Getting Started

[sjohans1]

I am pretty new at this stuff and was wondering if people could offer their opinions on my current setup. My goal with learning how to do all this is threefold. I want to be able to....

1) Rip clips from DVD, edit them, and burn them back to DVD.

2) Back up my purchased DVDs to DVD+R discs.

and

3) Take my home movies, recorded on both DV cam and analog cam, edit them (possibly with footage from a commercial DVD) and write those to DVD.

The tools I currently have are:

CyberLink's Power Director 3 (for video/pic editing)
Adobe After Effects (for more advanced special effects) haven't touched this yet!
DVDDecrypter - for backing up DVD to computer
CopytoDVD (trial) - for burning to DVD
DVDShrink - for editing/sizing DVD
MyDVD Deluxe 5.2 - for burning/editing DVD
PowerDVD 5.0 - for screencaps, etc.

How does that setup look to everyone. Do I have enough tools to accomplish my goals? Can anyone recommend something better than the one I currently have?

Thanks in advance everyone!

[Capmaster]

I'd suggest almost anything instead of MyDVD. (MyDVD is an authoring app and not an editor.) You'll also want a straight burning app like Roxio or Nero.

Look in the tools section here and check out some of the authoring apps you could replace MyDVD with. I use Ulead DVD Movie Factory but there are many authoring apps out there. You'll also want an everyday editor and I didn't see one listed in your post. DVDShrink isn't really an editor. It's really a decrypter/resampling app. You'll want an editor to do cutting and joining, doing scene dissolves, adding sound tracks, etc. Make sure it's a frame-accurate editor when you read the descriptions. If it isn't, you'll have troubles editing MPEG.

[sjohans1]

Thanks a lot.

For video editing I use CyberLink's PowerDirector as the main one. For some reason, I've had trouble using almost all of Ulead's products. I'll look into your suggestions and see if I can get Nero. I here that one mentioned here a lot, so it's probably what I am looking for.

[Capmaster]

Thanks a lot.

For video editing I use CyberLink's PowerDirector as the main one. For some reason, I've had trouble using almost all of Ulead's products. I'll look into your suggestions and see if I can get Nero. I here that one mentioned here a lot, so it's probably what I am looking for.

Nero is a good choice, but I would get an earlier version - anything version 5 like 5.5.9.14 would be a good choice. Nero 6 seems to have a lot of bugs, and the Fisher Price user interface is insulting