home video cutting and joining

[pettinej]

I have captured some home movies that I would like to put into a different order by cutting and joining and inserting avi files. I have captured using huff. These files are so big (total 100g) my harddrive is at it's limit. I am wondering what prog I should use to do my editing cutting inserting and joining. I am also wondering should I convert these avi files down first? My output will be DVD and the source was a sony HI8 cam.

Thanks,
Pettinej

[thecoalman]

The biggest key to quality video is don't mess with it to much. I'm not saying don't get creative but only go from your source AVI to DVD conpliant MPEG once. If you take your files and convert them from the captured footage bewtween the final conversion to MPEG your going to lose quality. Probably not much but you will lose it.

Having said that there's plenty of tools in the tool section with user comments and ratings. Give Ulead Video Studio 8 a try, it's simple and a very good program to get your feet wet.

[edDV]

Also, if they started in DV format, leave them in DV format.

For analog camcorders, capturing to DV format makes sense and keeps file sizes reasonable.

[deckard8]

I know I'll probably get shot down in flames here,
but I would never capture a long movie in HuffyUV
with a view to cutting and editing as a file of that
size (100gb) will push your computer to the limit
and will take an eternity to edit and save back if
you can manage it at all, it's just too big to work
with, your computer will grind to a standstill.
I capture in XviD - all options off/max bitrate and
get excellent results with a finished file size of around
10gb for a 2hour movie. Editing is fast and easy with
Virtualdub for a file of that size.

[ZippyP.]

I don't know what progam you plan to use for your cutting and splicing but you might want to explore frameserving with Virtualdub. After making your cuts it allows the video to be fed straight to your encoder without having the need of saving to an intermediate file that will clog your HDD.

Frameserving guide.

[thecoalman]

I capture in XviD - all options off/max bitrate and
get excellent results with a finished file size of around
10gb for a 2hour movie. .

I would think you would get better results capturing direct to the mpeg properties of your final output providing you have editor that supports mpeg editing and it only reencodes what it needs too.

[NamPla]

Depends on your set-up. If you're a rich wanker, capture uncompressed avi & edit on your 20 TB HD. If you're a normal bloke, convert to mpeg2 and edit with one of many alternatives out there.

Personally, I'd HATE to have a hard drive FULL of raw captured avi segments, only to see it all crash & disappear. Best to save it all to DVD & edit from there. (OK shoot me down now!).

[dphirschler]

If you are clever, try out AVIsynth. You could easily change the order of the clips by identifying variable names for each clip.

For example:

v1= avisource("C:\video\work\myvideo1.avi")
v2= avisource("C:\video\work\myvideo2.avi")

clip1= v1.trim(0,2999)
clip2= v1.trim(3000,4777)
clip3= v1.trim(4778,7799)
clip4= v1.trim(7800,0)
clip5= v2.trim(22,0)

return clip1+clip2+clip3+clip4+clip5

Darryl

[thecoalman]

Depends on your set-up. If you're a rich wanker, capture uncompressed avi & edit on your 20 TB HD.

You don't capture uncompressed, that's a little overkill. DV-AVI is only 14 gigs per hour. Of course if your only working with a small drive it would become a little impratical. Also impractical if your just cutting and trimming, it really depends on what your doing.

[edDV]

Depends on your set-up. If you're a rich wanker, capture uncompressed avi & edit on your 20 TB HD. If you're a normal bloke, convert to mpeg2 and edit with one of many alternatives out there.

Personally, I'd HATE to have a hard drive FULL of raw captured avi segments, only to see it all crash & disappear. Best to save it all to DVD & edit from there. (OK shoot me down now!).

MPeg2 editing is OK for simple cuts, mix and trims but not adequate for sophisticated editing processes normally done in post production (e.g. compositing, scaling, motion transistions, temporal effects, motion tracking etc.).

The DV format preserves enough temporal detail to allow for adequate frame reconstruction so that these effects can be done with reasonable quality. A higher end solution is Digital Betacam where compression is done only withing fields preserving all temporal resolution.

For almost all PC level tasks, DV format is best if you intend to edit with effects, MPeg2 is good for finished programs and can be used for "light" editing. Uncompressed capture is overkill.

[pettinej]

Thank you for all your input.

I caputre uncompressed because it is the only way I get 0 frame loss. I may have more test to try but for now this is the format that I have on my HD. All I really need to do is cut out the parts that are not wanted and insert a seperate clip that was on a different tape. I am not doing any sophisticated editing. I think I will try virtual dub and frame serv.