PLZ HELP! I make a 3 minute music vid, & it uses 1/3

[Bookborn]

I use Pinnacle Studios. I'm a newbie. Listen, I started making some skateboarding videos. Just music videos. Well, one tiny little 3-4 minute music video will be like over 2 gigs sometimes. I was doing analog capture. How can I not use so much space and still not sacrifice on quality? Is this b/c of special effects, transitions, etc? Or b/c I'm capturing on high quality? I would like to have an hour's worth of music videos, instead of like 10 minutes worth.
What am I not taking into consideration?
Thanks for some advice....

[jimmalenko]

Use a codec with a better compression ratio instead of capturing uncompressed or lossless.

In all honesty you could probably use a DV codec which will be about 880MB for a 4 minute video and the quality should still be awesome.

[Bookborn]

Use a codec with a better compression ratio instead of capturing uncompressed or lossless.

In all honesty you could probably use a DV codec which will be about 880MB for a 4 minute video and the quality should still be awesome.

Is this a certain setting in Pinnacle when Capturing?
I'm a blockhead.
Thanks.

[jimmalenko]

Use a codec with a better compression ratio instead of capturing uncompressed or lossless.

In all honesty you could probably use a DV codec which will be about 880MB for a 4 minute video and the quality should still be awesome.

Is this a certain setting in Pinnacle when Capturing?

Probably.

The word "quality" has to be mentioned somewhere in the settings. You should be able to choose what codec, bitrate and rate control you wish to use. Hopefully it doesn't have presets like "Best, Good, Low ..." etc etc. and actually lets you tweak. If it don't, don't use it for capturing

[Bookborn]

What are some good programs for capturing.
I have Nero, and Pinnacle Studios....

[jimmalenko]

https://www.videohelp.com/tools?s=5#5

What card / device are you capturing from ?

[Bookborn]

I'm using USB and using an analog camcorder.
Capturing with a little $50 Radio Shack device for capturing...
I do have a firewire port card to install, and I have another device that came with my Pinnacle Studios, and I now have a digital camcorder (JVC). Will any of this decrease my sizes of files?

[kirky99]

While I'm no pro by any strentch, but you're going to really have to get use to large file sizes. Just edited a 15 minute wedding ceremony for a family member, ended up using about 18G worth of space including raw video up to and including an authored DVD image. That 18G is a lot smaller than many of my other projects, which have consumed 70+ gigs for about a 25 minute mini movie.

[Bookborn]

While I'm no pro by any strentch, but you're going to really have to get use to large file sizes. Just edited a 15 minute wedding ceremony for a family member, ended up using about 18G worth of space including raw video up to and including an authored DVD image. That 18G is a lot smaller than many of my other projects, which have consumed 70+ gigs for about a 25 minute mini movie.

Okay, I can see that. But, my question is, how do I then burn this onto a DVD? For example, when you buy a movie on DVD (and I realize their DVD's hold more -- at least I think), the quality is superb. How would you take your 70 gigs and then put it onto a DVD without compromising on quality?

[kirky99]

There are tons of guides to the left on how to convert files and author DVD's.

1. Edit your captured footage.
2. Render your final product to MPEG-2
3. Author a DVD using the output of the above
4. Burn the DVD image to a DVD

Your quality requirements will be decided in step 2 above, or if you can't fit it to the DVD in step 4 you can shrink it. Storing on DVD5 or DVD9 is up to you, depends on how much video you have and how good quality you need.

As far as how I store the massive amounts of space (my 70+ gig example) I either delete (cpatured video), save as DVD data (images, project files, etc.), or burn several copies of the final output. Saving everything isn't all that important to me at this point, but I do save all RAW footage on tape.