The Ideal set up for making movies

[mongoo13]

Hi, I'm actually more into audio and am looking into getting a computer to run effects from and back to a stand alone recorder. I also like making stupid little movies with my friends. I'm pretty out of the loop with this dvd burning stuff and don't know where things are at now. I have an old 700mhz computer with an all in one wonder radeon card that for the life of me will not sync the audio with the video. I also have a Sony digital 8 camcorder.

Basicly what I want to do is have an easy way to put the footage I record in and edit all the good parts together then I suppose make a dvd out of it. I have some experiance with premiere but I seem to remember it would take forever to render stuff. This may have just been due to my computer power though.

What kind of computer (specs) would you recamend for pro audio & video?

How long does it take to put all of your movie clips together and render them on todays computers? Say a ten minute movie. How long from import via firewire to dvd in hand for a movie without and effects or transitions? How long with average effects?

Finally what codec would I want to use for this and how much Hard drive space would it all take?

Thank you for your answers.

Mongoo

[sacajaweeda]

Read the guides.

[WuphonsReach]

Read the guides...

If you have a DV camera, it should have a firewire connector to allow you to import the DV footage straight to the computer, bypassing the AIW card (no need to deal with the A/V sync).

Figure on 13.5Gb/hr for DV footage, multiply times 3 or 4 if you're going to do editing... no such thing as too little amount of free disk space.

Encoding to MPEG2 is going to be the bottleneck, think 2.4Ghz CPU as a minimum.

[daamon]

Hi mongoo13,

Some of your questions are a bit "how long is a piece of string" or too dependent on a PC set-up, but I'll try to do my best...

What kind of computer (specs) would you recamend for pro audio & video?

Hover over my "Computer Details" icon (or click it) - I manage OK with Premiere 6.0, disk space (for holiday movies - max 40 mins?), and other required software for making DVD's (more later...).

The key bits (IMO) are as fast a CPU as you can afford, 512DDR memory (less is gonna be a strain, more isn't too necessary) and enough disk space. Make sure your file system is NTFS, as FAT32 has a 4Gb file limit.

My CPU could be faster, meaning that rendering times are quicker (but they're bearable at the moment for effects and transitions) and encoding from AVI -> MPEG2 is quicker (currently 8 hrs for around 40 mins - I leave it overnight).

Say a ten minute movie. How long from import via firewire to dvd in hand for a movie without and effects or transitions? How long with average effects?

1. Importing via firewire, whatever your system specs, is real-time - i.e. capture time = length of your footage.

If you have a DV camera, it should have a firewire connector to allow you to import the DV footage straight to the computer, bypassing the AIW card (no need to deal with the A/V sync).

Most preferable.

2. Without effects and transitions - means you can encode the captured AVI straight away (see later).
3. With effects and transitions - this depends on how long it takes you to get them as you want them. You then need to render (not long for a 10 minute movie), and then save as DV AVI (again, not long).

The encoding time is (partly) dependent on the length of the footage - nothing to do with the transitions or effects that are in there.

Finally what codec would I want to use for this and how much Hard drive space would it all take?

You may need an MPEG2 codec - see the "Codecs" section under "Tools" (to the left). Also, depending on the audio you might use (MP2, AC3), you'll need codecs for those too. Good tools for identifying codec requirements for files are GSpot and AVICodec.

Re: disk space, WuphonsReach has already covered that, though 3 or 4 times may be a little generous...

Now for the stuff I alluded to earlier: Check out this link:

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=725433#725433

It's not a definitive guide and I'm not claiming it's the best way, but it's the steps I took to get results I was happy with. I have since edited it as I've learnt more (they're in there too).

These two threads will provide useful background reading. Not all will apply, or you may have to relate what others have done to what you're doing. But, in the end, it's all about getting an AVI and the steps to go through to get it looking good on a DVD disc.

1. https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=208700&highlight=

2. https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=809541#809541

Hope that helps. Good luck...