Community Newsletter: Q&A: Easiest way to transfer MiniDV footage to PC and edit it
- 9/18/08 9:21 AM
Mini DVD footage & editing
by Mathie.v - 9/9/08 7:04 AM In reply to: Easiest way to transfer MiniDV footage to PC and edit it by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I do video editing as part time job. for perfect editing I would recommend that you buy an editing studio like Pinnacle to enjoy editing your clips all the more.
transfer movies
by jrvazzer - 9/9/08 8:22 AM In reply to: Easiest way to transfer MiniDV footage to PC and edit it by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I've try all kinds of software, nothing works. The best thing is buy a DVR recorder, be careful because many DVR recorders are crap. Buy a Panasonic or Toshiba. Believe me I purchase many of the crap ones. So transfer the video to DVD and then make copies in your computer. In the DVR you can create chapter and index each scene, you can also record up to 8 hours in a single DVD. Because it can compress the signal. That’s something that most software lacks. You can spend hours inputing video into your computer and not be able to do noting with your computer.
Transfering & Editing MiniDV footage
by kainos2 - 9/9/08 9:50 PM In reply to: Easiest way to transfer MiniDV footage to PC and edit it by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Alex,
I would strongly recommend not transferring your footage to DVD prior to editing. DVD video uses the MPEG2 video codec, which involves temporal compression (the codec discards video data from adjacent frames as part of its compression technique). DVD/MPEG2 video is much less than ideal for editing because of the quality loss and the forced adjacent-frame-interdependence (it looks bad to edit frame-by-frame when the compression relies on adjacent frames). Also, if you edit from DVD and then re-export this edited footage to DVD again, you will end up with much lower quality, second-generation DVD/MPEG2 video (it will like quite blury).
You want to first import your DV video uncompressed to your hard drive (using any video editing software - Adobe Premiere, FinalCut, etc.), edit the uncompressed video, and then export it to each format you would like for the end product (DVD/MPEG2 being one of those).
Almost free solution
by markkino - 9/10/08 9:13 PM In reply to: Easiest way to transfer MiniDV footage to PC and edit it by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I must assume that you have a firewire card and cable already. Your video camera probably uses this to connect to your computer.
Use WinDV (http://windv.mourek.cz/)to capture the video to your hard drive. The files will be very large AVI files (we are talking many GB here) depending on the length of each shot. WinDV is freeware. (Does it work with Vista? - I don't know).
To store the video on DVD, you would need to split it into smaller units. A freeware program like HJsplit (http://www.freebyte.com/hjsplit/) could do the job.
You are best to edit the video instead of storing the captured DV files on DVD. After editing, then burn to DVD.
Your free option is Windows Movie Maker. Although some software may have shipped with the camera or your computer. The issue with Windows Movie Maker is the poor quality of the final video.
Use Nero
by raggi - 9/12/08 5:26 PM In reply to: Easiest way to transfer MiniDV footage to PC and edit it by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have used bunch of video software through the years.
The absolutely best value and by far easiest to beginners (IMO) is the Nero bundle.
It's cheap and chances are that you already got it with your DVD writer.
Personally....
by H-town23 - 9/12/08 7:52 PM In reply to: Easiest way to transfer MiniDV footage to PC and edit it by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have a Sony MiniDV camera as well,
And my computer is also about 5 or 6 years old
but I still manage to make great videos
I have a few on youtube, in fact.[Look for user igloo77055 on there]
Anyway, I connect my camera to a Firewire 400 port on my computer,
Open up Adobe Premier Pro [I used it in High School and it was amazing compared to some junk out there]
It is expensive, but people know how to get things now adays
I use the capture option [Premier Pro also has an option to detect scenes, very nice,]
And drag it on to my timeline
Edit and after that is done just export it as a Movie
Use your favorite burning software and you're done
FYI:
My computer has Windows XP Pro
736MBs of RAM
AMD Athlon Xp 1.43GHz processor
No dual core or anything like that just an old processor
So I don't have much compared to new systems now.
But I can still create great movies with Adobe Premier Pro easily
Enjoy editing
RE: Easiest way to transfer MiniDV footage to PC and edit it
by way299 - 9/12/08 8:14 PM In reply to: Easiest way to transfer MiniDV footage to PC and edit it by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
As almost everyone suggested, you need to first transfer the files to your hard drive via Firewire then edit them with almost any video editing program, I prefer Adobe Premiere but Windows Movie Maker will work ok too. Then you can burn the final products to DVD. With that said, and I have been down the MiniDV route, I think the best solution is a hard drive based camcorder. First off, they can hold a lot more video than MiniDV and DVD based camcorders, and 2nd, you can transfer the video files to your computer very easily via drag and drop. Then edit, and burn to dvd if you like.
Video Editing Software
by cle0 - 9/12/08 11:11 PM In reply to: Easiest way to transfer MiniDV footage to PC and edit it by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I use ULead (now Corel) video editing software and have done since V7 (we are now on V11.5+). It is the top of it's class for it's price and useability. Also, there is an extremely good and active forum for support and it is perfectly alright to ask 'newbie' questions in there. The forum also offers tutorials which are brilliant. My work is video editing - creating family histories and producing videos containing a mixture of photos, converted VHS video, 8mm and minidv tape so I am using Video Studio every day. The only issue I have ever had with it was initially with Vista and V11 but the V11.5+ has sorted that out.
I use firewire from camcorder to PC and use "Capture" function in Video Studio - I do capture at AVI quality because as soon as you edit MPEG you degrade the image significantly - I then burn the end product in Video Studio in MPEG.Hope this helps.
Cleo
Get enough RAM
by kaminst - 9/13/08 2:29 PM In reply to: Video Editing Software by cle0I too use Ulead and find it works quite well and is reasonably easy to navigate, but takes some time to learn. Make sure you have enough RAM in your computer, expecially if it is an older machine that may not have had so much included initially. My biggest frustration when I started to capture video was that the program woud freeze after a few minutes because of the very large amounts of data. Once I put in some new memory chips, everything went just fine.
MiniDV to PC (Mac in my case)
by maddogleader - 9/12/08 11:26 PM In reply to: Easiest way to transfer MiniDV footage to PC and edit it by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
With out sounding like a mac snob this is one of the reasons I got a mac. iDVD is awesome you can plug in your camcorder via a fire wire cable. Open iDVD, insert a blank DVD and hit one button and iDVD will record your tape to a DVD. It's not edited but at least it is off of the camcorder onto a DVD. How many movies have you shot 3 years ago still on the MiniDV tape? At least this way you can fast forward through the "bad" spots.
iMovie will also import your whole tape provided that you have enough hard disk space on one shot. Then you can cut it up to edit it in iMovie or any other editing program offered.
With a windows PC I found that Adobe products work the best. Try Premiere Element series that is intuitive and works well. You still need a fire wire cable to hook the camcorder to your pc. And lots of ram like 2Gb min with XP. If you are going to do this on a regular basis look at your current motherboard spec and see what the max amount of memory it can support. If it can support 3-4 Gb then put that in there you will need it. Video editing is a memory hog. It takes a lot of RAM and hard disk(HD) space to do it.
Hope this helps and good luck
Good luck.
While Editing, Be Sure To SAVE
by Philscbx - 9/13/08 12:42 AM In reply to: Easiest way to transfer MiniDV footage to PC and edit it by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Here is where it can get very frustrating.
As you edit the footage now that it's out of the camera and on the drive.
Make sure you save as you go.
Say every 15 minutes worth when you include transitions and adding music.
Software likes to crash if memory gets used up, and then you have to start over.
Don't forget the VCR next to the tellie, computers hate you,
by cheese and cordial - 9/13/08 3:28 AM In reply to: Easiest way to transfer MiniDV footage to PC and edit it by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Hi Alex,
This is what I did.
Skip the computer stage.
Connect camera to TV / video player.
Pen & paper, note times of stuff you want to keep and note times of stuff you can live without.
Rewind. Put a blank VCR tape into machine and record the bits you want.
Bonus- Tape will work in everyone you knows' machine. No format conflict here.
Someone you know will have a VCR / DVD machine that can copy your video cassette to DVD.
Thank them and copy a few times.
With my method you will lose some quality but the blurred look is so cool and retro. Those who love you and the film subjects wont mind, but you wont win tropfest. Or maybe you will...
I know I'm wrong but its the only way to do it before I die of old age or the hard drive fails and I lose the lot.
You know it makes sense.
Bernie
Admittedly I took the easy way out
by Kegtapper - 9/13/08 6:30 AM In reply to: Don't forget the VCR next to the tellie, computers hate you, by cheese and cordialI purchased a DVD recorder. (Protron) ~$49 on Sale
Connect R/L and Composite Video from camera
load a blank DVD
Press Play on Camera
Press Record on DVD recorder
Walk away -
It's great especially if you are just copying, and not trying to create a Hollywood masterpiece. If I need titles, menus, chapters, etc then I do it on the PC with quality software and a video capture card.
But again I have been doing it for 11+ years, so I learned the headaches early
easiest way i know
by jammiejen - 9/13/08 5:17 AM In reply to: Easiest way to transfer MiniDV footage to PC and edit it by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Do you have the program movie maker? I fine it verry easy to tranfer and edit movies thanks .
I agree - except
by aalake - 9/13/08 6:37 PM In reply to: easiest way i know by jammiejenI like MovieMaker. But creating a DVD from a WMv or whatever needs other software and that's where the 'hatred' comes in. What is the most compatible DVD creation software with MovieMaker?
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