Video editing question..?

[Immortal25]

Hi ppls.
I'm using Pinnacle Studio 9 and I've some questions.

I have a 120GB SATA HDD and it's huge....well good enough...till now. lol

Thing is, I have a DV camcorder and each tape is about 13GB. A lot...
I have a holiday video of about 5 tapes. Planning to edit and see how much I can fit into a dvd or something. Thing is, the 120GB isn't dedicated for video editing only. There's my personal stuff as well.

So right now my prob is, I don't have enough disk space to edit further videos. Besides my holiday videos I got some other event videos to edit as well, and they are all, half-done so to speak. They are not enough to even burn into a vcd.

And as far as I know, using Pinnacle, I need to keep the source video in order to burn the final vcd or whatever. So if I were to del the source video, then try to render the vcd it won't work. But sometimes I may use several source videos to burn into 1 vcd....but each video could be 10GB+. I'm running out of space, so I'm wondering if it's possible to maybe get the image of the source video, compress it or whatever, delete the source so I can bring in another source and yet continue editing and eventually burning the final output?

If not, I guess I really need to clear up some space, or alternatively, get a external hdd...

Thanks all.

If you are confused by what I'm typing basically my question is:
- Do I really need the source video to render and burn the final output even after I'm done editing?(In other words I don't need the source for editing anymore...I can undertsand the need of the source for editing, but rendering and burning?)
- If there's a way to get rid of the source yet being able to render and burn the final output, what is it?

Thanks again!

[Beavis]

Hi ppls.
- Do I really need the source video to render and burn the final output even after I'm done editing?

Yes, and it's easiest just to keep your footage on the hard drive while you're working on the project then decide if you want to store a copy of the source DV footage somewhere once you're all finished and rendered. Sounds like you need more disk space.

[jimmalenko]

I think the most important point of what you are saying should be pretty obvious - you are editing, removing unwanted footage. At no point are you saving a copy of the edited video until you render it. Therefore you need to keep the original until rendering is done.

My maths tells me that you have around 65GB of DV, 120GB total, and how much personal stuff ?

I'm thinking that possibly the best method for you could be to cut out the bits you don't want in VirtualDub, then save these back to DV AVI. Once this is done you can delete the original files and you are left with only the footage you want, retaining original wualty. You can then cplice the videos together at your leisure.

If this is not sufficient then you need more HD space !

[guns1inger]

Nothing beats planning. Watch your tapes, note the scenes and timecodes on a piece of paper. Transfer the scenes you need to disk, with a bit extra if you are not sure. You can always get extra scenes back from tape later if you change your mind. This will

a) keep your disk usage down
b) make you think through the edit at least once before even touching the editor
c) speed up the actual edit process becuase you have already made most of the hard decisions

[PIntag]

For crying out loud, save yourself a bunch of trouble and hassle and spend the $80 for another 120GB internal hard drive! Having your projects on a separate hard drive will also speed up your video editing and rendering.