Editing Canon EOS 5D Mark II Video Files

[Photo-John]

I've got a Canon EOS 5D Mark II for review. I am pretty much a pure still photographer. But I've found myself shooting more and more video - mostly with point-and-shoot cameras. So I'm kind of psyched to find out what all the hype is about with the new 5D. Being a video rube, I do all my editing with the free Microsoft Windows Movie Maker software. It's been great for me so far. But I think I've run into a serious limitation. It doesn't seem to be able to edit or even recognize the 5D Mk II's .mov video files. Any ideas or suggestions about what I should do? I would prefer not to have to shell out any cash for video editing software. But if I'm at that crossroads, maybe I just have to suck it up and pay up.

Thanks in advance for your help. I think I'm going to be spending more and more time on Digital Video forum...

[Skyman]

the simplest way (albeit loosing quality) would be to convert the .mov files to .avi files. do you have adobe media encoder? or quicktime pro, either of these apps will it with the least quality loss. Otherwise there is free ware available that can do it, I think flv player should be able to do it, although I don't know what level of success you will have with it. I haven't used it with a quicktime file but with some of its other conversions it is a bit hit and miss. Most cheap video editing programs won't natively support .mov files except imovie which obviously is a mac thing and you are working on a pc, so no go there. If you want to send me a file I would be happy to run it through a couple of different conversion programs on my edit suit and see what gives the best results. In an Ideal world, the likes of premier pro, final cut pro and Avid all offer support for .mov files. I am not sure about the lighter versions of each of these such as final cut express. I don't think vegas supports it, but it does support some of its own proprietry hd formats that the others need conversions for so maybe it does.

I would love to get my hands on a 5d! but alas that is going to be way out of my budget for a long time!

[poker]

Try Neoscene trial by Cineform to convert the 5DMKII files into their version of AVI. Also, highly recommended as an intermediary codec for 24P and AVCHD.

http://www.cineform.com/products/NeoScene.htm

You'll probably also need to install their player so your system will recognize their codec:

http://www.cineform.com/products/Dow...layerStart.htm

[Photo-John]

I am going to start by downloading with QuickTime Pro to see if converting to AVI will get the job done. But I am thinking it's time to invest in some real video software. I have started to become aware of the limitations of Windows Movie Maker. I'm thinking I might get try the the demo download of Adobe Premier Elements to see if it gives me enough added functionality for the money.

[Photo-John]

QuickTime Pro did the trick. I was able to to convert the .mov files to .avi files and then edit them with Windows Movie Maker. It's not gonna be a masterpiece of any sort. But I'll have a sample video from stuff I shot at Park City ski resort on Friday. We'll see how it looks after I save it and upload it to YouTube.

Thanks for your suggestions, guys. I'm sure I'm going to have lots more questions about this stuff in the future. I am getting sucked into the video thing for real now.

[Photo-John]

Here's my finished video. Make sure to click on the "HQ" link in the lower right-hand corner to see it at its best. I definitely have tons to learn about shooting video and I know real video editing software would make a big difference. But I think this isn't bad for right out of the box, the day after I opened it.

[Skyman]

you probably can't do some of this in windows movie maker, but in the first part I would drop the audio from the source video. speed up this sound distracts from the music - wich gives you the impression of fast pace without the distraction. A way around this might be to leave it real time and chop it up into a series of 1-2 second clips.

Obviously it might have been hard to carry a tripod up the mountain, but the wobbles are a little distracting, which even with video cameras with the best anti shake technology will still be an issue.

Since you are shooting at such high resolution, you could safely zoom in a little bit on your subjects in post. Doing it live would be better but you have to work with the footage that is "in the can" That carve would look great close up and slowed down, but this is personal taste. If you had an edditing application with a bit more power you can experiment with things like zooming in a bit, then speeding up the beggining and end of that carve but slow the middle bit right down so that you get the full effect of the spray close up.

It is a little hard to see the quality on you tube and this is partially because wmm does a terrible job on the compression, incidentally how come you didn't use our video sharing site?

[kate59588]

You won't want to edit with Native Canon EOS MOV files, most CPU's bottleneck when scrubbing through these files on a timeline. It's very CPU intensive and not really meant for editing.

If you don't mind spending a few $, then look into Cineform Neoscene. This is an awesome 4:2:2 codec that's much less processor intensive on NLE's.

So for the last week or two I’ve been stuck trying to find a cheapper option,go here.

http://www.pavtube.com/guide/convert...it-pro-14.html

[Skyman]

Everyone has their own workflows, and in the world of video there simply isn't a best practice consensus as there are too many variables with input codecs, output codecs, hardware and software capabilities, however my preference (budget being available) is to not convert files until editing has been completed. This follows a similar concept as working with RAW files and sharpening as a last step. Since the variety of file formats and codecs has absolutely exploded in recent times this isn't always straightforward. Good editing applications tend to support the file formats used by the major camera manufacturers. I remember the time when native support for AVCHD was a rare thing. This might mean that a hardware and or software upgrade is needed, but video has always been extrememly data intensive. When I was at uni rendering a 5 second standard definition title sequence took several hours for a custom built edit suit. Today the HD equivalent can be done on a mid - hi end desktop, but there will always be a market for the like of matrox and canopus et all to build custom hardware to deal with NLE software and large files. Incidentally like I said at the outset there are no hard and fast rules. I once worked with an editor who specialised in very very very widescreen video and he used to capture everything to AVI then convert it to WMV as the AVI files had too much colourspace for his liking before editing it in premier (when most of the top end editors use FCP or Avid) on a MAC (where I would have thought he would have also used FCP and quiktime, but he had developed a worklfow that provided the results he wanted and he never varied it.

[janesansan]

How to Capture Canon LEGRIA HF R28 E to FCP? Here are the steps to convert Canon LEGRIA HF R28 E AVCHD to Final Cut Pro for editing with Agoosoft Video Converter

[James King]

Avidemux 2.6 - 64bits

[DerekSom]

Being engaged in ... or rather, indulging in video editing at an amateur level, the question of high-quality video editing constantly arises. Sometimes it takes an incredible amount of time, and even if something suitable is found, it is not a fact that the copyright on the same YouTube will not stand on end. After watching this podcast, I found out that there are many quality video editors and you can use these advanced programs to create quality videos.