end-to-end project: capturing, editing, burning to dvd

[Pygo]

Hi all

I'm definitely a noob. I've been building up a catelogue of home video, and now I'd like to be able to burn it to DVD. I've done some searching around, but I need some straight forward answers to a couple of questions.

Here's what I'm trying to do:

* I'd like to be able to get my videos onto DVD. I'd like to have them as high quality as possible.
* I'd like to edit them prior to burning them to DVD. The editing part is something I'm ok with.

When I've imported footage from my camera before, the file sizes were unruly. For an hour it was averaging around 30 gig. I think this must be due to the settings I was using to import the video.

So my questions are:

1) How can i best import the footage without sacrificing quality? Are large files to be expected or is 30gig a noobies mistake?
3) Is there a particular import format that may work best with after effects or premiere?
4) What dimensions or resolution is best if the end goal is DVD output? What resolution/dimension/aspect ratio works best?
5) What do I need to do/know about outputting to DVD?

Thanks so much (in advance) for any pointers, tips, or direction you can provide.


Before

[jlietz]

What are you using to capture the video?

[Pygo]

I assume you mean the card - ATi 9800 all-in-wonder.

My camera is a pansonic - not sure what model

[mats.hogberg]

if your camera is a DV camera, you shouldn't use the capture card to capture, but transfer the DV video to computer using FireWire. Better qualty (as it's a pure digital data transfer from cam to comp).
About 13 GB / hr IIRC

/Mats

[jlietz]

if your camera is a DV camera...
/Mats

Same goes for Digital8, which also uses DV video.

What kind of camcorder (format) do you have?

[Pygo]

ah I see, yes I was confused...capturing is not what I meant...but rather transferring. So, the real issue for me is the file size that it results in. It's not practical to work on a 30 gig file.

I assume that it must be the transfer settings, and that I need to reduce the quality/size somewhat. And that's where my other question comes in - (and maybe it's another noob question) but what pixel sizes will look ok when played via DVD. If I transer my video and I can control the size (lets say 320 by 240), even though it might be more convenient for editing, is that going to be transferable to DVD? Is it going to look O.k.

PS - I appreciate the help guys.

PS - It's a mini-DV camcorder.

[jlietz]

Let's get something clear...If you are using the ATI card you are capturing the video as analog, which then gets converted to a digital format of some kind (not sure which codec you are using...). If you were to connect your minidv camcorder to your pc via firewire, then use an app such as WinDV, you would not be capturing the video, but rather transferring, or capsfering as some like to call it, a digital DV file from your camcorder to the PC - no analog to digital conversion required.

If you use an app like WinDV and just transfer your video to the PC, you will have DV files that run about 13 GB/hour as mats.hoberg said. DV files will work well with almost any editor, including After Effects or Premiere.

As for resolution, the DV files will be at a resolution of 720x480. Once you are done edting and are ready to output to DVD, you really only have two options: Full D1 (720x480) or half D1 (352x480). Since your original video is MiniDV, I would suggest Full D1 or else you will lose quality (MiniDV has around 500 lines of resolution.) For more information on valid DVD specs, see the "What is DVD" link at the top left of the page.

[Jim44]

I've been working on my own DV video for about 2 years now (in-car race video), so I'm best considered a semi-newbie

1) How can i best import the footage without sacrificing quality? Are large files to be expected or is 30gig a noobies mistake?

I would think for best quality you'll want to transfer and edit as DV-AVI. I use WinDV to transfer from my MiniDV camera. File sizes are about 13GB/hour of video. This was the main reason I added a 320GB drive as a video-only drive

3) Is there a particular import format that may work best with after effects or premiere?

I'm not familiar with those specific rograms, but I would imagine they can accept the DV-AVI.

5) What do I need to do/know about outputting to DVD?

The basic steps are (with programs I typically use in parens):
1) Transfer (WinDV);
2) Edit (VirtualDubMod, AVISynth);
3) Encode to MPG2 for DVD (TMPGEnc Plus);
4) Author DVD structure (DVDAuthorGUI);
5) Burn (ImgBurn).

There is a great list of tools for each of these functional areas to the left

Hope that helps,
Jim

[Pygo]

Thanks all - great responses!

[jlietz]

One more note...Although I don't recommend going this route since your working with MiniDV...If you are concerned about file size and don't have the space to work with DV files (or don't want to upgrade you HD size), you can capture your video to MPEG-2 via the ATI card following LordSmurf's guides here http://www.digitalfaq.com/dvdguides/capture/atimpeg/atimpeg.htm . Depending on the bitrate used, your files will probably be in the 2-4 GB/hour range. Then you could use something like MPEG Video Wizard to edit the files.

While this is an option, you should be aware that this method will end up forcing your video to go through 2 conversions before it gets to your hard drive (which may introduce noise to the signal.) First, the video will be converted from its digital DV format on the MiniDV tape to analog for transmission through the cables to the ATI card. Next, the ATI card will convert the analog signal to digital for creating the MPEG-2 file on your PC. Compare this to simply transferring via firewire from your camcorder to your PC via WinDV, which is an all digital event. On the plus side, the ATI capture method will save a lot of time since you will not have to convert your DV files to MPEG-2 after editing.

How you do it might come down to which you value most: the quality of the final product or your time.