The video editing blues

[jetthenet]

I have a CPU with a 1.5GB processor, 1GB ram, 2 80GB 7200 hard drives and an ATI all in wonder Pro video card. Now, the problem I have is after I have recorded my shows I want to edit out the commercials and anything else that I don't want. I usually record in MPEG-1 format because Adobe Premier cannot input MPEG-2 for editing. I use wmv for output because if I use AVI or MPEG it takes like 3 years to render (I am exaggerating of course but 1 whole day for a 1 hour show still seems too long). Does anyone else run into this problem? I am thinking not because I cannot imagine all you people editing and waiting days on end for video to render. Is there some setting that will help me get a 1 hour show to render in 2 hours or less that I can fit into 210 Mb block and still look decent when playing back (this is what I am getting now with wmv but once I make them wmv I cannot edit them and when there is high motion involved it gets really blocky)?

[hitechjunkie]

hey jet,

i've got an amd k6-3 350mhz machine, 256mb ram, with one 20gb and one 60gb drive and an ATI TV Wonder card - pretty much a really scaled down version of ur setup.

i capture A LOT of toons for VCDs and what i do is

1) use ATI VCR to capture to a 352x240, MPEG1, at 3.55mb/sec bitrate
2) load MPEG1 in VDub and edit out commercials
3) frameserve to TMPGEnc and encode to 352x240, 0-2300 CQ_VBR, MPEG1 for final burn to VCD

i use the noise reduction filter in TMPGEnc with "still picture" and "time axis" set all the way up to 100, but range set to 1, which works REALLY WELL for cleaning up cartoons without losing too much in detail.

if ur just editing out commercials, why not try the VDub method.

encoding that final MPEG1 does take about 1.5 hours on my 350mhz machine for an 11 minute cartoon clip at the VCD rez of 352x240, which means a 1 hour show (probably 45 minutes w/o ads) would take about 6 hours.

[menace]

here's what i do--be forewarned though you are sacrificing some quality for time--I just capture as a mpeg-1 constant bit rate using the ATI and the MMC7.5 that is available on the net for download. Set the bitrate to as high as your dvd player will let you go or as much as you can get on a CD whicever is higher (i use 1.96mb/s CBR to put 42mins on 1 CD) and record. Then load the file into m2edit or vcd cutter and edit the commercials out. There is no encoding as both these programs preserve the compression. As i mentioned you're not going to get as high a quality as doing it the other way but you'll be done in 15mins tops. I persoanlly find the video quality to be quite acceptable (provided the source is) but since it's coming off a tv transmission you will never get near dvd quality regradless of what you do.

[hitechjunkie]

i agree that editing commercials out with vcdcutter is quick, but it is not frame accurate. i've used it before and u always wind up with a sec or two of video before and after the actual 'toon. if ur really picky, like myself, u'll load the mpeg in vdub and select the exact frame of the beginning/end points of the 'toon. i still like using the higher bitrate of 3.55MB/sec on the actual capture to keep the video quality up, without using up too much disk, then re-encoding to an acceptable bitrate for the player.

[TheInformer]

This might seem a silly question, but why do you want to edit an MPEG-1 file?

Why not capture your show using VirtualDub, and capture in AVI format with the HuffYUV codec? VDub will segment the file for you so there's no space limitation, and you can even edit out the commercials with VDub itself. Frameserve the edited file to TMPGEnc and use TMPGEnc's VideoCD template (or one of your favorites) to encode an MPEG-1 file.

MPEG files are really meant to be a target file, not a source file. By that I mean they are meant to be seen, not edited.

[hitechjunkie]

This might seem a silly question, but why do you want to edit an MPEG-1 file?

Why not capture your show using VirtualDub, and capture in AVI format with the HuffYUV codec? VDub will segment the file for you so there's no space limitation, and you can even edit out the commercials with VDub itself. Frameserve the edited file to TMPGEnc and use TMPGEnc's VideoCD template (or one of your favorites) to encode an MPEG-1 file.

MPEG files are really meant to be a target file, not a source file. By that I mean they are meant to be seen, not edited.

not silly at all! i was using VDUB for captures to raw AVI for a long time, but ever since i upgraded to MMC 7.1 and going to WDM drivers, i haven't been able to get the VDUB capture to work again. i installed the VFW/WDM wrapper but still no-go. i just haven't had the time recently to uninstall and re-install and/or upgrade each appl, so i now use ATI mpeg VCR for all my captures. i really like how simple it is to start the recording. so simple that my 10-yr-old son uses it all the time now to capture his favorite shows which i then encode to XVCD for his own personal collection.

[TheInformer]

A program that allows you to capture using the WDM drivers is iuVCR. You might want to take a look at it:

http://www.iulab.com/index.shtm?iuvcr/about

. . . .

The program MyFlix is a decent MPEG-1 editor, if you can find it.