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Community Newsletter: Q&A: Easiest way to transfer MiniDV footage to PC and edit it
- 9/18/08 9:21 AM
Rotating MiniDV footage during edit
by theresa27 - 9/13/08 8:18 AM In reply to: Transferring MiniDV to your PC by berryjooksI took a wedding video on my Sony MiniDV, during the first dance of the Bride and Groom (It was a waltz) I turned the camera to get a full length video, then turned it back, now you have to turn the moniter during the video to see that portion correctly. When I experimented with editing ( I didn't get too far, but I bought the Adobe Premier Elements, Pinnacle Studio Media Suite10.5, Sony Vegas Movie Studio, and My Book external hard drive.)I was able to turn a frame sideways and there was a black area and it was a different proportionally from the other frames. I never succeeded in getting it edited. I tried for a month, I quit and plan to try again. Someone told me you are not suppose to turn the camera and the MiniDV movies are not made to edit. Can the rotation of the frames be successfully edited into the video and burned onto a DVD?
rotating a clip in premier pro
by WendyLeahDee - 9/15/08 2:47 AM In reply to: Rotating MiniDV footage during edit by theresa27The way I would rotate your video clip which is the wrong way round (an unneccisary time consuming thing and I wouldn't recommend it again 
is the following:
In Premier, import the clip into your project (file - import)
Drag clip into the timeline and click on it to select it. Use the razor tool ( if you don't know where this is in the tools panel, hover over the icons until you get the razor tool)to cut the clip from the time you rotated the camera. Cut it again at the end of the rotated section. You will have created a portion of the clip which can be edited independantly of the other bits of your footage. Select that portion, and in the source panel at the top open the effects panel. A rotation menu will allow you to rotate the clip. Make sure that your marker (playhead) in the timeline panel is at the beginning of the clip, since I dont know what your defaults are. This will ensure that the rotation starts at the beginning if the clip. Hope this helps.
Converting you Mini-DV to DVDs
by Watzman - 9/5/08 10:08 PM In reply to: Easiest way to transfer MiniDV footage to PC and edit it by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Alex,
This is fairly straightforward, actually. And while you have mini-DV, it really wouldn't matter what format of camcorder you had as long as we were talking about a digital camcorder (coming from an analog camcorder is different and requires some different hardware).
Most digital camcorders have a Firewire (sometimes known as IEEE 1394) interface. Most modern computers, especially laptops, also have a Firewire interface. If not, your first task is to get a Firewire interface for the target computer. If necessary, this is an independent task that is not directly related to the video task. You may also need to get a suitable cable (4-pin, 6-pin or possibly 6-pin on one end to 4-pin on the other).
[Some camcorders will have USB interfaces instead of or in addition to a Firewire interface. If so, fine, but in many cases the image quality from the USB interface (if there is one) will be inferior to that from the Firewire interface.]
You will probably next need to install Windows drivers for your camcorder on your PC, so that the camcorder will be recognized by the PC when they are connected. The drivers should have come with the Camcorder, or should be available on the web site of the camcorder manufacturer.
Finally, you will need to install some video editing software that can capture the video from the camcorder and also allow you do some editing. To some extent, this depends on the video format that comes out of the camcorder ... it may be Uncompressed AVI (actually the best format for editing in SOME ways, but the files are HUGE (more than 10 GIGABYTES per hour), it may be MPEG or it may be MPEG2. In a few cases, it may be yet something else. The video software has to be able to deal with the file format that is output by the camcorder. It's likely that most video software will work with most camcorders, but it's something to be aware of as in some cases it may limit your choice of software. Again, it's very possible that such software came with the camcorder. You can also use Microsoft Windows Movie Maker, or you can buy a product like Pinacle Studio that has this capability. Another thing to note for the burning step (below) is that the full retail versions of the two major CD & DVD burning programs (Roxio (now Sonic) Easy Media Creator and Nero) both have all the software that you will need in most cases, but in neither case is their editing software necessarily the best available.
Whatever software you select, this software will need to let you get the video from the camcorder and save it on the PC as a file (the file size will be large, gigabytes per hour probably and in some cases tens of giabytes per hour). That completes the first step.
The next step is to edit the video into your desired content. This is entirely a function of the video editing software that you use. Simple software (Windows Movie Maker) can do cut and paste; more complex software can do eleaborate video production with multiple video streams being merged, often with "chroma key" (blue or green screen used to put part of one video stream (often a person) "into" another video stream). There are a lot of choices here, with a wide range of cost and a wide range of ease of use.
Finally, you need to do DVD authoring, which is where you will (if you want to) create "menus" and "chapters" for putting the video onto a DVD. Some of the major editing software packages (Pinacle) have both the video editing and the DVD authoring functions built-in, while in other cases you will use one program for video editing, and another program for DVD authoring. For example, Windows Movie Maker, which has reasonable cut-and-paste video editing, does not, by itself, have the DVD authoring capability. But Pinacle, and the Roxio and Nero products, do have both editing and DVD authoring. The final step of DVD authoring will actually write the DVD from the video. Note that if the video has to be re-encoded into MPEG2 (very likely) this step can take a LONG time (hours; on some computers, more than 12 hours for a one- or two-hour video).
I hope that gives you an overview of the process and what is involved. Look for some user reviews of the available software packages. In general, there is a very large trade-off between capabilities and ease-of-use, but most people are only looking for simple "cut-and-paste" editing and not for the capabilities that would in used by commercial video production applications.
By the way, do NOT use DVD-RW media. I don't recommend RW media (either CD or DVD) for ANYTHING. It is not a good archival media and precisely because such media is not "permanent", sometimes data written to such media "fades" over time (I will accept both that it should not happen, and that if it does, it's because the hardware was defective ... that doesn't matter ... it DOES happen, too often). On top of the RW media is slow to burn and expensive. With CD media at about a penny per disc and DVD media at about 20 cents per disc, just use one-time media, and if you want to redo the project, use a new media. It's cheap enough that the cost just shouldn't be an issue, and it's faster (a lot faster), cheaper and more reliable and permanent than RW media.
Converting you Mini-DV to DVDs
by rv.dealmeida - 9/12/08 6:00 PM In reply to: Converting you Mini-DV to DVDs by WatzmanI agree with almost that Watzman wrote, but I would added that it should be useful to have a dedicated HD for capturing and editing video procedures, since this HD won't be subject for the constant windows scan/updating that can interfere with the software in use for such tasks (mainly in the capturing process). In this way, I have a 2nd 80 Gb HD as the target device for capture. Before the editing and DVD burning process has been completed, I simply delete the file I had created and so my HD is again ready to another convertion.
Finally, I'd beg your pardon for any writting mistakes, since English is not my native language.
MiniDV to DVD
by liamsisk - 9/13/08 10:14 AM In reply to: Converting you Mini-DV to DVDs by rv.dealmeidaBefore the editing and DVD burning process has been completed, I simply delete the file?
Before editing?
by cpsoares - 9/20/08 5:25 AM In reply to: MiniDV to DVD by liamsiskI' m sure he meant "after" rather than "before"
What??
by willum08 - 9/13/08 3:21 AM In reply to: Converting you Mini-DV to DVDs by WatzmanQuote "[Some camcorders will have USB interfaces instead of or in addition to a Firewire interface. If so, fine, but in many cases the image quality from the USB interface (if there is one) will be inferior to that from the Firewire interface.]"
That comment is Just Not True...................Particularly now that most modern USB connections are USB2 !!
USB vs Firewire and RW discs
by ryserfan - 9/15/08 7:32 AM In reply to: What?? by willum08Absolutely correct...using USB has no effect on DIGITAL video quality. It will be a slower download due the constraints on speed of USB vs. Firewire but it's all "1's and 0's" either way and there will be no degradation in video quality. I also agree that you do not want to use RW discs of either format (+ or -) as you don't EVER want to accidently overwrite something like a home movie!! Regular DVD's are typically less expensive anyway so go that route. I work at a TV station and use Final Cut Pro as my editor so I cannot speak to any of the consumer or prosumer editing packages but a bit of net research should lead you to something that will work well for you. Best advice I can give is to not be intimidated. Once you play with it for a bit, it'll become as easy (and enjoyable) as anything you've ever done on your computer. It is very satisfying to succesfully edit a project!!
Good luck!!
Yes and no
by cdcguard - 9/16/08 7:57 AM In reply to: USB vs Firewire and RW discs by ryserfanTrue, 1's and 0's are 1's and 0's. BUT, with my older JVC Mini-DV camera, the only way to utilize the USB interface is utilizing the software that came with the camera. When you do so, you you get hugely compressed files (AVI's if I remember right) in a resolution that's along the lines of 320X240. So, in this way, yes the USB becomes inferior. Perhaps something like that is what the original poster of that response was referring to.
Maybe too much info
by SeniorSlacker - 9/14/08 7:18 AM In reply to: Converting you Mini-DV to DVDs by WatzmanIf you buy the Pinnacle software package, it will have ALL the software you need. Once your camera is connected to the FireWire port, Pinnacle can transfer the video to the PC. You can edit with the excellent Pinnacle software, and then Pinnacle can burn the final DVD. In my experience, you really don't need any other software.
A comment on Pinnacle & short rec. to use scene detection
by arroyoboy - 9/14/08 10:27 AM In reply to: Maybe too much info by SeniorSlackerI noted you had some "older" pc equipment; just a caution that Pinnacle is not very compatible. I use it all the time and also highly recommend it, but my current version 9.4.3 cannot be upgraded. I tried 10.5 and 11 and neither would install correctly. It is common advice for Pinnacle users to attempt installation many times, which I did, & still no luck. My pc is an Intel Celeron 2.93GHz/WinXP-SP3. Also note that this software goes on some really awesome sales with rebates.
Finally, a general tip if you are going to burn the whole tape to DVD; use scene detection, it will be way easier to import only the files you want into an editor.
Maybe too much info
by fdm2000 - 10/4/08 6:17 AM In reply to: Maybe too much info by SeniorSlackerQuestion for Senior Slacker: I have an early version of Pinnacle (8) and wonder how you deal with the following situation:
I captured a video from my camcorder and in the Edit mode I moved the video scenes to the story board - after moving all the video clips I then wanted to add some photos - to my disappointment I was only able to include 1/3 of the photos I wanted. The story board windows or whatever they are called were all filled (total of 27)and I could not determine a way to add more story board windows or more photos.
What am I not doing correctly?
Thanks for any insights,
Frank
Question for Pinnacle Users
by fdm2000 - 10/6/08 7:48 AM In reply to: Maybe too much info by fdm2000I have an early version of Pinnacle (8.12) and wonder how you deal with the following situation:
I captured a video from my camcorder and in the Edit mode I moved the video scenes to the story board - after moving all the video clips I then wanted to add some photos - to my disappointment I was only able to include 1/3 of the photos I wanted. The story board windows or whatever they are called were all filled (total of 27)and I could not determine a way to add more story board windows or more photos.
What am I not doing correctly?
Thanks for any insights,
Frank
CD-R
by mikesey_97 - 9/16/08 12:42 AM In reply to: Converting you Mini-DV to DVDs by WatzmanI save all pictures & vids to that format. Those discs have a life of 250 years, noted by all Experts.
250 not true at all.
by DADSGETNDOWN - 9/20/08 8:32 PM In reply to: CD-R by mikesey_97The bottom line is RE-BURN (copy) your copies
every 3 to 5 years or less.
Use good quality, which does mean more expensive,
and store them properly.
Think technology, 10 or 15 years goes by and the
Technology will not be able to read your old discs.
(quite possible)
A few years ago, they said maybe with luck 100 years.
but now after much testing 3-5 years.
And I have known this for a couple years.
Take a look at wikipedia that says.
Read the entire section on Expected Lifespan,
many variables will make it far less than 3-5 years.
USING Good Quality and perfect storage conditions.
(cdrfaq.org is over 3 yars old on this subject)
(cd.info is over 10 years old.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-R#Expected_lifespan
"At present, stated CD-R lifetimes are estimates based on accelerated aging tests, as the technology has not been in existence long enough to verify the upper range. With proper care it is thought that CD-Rs should be readable one thousand times or more and have a shelf life of three to five years. Unfortunately, some common practices can reduce shelf life to only one or two years. Therefore, it is important to handle and store CD-Rs properly if it is necessary to read them more than a year or so later"
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