home video editing

[goldenhawkofky]

I am converting a vhs tape of home videos to dvd. I need to remove the audio and add new audio. I also need to remove sections of the video and rearrange them. Does anyone have any suggestions in terms of what programs to use to accomplish this, and/or what guides are the most helpful. Any help is much appreciated.

[jg0001]

I just posted this two seconds ago in response to another post, but it works here too:

[Definitely use Scenalyzer to bring across any crapola from analog sources using a DV pass-thru]


I haven't done anything too complicated, but here's what I find to be the easiest setup.

(1) Import mini-DV over FireWire. If it's a tape I made with the camera, I'll go straight to Pinnacle Studio (just got version 9.0.4). If it's something that was from an analog source originally, I use Scenalzyer to import to DV-AVI, then go to Pinnacle.

(2) Use Pinnacle Studio to chop up / edit the video, working in DV-AVI ALL the time. Save your project files often (i.e. not the AVI's but the .STU file that notes the project contents).

Note: I don't use Studio to create menus or author the DVD as I find it much quicker and easier to just use TMPG DVD Author for this. Studio CAN do all the steps to finish and burn a DVD, I just don't use it for that (and some people report that it can be buggy in this regard).

(3) Once I've finished with the editing, I use 'make movie' and output an editted DV-AVI file.

(4) Using TMPGEnc Plus, I convert the DV-AVI to MPEG2 (DVD Compliant) with MPEG audio (eventually plan to use AC-3). I'm lazy so I use CBR. Always leave a little room for menus and such when you pick your encoding rate, especially if your movie is long.

(5) I take the newly created .mpg file and use TMPG DVD Author to create the DVD 'files' (the VIDEO_TS folder containing the VOBs). It is VERY EASY TO USE and EXCELLENT for simple to moderately comlex projects. There aren't a mindnumbing array of choices, which for the most part is a blessing if all you want is a nice menu structure without a lot of fuss. I do not burn from TMPG DVD Author, though you can.

(6) At this point, you can just burn the DVD folder you just created using Nero or the like. I typically like to create a .ISO file (ImgTool classic or Nero buring to an Image Drive will do this) to keep on my Harddrive (it's nice to have just one file for the whole DVD). I can then just burn the .ISO to a disc whenever I want to (CopyToDVD, Nero, DVD Decrypter can all do this).

[Gazorgan]

Good lord??? did you read the original post before replying?

HTF is he going to import mini-DV over firewire with VHS tapes? Your going to confuse him terribly.

Hawk:

1) You need to capture the video. This requires a capture card (harware device). You can use VDUB (free) to cut out the parts of the capture you want and don't want.

2) You need to encode the video to MPEG2. This requires CCE or TMPGEnc or Procoder or MainConcept or FFXMPEG. One of them will work for you. They aren't all free, but most have free trials.

3) You need to Author. TMPG Author is pretty good, and has a free trial.

4) You need to burn the disk. DVDDecryptor/IMG Tools is free. Nero also works well as do Recordnow.


Audio is tougher. if you just want background music, you can cut and glu MP3's together to match your final video length, then convert to DVD audio.

To get really fancy you will want Adobe Premiere (6.5 or 7) or Ulead studio. Both will let you do multiple video/audio with full transitions.

It depends on how fancy you get and how much time you want to spend on learning. There's at least a dozen ways to do it. Some are easier and some are more $$$.

[jg0001]

Yeah I read it... I'm a little lazy is all.

Studio 9 (just released, be sure NOT to buy Studio 8) is about $99.99.
TMPGenc & TMP DVD Author can be had as a combo for under $100.
Scenalyzer is like $30 to register (if you have a DV pass-through device to use).

If you don't have a DV pass through/converter, you can use a TV card to import the video, but these can be a real pain in the ass to setup correctly (sometimes they work great, othertimes they're a nightmare.. either way, it is rare that the video you'll import with one of these will be editable in any easy fashion).

With this setup, you should be able to create what you are looking for.

[goldenhawkofky]

Ok heres where I am now. I have the video captured. I have a premier project created and the audio removed, files cut up and reorganized correctly and enough of an audio track to render a test. Heres where I get stuck. Everything I render seems to have something wrong with it. First of all, from Premier it appears I am only able to export a .mpg file with a 352 x 240 res (which turns out choppy). so I tried .mov (which creates this HUGE jerky file, not sure which setting to use; planar rgb, video, animation, jpg etc..) and I tried .avi which took 2 1/2 hours to render 2 1/2 minutes of video.

Here is the new question.

What is the best way to export from premier 5.5 or 6 to a file compliant with DVD? .mov (what kind of settings?), .mpg (how do i change the res?) or .avi (what is the best way to encode .mpg from .avi and keep the audio in sync and keep the quality, I tried my trial version of Tmpegenc plus and the audio came out horrible).

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Greg