I need a fast WMV editor

[adamch009]

I have wmv clips ranging from 2 minutes long to 60 minutes long. I am able to find editing programs that will edit them however, rendering time is too long for what I need. The fastest software that I found was Honestech video editor 7.0. The speed was ok, but it's editing features are limited. I do not want to render them to MPEG, and price is not an issue. Any suggestions?

[harley2ride]

Won't Windows Movie Maker software do that?

[lenti_75]

first, you need a faster pc, the software is limited to hardware.

[Cornucopia]

You want fast and you want capable, but you've got WMV...

Do this:

In WindowsMovieMaker, open each clip and export as DV AVI.

Then, edit (the DV-AVI) in a REAL editor that's fast and capable (e.g. AVID, FCP, Vegas, Premiere, etc)

You will need a faster computer, and a lot more HD space, but you'll get the job done.

Scott

[Cornucopia]

If you didn't get my meaning: There really are NO fast and capable WMV editors, so bypass the WMV requirement.

Scott

[adamch009]

Here's the deal. Right now my company captures mpeg2 files onto a 5TB server constantly. We have software to quickly edit those files. However when that 5TBs fills up we are forced to bump footage that we would rather keep for a little while longer. Switching to WMV would essentially let us keep files 3 times longer. This is a project that we are working on so it might have some kinks, but as for now we don't want to convert to DV AVI, we are simply looking for the fastest way...if there is one.
Your coments so far are appreciated, and will be noted......any more?

thanks

[Cornucopia]

You're filling up 5TB! Wow, that's a lot of files (or big ones). I see your dilemma.

Well, granted WMV is more compression efficient than MPEG 1 or 2 (maybe even most pedestrian flavors of MPEG 4). But what about DivX/Xvid? Compression quality issues aside, at least it would be easily editable in most AVI editors (Premiere, Vegas, Ulead, Liquid, etc).

What about just temp offloading the MPEGs to tape? The high capacity of the latest DLT and similar formats should ease your space requirements. Only hindrance there is offload/reload times of the essentially linear tape medium.

How large are the individual files? If they're in the Hundred megabyte range, you could have a scripted robotic watch folder that automatically burns a Dual Layer Data DVD once the files in that folder have approached capacity (every 8.5GB).

Scott

[dcsos]

How can you switch .WMV if you're set up to grab to MPEG-2?
I think you want to use MPEG-4 with a less propietary container
like X-VID or DIVX
there is a PLEXTOR hardware device that does the MPEG encoding in HARDWARE.
Doubtless what you're doing already uses direct MPEG-2 capture with specific hardware acceleration. Otherwise, you're grabbing and compressing (not mentioned)

[edDV]

So why isn't Windows Movie Maker 2 filling your needs?

wmv is going to be slow due to the need to decomress to RGB, edit and recompress. You can't edit wmv directly. Any highly compressed MPeg4 based format will be slow to edit.

What is your editing workflow?

You should be editing before converting to wmv.

[adamch009]

Let me ask you this, what is the size difference between mpeg2 and XVID , DIVX or even AVI. For example a hour mpeg2 file that we capture is about 800MB, and a wmv file same length is about 280MB. Because we do have a plan in place to go from capturing mpeg2 to mwv, its tedious, but we have a plan. If X-VID or DIVX files are smaller than mpeg2 I'm all ears.

thanks again

[Cornucopia]

Well, DivX/Xvid and WMV are both optimized variants on basic MPEG4 compression techniques. Depending on the content, I've seen a 1.5x--5.5x savings (though usually in the 2x-3x range), compared to an MPEG2 encoding of the same material.

Try it for yourself on "difficult" material. You know, couple of 5-10 second clips, spread of bitrate profiles, etc.

Scott

[edDV]

Let me ask you this, what is the size difference between mpeg2 and XVID , DIVX or even AVI. For example a hour mpeg2 file that we capture is about 800MB, and a wmv file same length is about 280MB. Because we do have a plan in place to go from capturing mpeg2 to mwv, its tedious, but we have a plan. If X-VID or DIVX files are smaller than mpeg2 I'm all ears.

thanks again

Back to basics. Usually encoding to these highly compressed formats is the last step in the process after editing and processing the captured video. If editiing-processing is limited to simple cuts, then you could compress in hardware during capture and be done with it.

Each encoding format has a tradeoff of image quality vs amount of compression.

Higher compression formats require heavier processing in trade for tighter compression. This usually exceeds what a computer CPU can do on its own so specialized hardware assist is required to compress in realtime.

If specialized compression hardware isn't being used, realtime capture is limited to formats that a given CPU can handle on its own. These range from uncompressed to various forms of MPeg1 and MPeg2 for high quality video. Editing and processing is done in this capture standard and then the result is non-realtime processed for additional compression for storage.

Some higher compressed MPeg4 based formats can be captured realtime with a tradeoff of picture quality.

So, the first step is is to specify a base image quality and editing-processing requirement, then select encoders and hardware to match that requirement.

[Cornucopia]

Agreed.