Home Video: Capture-Edit-Burn to DVD

[pgiambat]

All,
What I want to do: Convert my 6 HI8 tapes to DVD for family viewing at holidays. Edit out the long boring shots and make some 'Chapters' for fast access to certain clips.
What I have: Camcorder, cables, PC with an ATI All in Wonder Card with dongle that has Audio & Video RCA inputs.
I know: I can go to Comp USA and for $99 I can get the USB video input capture device and the software that will do it all in one package.
What I want: Maybe JUST the software that will coordinate the capture, has editing and DVD burning capabilities.

Does anyone have or know of this software or should I just get the box? If anyone has already done this, what was the software and how did it work for you?

Thanks,
Pat G.

[redwudz]

You might want to check out lordsmurf's website. A lot of good information about ATI cards and capturing. http://digitalfaq.com/

[Nelson37]

What have you done so far and what problems are you having?

USB device will give you an MPG on PC, as will the ATI. From there you need to edit, author, and burn. Basically same process with either device, you just already own one.

Burning software that came with your DVD burner more likely to work well with it than software that comes with some other device.

Multiple guides on this site which contain everything you need to know.

[pgiambat]

Nelson37,
Thanks for the reply.
I've been playing around with Windows Movie Maker. Several home improvement projects edited down to about 2 minute movies with some funny titles and music. No problems except it spits it out as a .wmv.
Iguess that I don't know enough about what file format I need my edited video files in to burn to a DVD player-playable DVD with a menu.
The Movie Maker works fine getting the video camera footage on the PC, it's just that all you get is a windows media file. I just don't what can do what.

BTW: if you look at the 2nd post there is a link to digitalfaq.com and I have been reading up (slowly as to understand) on using my ATI card to capture .avi and .mpg. I'm just such a newbie at this it hurts. If this works, I need to edit and burn still. Sadly, I'm a Software Dev Engineer, plenty geeky, just no time. After dinner and putting the kids to bed I get sleepy.

Thanks again,
Pat

[Safesurfer]

Nelson37,
Thanks for the reply.
I've been playing around with Windows Movie Maker. Several home improvement projects edited down to about 2 minute movies with some funny titles and music. No problems except it spits it out as a .wmv.
Iguess that I don't know enough about what file format I need my edited video files in to burn to a DVD player-playable DVD with a menu.
The Movie Maker works fine getting the video camera footage on the PC, it's just that all you get is a windows media file. I just don't what can do what.

Actually you can save as a DV-AVI with Windows Movie Maker. In the "Save Movie Wizard", Movie Setting page, choose "Other settings." You'll get a drop down list on the right where you can choose DV-AVI (it'll save it as a Type 1 DV AVI.)

Then you'll need to convert it to an MPEG2 file and author, neither of which WMM can do, so you'll need other programs for that. See the Tools section for a list.

[Nelson37]

Multiple compression cycles are a bad thing. WMV is compressed.

For extensive editing, such as you describe, it is best to cap as AVI, using a lossless codec such as Huffy. MMC can do this. This is like writing your lines of code.

Ulead Video Studio, which probably came with your card, is good for editing and adding titles. Save as AVI. This is like adding fancy doo-dads to your code.

Final step is to encode to compliant MPG, TMPGenc a good starting point for this. This is like compiling your code.

Then, the MPG must be authored to a DVD structure. Many progs for this, what came with the drive probably a good starting point. This is like creating an installation routine for your code.

Many progs do many things, most only do one or two really well. You may have one prog to edit your code, one to run in debug mode, one to add canned routines, one to compile, and another to create an installation package.

There are a huge number of well-written guides on this site which cover more than you will ever need to know. Just as learning a programming language, at first nothing makes sense. Gradually, various pieces come together and then it is just specific problems and techniques to research. As with programming, a method to do something completely different than your goal and seemingly irrelevant might still contain an interesting trick you can use, or an explanation of methods or issues that is usable in other areas. Read, Read, Read again and then Read some more.

I used to program years ago until I almost went nuts helping Medicare create a new Electronic Claims Transmission format. You might appreciate this, they actually had statements like "If field 1 is such and such, and field 2 is not blank, then you MIGHT need field 3". Never did figure out how to program a "Maybe". OR, "Field 1 cannot be the same as field 2. Field 1 cannot be blank. If field 1 is blank, fill in with the value from field 2".

Video on computer makes slightly more sense, though there is no big payday involved, you are in complete control of your results. First you make it work, then you make it better, then you keep working on the second part.

Just a note on the editing - sure, make it entertaining. But keep ALL of it. Think of the future. If you had just 60 seconds of video of your great-grandfather, what part of that would you edit out and lose forever?