow you to edit all your footage, cut bits out, join bits together, use transitions etc., but it won't let you author your DVD.

Pinnacle Studio, however, will also allow you to edit all your footage and also allow you to make the DVD.

Once you've prepared your DVD, whilst Pinnacle will also let you burn it to disk, from personal experience I'd recommend creating the DVD to disk (it should be one of the options) and then burning it using Nero.

BUT . . . .

You say you want to get this done by the weekend. This could be your biggest problem.

Even the simplest programs have a learning curve, so you will have to aim low - no Hollywood style productions yet!

Assuming you don't want to go out and buy more software at this stage, you will have to load Pinnacle Studio. Again, talking from personal experience (and many others I might add), it is notorious for being unstable. You may be one of the lucky few and have no problems with it. However, you could end up spending hours on your editing, only to have the program crash and corrupt everything you've done - believe me, there's nothing more infuriating.

The other option is to download time limited demos of other programs, although whether or not they will be fully featured enough to let you edit, author and burn, I don't know - maybe others on this site can help.

Anyway, the steps you need to do are:-

1. Capture all your footage
2. Edit the footage using a video editing package (movie maker or Studio)
3. Save your edited footage and compress it to an MPG file. This will take a long time - many hours depending on how long your movie is. Again Pinnacle will be able to do this.
4. Author your DVD - add menus, chapters (lets you jump to specific points) and prepare it (using Studio).
5. Burn to DVD (using Studio or Nero)

You may find the the order of these may be different if you use Pinnacle i.e. you edit the footage, create the dvd and then compress the footage, for example, but the basic idea is the same.

When compressing to an MPG file, a lot of people will set this running and then go to bed. Will any luck it should have finished by the morning.

Good luck!

[senu]

Unless you have loads of time, You may want to skip the editing bit as even if you are coversant with the software and it is rock stable, even simple editing can be time consuming till one becomes a dab hand at it .

If you need to learn the software in a hurry

I would have suggested simply burning the footage to a Settop DVD recorder and amusing yourself and friends with the raw footage over several DVDs

But you can do some simple editing ( if you can learn in a hurry,) and go to DVD with Uleads Movie Factory5

What you are asking of yourself is to learn how to capture , edit and author DVDs of several tapes and turn them into DVD b4 this weekend ( that is a tall order indeed)

As Melliot has said above you may want to scale down those ambitions and attempt the possible for now.
Studio 9 does work ( for some ) and its workflow involves capture, edit , DVD authoring: The software then applies the edits ( rendering) converts to mpeg ( encoding) then makes a DVD ( DVD authoring) . all 3 proceses are done "seamlessly" without you needing to do anything from that point on.

Studio does however have a learning curve even when it is rock stable and it has depths to it.

Studio 10.5 and 10.6+ has been stable on my systems but I hesitate to give it a whole hearted endorsement . Saying that when it does work it works fast and has a very easy workflow but even at that I would advice against trying to master it in a hurry as you may be setting your self up for dissapointment
All the best whichever way you chose

[MarkE19]

senu, you seem to know most of the editing software packages so I'll ask you this:

the OP says that he has 'Pinicale studio ver 9 SE' and I am not sure if this includes the DVD authoring as I'm sure some 'SE' editing programs cut these tools out. Does Studio SE have authoring?

biccus1,
If Studio SE does not offer authoring then the already recommended Ulead DVD MovieFactory 5 is easy to learn & use without reducing the features too much. I've been using it since v3 and have had some great results from it. However it does only offer very basic captue & editing features.
To learn & use an editing program quickly then Movie Maker 2 is probably your best bet. You should be able to get to grips with it in an hour or two and This web site should help.

Mark.

[biccus1]

Hi

Thanks for the help so far

I have now loaded studio ver 9 but what a slow program to start up it takes like 1 mins to open!!

I have got a couple of short movies about 20 mins long saved here which i also uploaded from the camcorder last night i have tryed to open them into studio but no luck does anyone know is this possible they are saved as Avi files!

So it looks like i will be lucky to get this sorted by the weekend so will have to take camcorder and leads with me and watch off the tapes

So what would you all recomend if i dump studio and start out again which prog should i head for don't want top results as don't want to spend a fortune on software!

shane

[senu]

Originally Posted by MarkE19

senu, you seem to know most of the editing software packages so I'll ask you this:
the OP says that he has 'Pinicale studio ver 9 SE' and I am not sure if this includes the DVD authoring as I'm sure some 'SE' editing programs cut these tools out. Does Studio SE have authoring?
Mark.

"SE" does have DVD authoring but it is very cut down and is a "taster" for the full version . Most functions are "present " but greyed out. It tends to be OEM and does not benefit from the update patches so I dont really like it.
IMHO Ver 10plus (10.6) is ultimately better value for features and stability

[MarkE19]

Originally Posted by biccus1

So what would you all recomend if i dump studio and start out again which prog should i head for don't want top results as don't want to spend a fortune on software!

shane

Forum favourites (in no particular order) seem to be:

Adobe Premiere Elements
Sony Vegus Movie Studio
Ulead Video Studio
Movie Maker + other DVD authoring
Pinnacle Studio (fully patched versions only)

all the above are available as a free 30 day trial download. Either go to the companies web site or search around here for the links of the downloads. All of them cost around £40 - £50 except MM2+DVD which should be a bit cheaper.
I'm sure other members will recommend a few other programs but I think the above are the main ones that people on here use.

Mark.

[biccus1]

Thanks

I have just gone and downloaded ulead moviefactory 5 plus but now reading seem to think its the wrong one for what i need

So i have just downloaded adobe premier elements 2 and that seems very hard to use as i watched the video of ver 3 and it looked so simple to do but ver 2 is not as easy!!

I just can't seem to find an easy place to start with ver2 i have loaded one of my smaller clips into it and thats it can't work it out

shane

[biccus1]

Now i have got ulead videostudio 10 plus which seems a bit easier but stil any tips

[senu]

All the software you have had a look at so far ( and indeed those you have not) need a bit of time to get used to how they work.
You need
1) to see them used
2) a nice easy to read book
or
3)Video tutorial or
4)Interactive cd/ DVD rom tutorial
5)or even online help.

perseverance and... time
While we can help with specific queries, it is probably impossible to do a step by step "show me how" on any no of Programs.
If you iidentify one whose interface you like maybe the tips will flow.
Having used most on the shortlist above and more advanced ones I can truly say Moviefactory is dead easy , Premiere Elements 2 may at first seem daunting but it is easy once you get past the unfamiliarity . UleadVideo Studio is also simple to use once you get a hang of its GUI. There is an element of personal taste and preference with some of the software.
Premiere Elements 3 seems "easier" to use( from the interactive demo) but it is a new product and is currently being pre-ordered.

In a nutshell seem you cant escape from "learning curve" and "time"

[rickyt]

@biccus1 ,just read the post and you seem to be having a bit trouble with your transfer. Do you really want to edit 37.2Gb of footage ?? [1 tape= 9.3gb /4 tapes=37.2gb].Why not watch through your tapes one by one making a note of times and scenes you want to keep , a bit like a story board . This way you can only transfer[capture] the bits you really need without putting all of the footage onto PC to edit.Once these slices are on the PC , then your can import them into your editing program to fine tune.Another easy method is to capture your desired clips , say 10 or 15 minutes long , you can have 4 or 5 of them . If they are DV .avi's you can encode them to MPEG's using a encoder and import them into a authoring program . I use a one by Sonic [DVDit ].You create a background , add 4 or 5 buttons and import your mpegs in to the program . This will convert and record directly to DVD . You will end up with a DVD with a menu , you simply load in your DVD player and click on the desired button to play. This is real easy without the hastle of editing . I use this method for pictures slides shows.Make a slide show ,save to file and use sonic to create four fifteen minute shows on the menu ,then write to disk.
As you know by now there are loads of editing packages out there . you have to find one that suits your needs. I use Pinnacle 9 , capturing is great with this program [never any dropped frames] ,for editing I use vegas 6 and I also like Serif MoviePlus 5 .Try some out using smaller captures , say 5 or 10 minutes to start with , do some editing and writing to disk and see how they come out. If your new to this , dont expect to capture your four tapes ,edit them and have them all on to a DVD in a couple of hours. This needs a little bit practise to get things just right.hope this helps

[melliott1963]

rickyt - I think I see where you're coming from (or maybe I don't!), but surely it's a lot easier to capture everything and then edit out the bits you don't need? Making a note of what you want to capture, then trying to find them and capture them individually seems like a whole lot of unneccesary fiddling around to me. It's not as if Shane is short on disc space.

I'm also a little confused as to why you capture in Pinnacle and then edit in Vegas !!!!! What's wrong with capturing directly in Vegas - again you seem to like adding more steps than is really required.

I do agree, however, that to start off with, it is a good idea to do a 5 or 10 minute capture as a tester to see how everything works - it's better to waste a small amount of time whilst you get to grips with things, than to dive straight into a large movie, only to have to start from the begining because you (or the program) have messed something up.

[redsox_mark]

It depends on one's preference I guess, but I agree with melliott1963 - generally I'll capture all the source footage. I will still watch all the footage through and make notes (e.g. a story board)... but find this easier if all the footage is captured and to do this in the editor.

The only time I'll capture partial tapes is if I know up front I only want part. E.g. if I have a 60 minute tape and I know I'm only interested in the first 10 minutes, then I'd just capture the 10 minutes.

[rickyt]

No , I dont see the point of capturing a hour's worth of footage if you only have 15 minutes worth of good stuff. I recently watch a pro video editor using a Mac and software [ I think it was final cut or something]and he only took off the camera the bits of footage he wanted to use .This saves alot of time. The reason I capture in Pinnacle is , the majority of work I do is simple stuff that only requires the use of Pinnacle .It's only when I want to experiment or do a bit of fancy stuff do I use Vegas. Pinnacle does what it says on the tin ,capture ,edit ,and write to DVD and it does it very well . I use and experiment with lots of other software ,I've never just stuck with one bit of software for anything .I hope this answers your point.

[melliott1963]

For very short films of 15 minutes as you stated, I can possibly see the benefit of doing a selective capture, but in this instance, maybe it's just me, but I really can't see any benefit.

Let's say you've got, as in this case, 4 tapes worth of footage.

Assuming they're an hours length each, doing it your way means sitting down and watching 4 hours of film.

After you've decided what you want to keep, you then have to queue the tape to each section you want and then capture it. Let's assume that only half of each tape is required (although I usually find at least three quarters is needed). That's still 2 hours of capturing that's required, plus however long it takes to queue the tape to the correct position.

Surely it's quicker to capture everything and decide what you want to keep as you're capturing. You can then easily cut out what you don't need - surely less the the 2 hours plus it would take capturing only what you want.

Also, you may later decide that there was a bit that you originally didn't want but do now. With any NLE editing program it's easy to find and insert this clip. Far better than reloading the correct tape in the camera, queueing it to the correct location and capturing it.

Glad to hear that Pinnacle "does what it says on the tin" for you. You're obviously one of the lucky ones. Having spent a fortune upgrading right from version 1 all the way up to version 9 over a period of time I eventually ditched it. Yes, for me, it did do everything "it said on the tin", and then it would totally fail and lose everything I'd spent hours doing. Even going back to backup copies of my projects never seemed to work. I now use Vegas 5 (the pro version not movie studio) and can honestly say that I haven't had a single failure since installing it.