Converting Mini DV to DVD for Editing Later?

[scottallen]

I'm trying to convert about 40 mini DV tapes to DVD but I want to be able to edit the footage at a later date. If I use a stand alone recorder and it converts the footage to MPEG, will that screw me up? Do I have to capture to my hard drive and save segments as avi files? Is there some brand of a stand alone DVD burner that will allow me to quickly burn the footage and deal with it later? I have a laptop (512, centrino) and I would need an external burner. Also, USB 2.0 connection or Firewire? Thanks in advance for your help!

[pijetro]

I'm trying to convert about 40 mini DV tapes to DVD

If you've got time and money, then it's a nice backup process..

edit the footage at a later date.

That's what your DV tapes are for..

.....and save segments as avi files?

Your DV tapes already carry DV compressed .AVI information. You'd be doing things over twice..

...will allow me to quickly burn the footage...

They all do that.

THink of water and ice..
In essence, your DV tapes, .AVI, and editing requirements are all at your fingertips..Sort of pouring water into different shape glasses, or cube trays..
MPEG (the guts of DVD) is a final format. Sort of like ice. It wasn't intended for editing..

It's easier to manipulate water, to produce round ice cubes..When editing Mpeg, it's like taking round ice cubes, and making squares out of them..NOT FUN.

Good luck!!!

[daamon]

It's easier to manipulate water, to produce round ice cubes..When editing Mpeg, it's like taking round ice cubes, and making squares out of them..NOT FUN.

All valid and true, and I'm an advocate of this also. That said, there are those who say that they've used tools like Video ReDo to and Womble MPEG-VCR or Womble MPEG Video Wizard to edit MPEGs without any problems.

[scottallen]

Thanks for the quick reply! Pijetro, great analogy!

I agree with everything you said....the problem is that I have 40 tapes and stuff is all over the place. They're not organized at all. So what I wanted to do was go through all the tapes and organize the footage. So this DVD has stuff from girlfriend X, this tape has stuff of my grandfather, etc... then, when I'm ready to edit them (could even be a couple of years) I'll import the "grandfather" footage from that DVD and start editing.

So is there a quick way to organize all the footage? Turn everything into avi files and save them to DVD as a data disk?

I still want to keep my mini DV's as backup. But sometimes people will ask me, "Do you have any video of your niece?" And of course, I do but it's on tape 3, tape 12 and tape 32. It would be great if I could just pop in the "Niece DVD" and choose which segment to watch. Then, at some point in the future, I could make a nice polished movie with music, titles, transitions, etc.. and give it to her...

So I guess I'm trying to figure out if there's an easy way to do this. Or am I going to have to sit there and go through each tape, capture the footage, name the avi file, keep capturing, etc...I'm freakin lazy! What can I say!

Thanks so much for all your help!!!!

-Scott-

[daamon]

WinDV can be configured so that it captures each clip into separate AVI files.

But, I'm sorry to say, that I don't know of anything that will do any more than that.

And "girlfriend X"!?!?!? How many do you have at one time? And I daren't ask what the videos of...

[pijetro]

Daamon wrote:

And "girlfriend X"!?!?!? How many do you have at one time? And I daren't ask what the videos of...

How much for the tapes?? :P :P

Seriously, if i were you, i'd invest in harddrive space..Capture whatever you can. Cut, keep or move different footage, and re-export to tape..
That way, you can exclusively have Uncle Phil on one tape, the family barbeque, on the other, and the Tommy Lee and Pam footage on the other.

Good luck!!!

[scottallen]

Thanks for all the help and the WinDV tip....Everyone who offered suggestions will get one free copy of a tape. Just specify which girlfriend.... A-Z!

I guess I'll just have to sit there and manually capture each tape. Does anyone know if there are any stand alone DVD recorders that will burn avi on the disc instead of MPEG?

[Dragonsf]

Thanks for all the help and the WinDV tip....Everyone who offered suggestions will get one free copy of a tape. Just specify which girlfriend.... A-Z!

I guess I'll just have to sit there and manually capture each tape. Does anyone know if there are any stand alone DVD recorders that will burn avi on the disc instead of MPEG?

Why don't you just transfer your tapes to a PC, split the avi at 4.7GB and burn them to DVD as file. Thus a 120min tape will be fine on 6 DVDs.

DVD Recorders use analog or digital cable/satellite/terristic signals and convert them to mpeg2 (that's why they called DVD recorders). The new SONY has DV in, but what do you gain, using a DVD Recorder?

[daamon]

Thanks for all the help and the WinDV tip....Everyone who offered suggestions will get one free copy of a tape. Just specify which girlfriend.... A-Z!

Do I get double tapes for the WinDV tip?

I guess I'll just have to sit there and manually capture each tape. Does anyone know if there are any stand alone DVD recorders that will burn avi on the disc instead of MPEG?

A 60 minute DV tape, on long play, will hold around 90 minutes. At about 13.5Gb per hour, that's basically 20Gb as DV AVI - or 5 single layer DVDs. You'll be changing them every 20 minutes, quite literrally. And, no, I've not heard of one that does it - no real need I guess...

Setting up WinDV

[edDV]

Here is what I'd do. Two ways.

1. "Capture" transfer each tape in segments to avi files. You could fit all 20 tapes on one 300GB drive but you will probably find you can skip over at least 25% as useless.

2. Separate segments by categories as you see fit in disk folders.

3. Copy folder contents to tape (60min chunks) or as files to DVD (20min DV-AVI chunks) until all is backed up. I'd add a slate at the front of each clip to help with content identification later.

Alternatively,

Log and note tape contents to an Excel spreadsheet. For every DV tape enter tape id, timecode, category, segment contents and date.

That way you can qwery the spread sheet for the clips you need when the time comes to edit.