New to dvd capturing/authoring… Question

[tygger]

Hypothetically speaking, if I had 3 mini-dv tapes each with scenes from 2 events (say a birthday party and a wedding), what’s the best way to combine parts of each tape?

Eg. Tape 1: Birthday (30min) & Wedding (30min)
Tape 2: Wedding (20min) & Bday (40min)
Tape 3: Bday (10min) & Wedding(50min)

Would the best way to split up and sort the events on to the same dvds be done during the capturing or authoring?

I’m thinking it would be easiest to capture (transfer) the entire minidv to the computer first, but not really sure.

Any suggestions?

[thecoalman]

I’m thinking it would be easiest to capture (transfer) the entire minidv to the computer first, but not really sure.

Most capture software will split the footage into different files by scene if you enable it. There's support for this in aothoring and editing software too if you capture one large file.

[stars]

Hi..

If the persons on each tape are family connected I think you should join all the
tapes into one videoclip and author it with different chapters for the different events.
And have a menu with the chapters so you can choose the event you are interested in..

If the persons on each tape isnt family conncted I would encode the tapes seperatly
and use them in differnt VTSs so when the video ends you return to the main menu...

Well you could also link the VTS to the next one, but in this case its best to link it to
the main menu....

This is my thoughts...

regards stars...

[tygger]

I’m thinking it would be easiest to capture (transfer) the entire minidv to the computer first, but not really sure.

Most capture software will split the footage into different files by scene if you enable it. There's support for this in aothoring and editing software too if you capture one large file.

So do you mean to capture the entire video first and then use the same capturing software to split the sections? I'm using WinDV...

Thanks

[tygger]

Hi..

If the persons on each tape are family connected I think you should join all the
tapes into one videoclip and author it with different chapters for the different events.
And have a menu with the chapters so you can choose the event you are interested in..

If the persons on each tape isnt family conncted I would encode the tapes seperatly
and use them in differnt VTSs so when the video ends you return to the main menu...

Well you could also link the VTS to the next one, but in this case its best to link it to
the main menu....

This is my thoughts...

regards stars...

Thanks for the tip. I guess what I'm asking is what's the best way to combine clips from different video tapes? Like for instance, if I wanted to make a dvd for just the wedding stuff. Would I capture just the wedding sections of each tape (not even sure how to do this) or would i capture the entire tape and then delete the parts I didnt want (bday stuff). Thanks again

[thecoalman]

[
So do you mean to capture the entire video first and then use the same capturing software to split the sections? I'm using WinDV...

I don't know if winDV supports that, If it's only a few tapes you are working with it really doesn't matter that much. The file created during capture is used as a source. When you import it into a editing program and "cut" soemthing you really haven't done anything to the source file, you've only marked the section you want to use. A new file or DVD depending on what you're doing is created from these marked segments, the original file never gets changed.

[stars]

Hi well you can just capture the wedding stuff...

and then open them in virtualdub (open the first avi file) then append avi segment...

(its possible that you must install panasonic DV codec )

edit the parts you want, save the audio as wave (encode it to DD 2.0 with Quenc )

Turn the audio off and framserv ( Avisynth must be installed) the video to HC encoder or other encoder..

The final output will be a videoclip .m2v format and audio .ac3 format...

These files will do fine in many DVD authoring programs like Gui for dvdauthor ...

stars....

[Jim44]

Thanks for the tip. I guess what I'm asking is what's the best way to combine clips from different video tapes? Like for instance, if I wanted to make a dvd for just the wedding stuff. Would I capture just the wedding sections of each tape (not even sure how to do this) or would i capture the entire tape and then delete the parts I didnt want (bday stuff). Thanks again

You can do it either way. In your OP, you seem to know how long each piece of video is, so you can cue up the tape to the beginning of the desired segment, start transferring with WinDV, and come back after the appropriate time has elapsed to stop the transfer. Or you can transfer the whole tape, and cut/delete/edit as desired with a tool such as VirtualDub (or any of it's variants - I happen to use VirtualDubMod). I've use both methods for working with my miniDV tapes.

Also, WinDV transfers to files based on the time stamp on the video on the tape. So if you transfer the whole tape with two different events (wedding & bday) that were recorded on two separate occasions, they'll be placed in separate files. You can configure WinDV to add the date to the file name to make it easy to sort out.

Hope that helps,
Jim - slightly slower typist than stars, apparently