Before going down wrong path...

  • Thread starter Thread starter George
  • Start date Start date
G

George

I'd like to start capturing movies from my Sony DVD to my PC, and make edits
and so forth. Starting out with MM2 seems as good as any.

But if I invest time in editing/creating movies and then decide to step up
to something different (like AdobePremier?) later, I'd like to have saved
things in a way that minimizes re-work. I don't want to have to start all
over, when all I wanted to do is, let's say, modify a movie I made back in
2004. Are these the right steps, and do I need to save 3 or 4 files for
each movie as follows? Thanks

True/False
CREATE AND SAVE NATIVE FILE AS DV-AVI. Capture the original "footage" from
the Sony DVD onto the PC and save it as a (big?) DV-AVI file. Once it's in
place, almost any software can read it, and since it's digital, there's no
"loss" if you read/save it with any application

True/False
MAKE MOVIE AND SAVE AGAIN AS DV-AVI. Make edits in whatever software you
have, such as MM2, then save it as a (big?) DV-AVI file. Once it's in
place, almost any software can read it, plus all the enhancements like
transistions and titles and so forth can be modfied easily with almost any
new software package you get later.

True/False.
SAVE THE MOVIE FILE AS A PROJECT. (I don't understand the difference in
this and an edited native file, but it seems like if you save it in MM2 as
____.mswmm, you run the risk of not being able to read it and modify it if
you go to a new software (like Adobe Premier) later. (?)

True/False
OUTPUT THE MOVIE TO WMV OR WHATEVER AND SAVE THIS FILE. All packages allow
you to output the movie, but this file clearly drops lots of data, plus it's
a flat file so it would be very tough to edit. Just use this file to
"watch" the movie, but always keep the native file in case you want to
change it around later
 
As I said in response to another poster, unfortunately movie maker is not
appropriate choice for your editing needs at all. This is because your
camera records in MPEG2/DVD format and movie maker cannot edit this format
directly. Neither can it save the movie in this format in case you were
thinking to store the final movie to a DVD.

You can do it. But it involves a lot of conversions to and from original
footage losing quality and consuming time and resources.

You may like to consider some other editing package that can edit the movies
without conversion before comitting too much to Movie maker. For example
VideoReDo (http://www.drdsystems.com/VideoReDo/) can edit MPEG2/DVD without
conversion.
CREATE AND SAVE NATIVE FILE AS DV-AVI. Capture the original "footage"
from
the Sony DVD onto the PC and save it as a (big?) DV-AVI file. Once it's
in
place, almost any software can read it, and since it's digital, there's no
"loss" if you read/save it with any application
Click to expand...

Yes but only if you capture in DV format from a digital camcorder using mini
DV or Digital8 tapes. DV format is the closest representation of the data on
these tapes. Therefore this is the format of choice for capturing and
intermediate steps. Converting from MPEG2 to DV AVI is a big change in color
space which may not keep the quality untouched and would take a lot of time
and disk space.

MAKE MOVIE AND SAVE AGAIN AS DV-AVI. Make edits in whatever software you
have, such as MM2, then save it as a (big?) DV-AVI file. Once it's in
place, almost any software can read it, plus all the enhancements like
transistions and titles and so forth can be modfied easily with almost any
new software package you get later.
Click to expand...

False. This question has many parts but the underlying assumption is false.
DV is a "flat" movie format such as WMV. The difference is only that it does
not compresses the data as much as other formats in order to preserve
quality.


None of the packages can save the project in a form that can be modified by
some other packages, so MM is not unique in that respect.

WMV is a Windows specific fomrat but its support is not limited to windows
own programs. Any program that can access media using DirectShow engine can
use this format.

However note that if you like to use Movie Maker anyway (which I suspect you
would; since it much easier than all other NLEs...) you should not worry too
much about the loss of quality and conversion time as mentioned earlier. It
is annoying but still manageable.

--
Rehan
www.rehanfx.org - get more effects and transitions for movie maker
 
Thanks for taking time for all the responses, do the below items seem right:

-The movie camera, by the way, is Digital8, I don't think it's mini-DV, but
unsure and don't know the difference (would like to know). It's a Sony
DCR-TRV340 NTSC, we got maybe 2 years ago. (Would that change anything in
our discussion?)

-If I didn't have any movie software, just a IEEE 1394 firewire and captured
the video to the PC, would the file that ends up on the PC be an exact (or
as near as can get) copy of what's on the tape, presumably a DV-AVI file?

-It sounds like for most movies you would save three files...does this sound
right:
1) the flat NATIVE DV-AVI file so you have on the PC the most original
(unedited) "footage" there is (but there's no way to get edits on this),
2) the PROJECT file, which would only work in the video editing software
you're using at the time...and if you later step up from let's say MM2 to
Adobe Premier...you would have to re-create everything from scratch, using
your origina tape (or DV-AVI file), and
3) the actual movie, which can be rendered from the software you're using as
MPEG, physical DVD, etc.... and is necessarily lower resolution, and would
be difficult to change...or at least, a better way to change it would be to
to back to the PROJECT, make the change, and then re-render

Does this sound right, thanks for newbie patience.

By the way, is there a corollary to editing pictures, since you could have a
"native" ___.eps file to begin with, make edits and save the edits in a
___.psd Photoshop file which allows you to change titles and other "layered"
things later or create a new flat ____.eps file which would discard the
layers and ability to make changes, and finally render the image to a ___jpg
or something else for "practical" viewing
..
George
 
I am sorry for mistaking your cmacorder to be a MPEG2/DVD. With a Digital8
one you have got things exactly right as you described in your message (in
1, 2, and 3) .

The parallel with photoshop PSD file does not hold true with any of the
project file fomrats for movie at the moment. May be as things progress, a
common/popular project file format may evolve in future.
 
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