Get me started please

[Stonybroke]

I'm new to this forum and haven't read any current postings yet so my questions have probably been seen many times before. I bought a Canon video camera about 18 months ago and have a lot of stuff on Mini DV tape that I want to edit and save on DVD in the form of short movies. Mainly holiday and family stuff. I bought a cheap editing program on the internet (Corel Ulead Videostudio 10se). It claims to have a DVD burning capability however it doesn't appear to accept any of the file types generated by the editor. Fortunately it didn't cost much. I have also tried using Microsoft Movie Maker 2 but it doesn't have a DVD burning capability. I have made a few DVDs using Nero DVD burning software but with mixed success. Short duration movies seem to run OK but long (more than 30 minutes) movies become jerky and eventually freeze when played on our DVD players. I really don't know what I'm doing. I need advice on good software and books to read please.
Bob.

[Skyman]

Only another Aussie could have a handle like that!

I haven't used Corel in a long time but from memory it was a nice little application.

Nero is ok but it can be temperamental with file formats and conversions etc unless you have the pro version.

do you want chapters and menus on your dvd's or are you happy to just have the edited movie playing straight from the disc?

you might find that the jerkyness you see is from your computers inability to render larger video files. there are two ways around this. once you have completed editing you should be able to export your film as an AVI file (the option might be export or save movie as etc) this avi file should be easier for nero to convert to the format used by dvds alternately you may have the option to export to dvd. if you are having trouble doing this then sometimes exporting to avi then creating a new project and importing the finished avi helps the process as the computer has less rendering to do. 30 minutes is a really really long time for a home movie though, ask yourself is this going to be interesting to anyone who doesn't know you? if the answer is no then you aren't doing your job as an editor properly and the video needs to be shorter. I apologise for the scattered answer, but i am very busy at the moment. please feel free to post any more questions you might have and welcome to the Forums!

[Stonybroke]

Hi Skyman,
Thanks for the reply. Plenty to consider there and yes I'm an Aussie. I don't know much about Chapters and menus but come across these options during editing. Probably something I need to find out more about. My initial thoughts are that I want to do two things,

1. back up my Mini DV tapes onto DVDs but will I loose resolution in doing so and does that render the back up useless as far as subsequent use in moviemaking is concerned?

2. Make short entertaining movies that record holiday trips and family events. I would like to do something about the associated sound track also.

I have to agree that 30 minutes is probably too long for a home movie. I can see I'll have to be ruthless in my editing.

I don't have a good grasp of the various file types and their applications. AVI appears to be either uncompressed or low compression and the editing software programmes appear to have some unique file types that are not widely recognised by their competitors (naturally!). I think I need some understanding of the various file types used, how the video library (in the editor) should be used, how to safely delete obsolete video files to free up HDD space, things like project preferences are a bit of a mystery to me but appear to be important. There are lots of other things that appear strange to me.TAFE here in Brisbane don't offer any courses on video and our library has only one book on the subject - by Haynes that deals with Pinacle software but the only copy is in heavy demand. Would you recommend a useful book to read?
Bob.

[Skyman]

You might find that your local community college has a digital video or short film making course. I know that some of the universities also offer a 2 or 3 day short course (that can be done as a longer course part time) I will have to go back and dig up my uni texts for anything more than that. Have a read of the mini dv vs dvd thread in this forum as it will explain a lot about file types and why or why not to use them.

think of a dvd as a woven cane basket. once it is together you tend to break the basket whilst making any changes to it. so with this in mind you either need to save a copy of all your short clips (the industry term is rushes) without any editing or you need to keep your log sheets (we will get to them later) and your master tapes. I also like to make a back up copy of the completed film on mini dv but i am a bit paranoid with loosing stuff i might want later, but then i am doing it for work and often it saves time and money to delve into the archives rather than re shooting something.

[Stonybroke]

Thanks for your tips and patience Skyman. Just to clarify what you have said about saving a string of clips (rushes?) - can I save an unedited one hour tape of clips onto a DVD for later use to put together a movie? I haven't yet read the string relating to DV & DVD so perhaps I'll find the answer there. Bob.

[Skyman]

Rushes are the word used to describe the unedited bits that you "want" in your video. Normally after I have recorded something i will watch it back twice. the second time i make notes with the timecode of the bits i think i might use (most of these will end up being tossed and often I might include two or three different versions of the same thing- the process is a little different with home movies but the concept is the same) these rushes are separated from the rest of the video when you load it onto the computer. you could save the rushes back to a dvd but you will be loosing quality as you do. that is explained here personally i would simply keep my source video. I use tapes so i simply label and file my tapes, but if you are using a dvd or hard drive camera then i would save the unedited video onto my hard drive or a spare hard drive if you have one. This is a very rough description of an ideal workflow though, everyone has their own way of working. sometimes i feel like i can't edit a film until i have a vision of how it will come together. the process of watching everything i have shot and logging it helps build that sense of structure and leads to better films.

[byjamesderuvoDHQ]

Stonybroke. You can help yourself out by beefing up your RAM. The amount of bandwidth and memory used by video rendering can place serious demands on your computer. Take a look at the memory requirements of your software and double whatever they say is the minimum required. Also, go to their sites and download updates. Often, bugs are fixed in "dot" updates and having the latest version can often solve your problem.

Nero used to be a lean, mean, burning machine. But frankly, it's gotten to be total bloatware of late. That's why I recommend using NERO solely for burning. The burning ROM utility is still solid thogh. You can encode the video to MPEG2 separately. There are many good utilities for this including Quicktime Pro (the best $29 you'll ever spend) and Videoera. Google is your friend.

I wouldn't worry about menus, unless you want to create "compilation" dvds which would have several events on each DVD. Nero's authoring utility does work pretty good for this as well. But again, encode the video yourself.

Lastly, swing on over to http://www.videohelp.com for tips and tricks on making your DVDs. It's a valuable resource that every video hobbyer needs to have bookmarked.