DV Editor for home videos

[hockeymike]

This has been covered in a few places, but I wanted to summarize my thoughts and get some input.

My project is to take VHS tapes of my sons hockey games and turn them into a DVD at the end of the season. I already have a nice system, and just bought a DVD burner (for other reasons). I'm new to the video game, but fairly versed in some other areas of digital photography.

I'll be using a Canopus ADVC100 to do the capture from my VCR. For the capture software I'm evaluating DVIO or WinDV (both free) or ScenalyzerLive ($35). Nothing too complicated there.

But I'm overwhelmed by my choice for an editor. Here's a summary of my requirements. XP SP1 compatible. Priced under $200, but free is of course nice. Quality is a concern. But I'm dealing with home recorded hockey games, not a professional source. So my quality concerns are around basic cleaning filters, etc.

Other features I'm looking for...

• Ability to join multiple segments together to create a series of clips. I know this can be done in a stand-alone tool, but I'd like one editor to do it all. I prefer the story-board style for doing this.

• Basic transitions. No, I'm not going to overdo them, but I will want to put a few transitions between some scenes.

• Use different audio. For most of the movie I'll want to use new audio, not the audio capture from the source (not the crowd noise from the VCR recording). I'll want to add music (WAV). And of course line it up with various start/stop points.

• Some simple overlays, such as a title or their logo at various points.

Is my assumption correct that this should be the function of an "editing" tool and not an "authoring" tool. Or is editing generally just video quality/cutting, and authoring the story board/audio mixing?

My research so far (this forum, the Tools pages, references) has made me lean towards Ulead Videostudio. Other tools I've looked at are VirtualDub on the simple side, or Adove Premier on the heavier side.

If VideoStudio is the answer, I'm wondering if this tool can do it all (capture from the canopus, encode, author, burn). Or if I should still use dedicated tools for those. But maybe thats a different topic.

Hope that's not too broad of a question. But I've read all the reviews, and am looking for some opinions based on my project....either general approaches, or specific tools.

Thanks - Mike

[Specialist]

I have written a basic tutorial for beginners about how to use Ulead VideoStudio 7.01 to capture from a digital camcorder to the DV .avi file format.

I've also added a tutorial that explains how to use the program to create a typical home DVD.

The tutorial begins on the page at the following link...

http://www.jonesgroup.net/videostudiodvcaptureone.htm

This tutorial features some screen shots that will allow you to evaluate the program's interface and - hopefully - help you make a purchase decision.

Hope this helps,

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

[wulf109]