Software recomendations, Making the best of limited equipment

[Peter-Pan]

OK, I'm sure my equipment is what most of you might call toys, possibly making my desires out of reach. But all advise is appreciated, as I have to start somewhere. Recently, my fiancee got me one of those Sony Cybershot cameras. I've been thinking of getting a video camera for a long time, but I was very surprised at the qualitye (at least to me) of video this little camera took!. Well I have a website that is very photo intensive, and it just seems to be long overdue for some video postings, even if only "youtube" quality. But after seeing some clips I'd taken with the Sony, I was insipred to get started. My main Desktop machine is, unfortunally, windows 98SE right now, and my work demands I be able to preserve that setup. So it usually is a challenge to find software. But looking around, I found "Pinicle Studio 9.x" available on Ebay, and it was good for 98SE. I soon found lots of roadblocks though, to the point where I may have to consider my software investmant a loss, and I thought If I mentioned some of those roadblocks, along with what I'd like to do, maybe some of you can give me some suggestions.

1) First what I'd LIKE to be able to do is gather the MPG video (with audio) clips my camera creates, clip out pieces I like from each of them, assemble them in any order, and then churn out a finished file. Sounds like what any software should do, but I soon learned it wasn't so easy. First, that Pinnacle software complaned that the frame rate of my MGPs was PAL (25 FPS), and that it just couldn't deal with them. I realize I wasn't using the latest version, but I'd have thought that any real video editing tool would be able to take clips with any frame rate, padding in (in the case if MPG) P frames to stretch it to a higher FPS, or deleting as necessary to do the opposite. So before I buy something else, now seeing that this wan NOT so easy, I figured I'd ask what products might make such conversions a little more fluid. BTW... I Did find a utility called VirtualDub that was supposed to be able to make the conversions, but it kept complaining it didn't have a codec selected for the MPG file type, I could't see any way to make such a setting, and the author didn't reply to queries. Another dead end.

2) Just to get past that hurdle, I loaded in a short clip I knew Pinnacle would accept. I couldn't even play back the clips smoothy from within the software, and I couldn't find any way to separate pieces of the clip into separate scenes. On the first part, I know my OS is dated, but my Windows Medai Player was able to play any one of those files, full screen, (1290 x 1024), with no sign of gaps. It seems that too many programs are written wuth horribly slow coding methods, so please let me know of any edditing software thats not such a slow dog. And any software ought to be able to split up a clip into smaller ones, right?

3) I DO need to be able to mix sound from external sources or files with the edit. I have an M-Audion Soundcard, and plenty of good stand alone audio editing software.

4) Finally, if it's not too much to ask, I'd like to at least be able to do some basic tricks, like fades and, slow motion, those silly little loops where the same portion is played over and over again in rapid sucession.

OK...sorry for rambling so much on my first post. Thanks for any and all help!

[edDV]

You are getting an education about using non-standard video formats. Probably more education than you wanted.

To get close to standard, set 30fps 640x480. Sony isn't very specific about what kind of "MPeg" they are using so you need to ask them or experiment. The review sites aren't very helpful either.
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2004_reviews/l1.html

Windows doesn't ship with MPeg2 or MPeg4 codecs so you need to install them. Most people get the basic drivers with DVD video playback software or a basic editing package like your Pinnacle Studio but Sony seems to be using a different format than they support.

Try this software for simple playback VLC. If it plays, VLC "video statistics" will hint the format.

If you are serious about video, use a standard supported format like DV.
Win98se is not the best OS for modern multimedia.

[Peter-Pan]

Thanks edDV. I guess I did know about a lot of this stuff, seeing all these varios cameras and phones that take video in all different frame rates and sizes. What I didn't anticipate was that conversion would not be an automated "given" in a piece of comercial software. And that Sony? Yeah I had tech support going up a few levels to find the sad truth, that it's capture frame rate is set internally (25 FPS) and can't be changed. Even though you can output directly from the camera ta TV with NTSC video format, the conversion is being done in the camer smarts, but it's not altering the files, and like I said, it can't be changed. GRRR! And come to think of it, it's good I found out that this is a problem, because it means that for me to integrate anybody's home-grown videos, then I need some software that can deal with it.

About the codec, I guess I'm confused. If my windows media player plays the video files perfectly, then whatever the MPG format level, there must 0be a codec there somewhere. But there again, if I'm looking to buy a commercial package, there ought to be one that comes with whatever codecs it needs.

That VLC didn't seem to have a Win-98 version, but I'll try to find more about the format.

[aedipuss]

if the video is going to be used mostly online anyway then 25fps is fine. no need to change it. most avi - dixv/xvid/flv are 25fps.

try gspot on one to see what it comes up with for info or post a short 5mb clip here and let us take a look at it.

[Peter-Pan]

aedipuss,

Oh the 25 is fine with me. Just not fine with the editing software. hence the post.

[edDV]

if the video is going to be used mostly online anyway then 25fps is fine. no need to change it. most avi - dixv/xvid/flv are 25fps.

try gspot on one to see what it comes up with for info or post a short 5mb clip here and let us take a look at it.

Yes the browser world trys to play anything. Setting a traditional NTSC, PAL, DVD, 480i/480p/720p/1080i project standard requires compliance with or conversion to that standard. Conversion requires a codec (coder-decoder) or in otherwords, disassembly to components (RGB frames) then reassembly or interpolation to project standard.

If WMP plays the video, somewhere along the line you installed an MPeg decoder that deals with 25fps and decodes the Sony Cybershot file. Decoding isn't enough for conversion to NTSC but video card chipsets will take almost any frame rate and get it to your computer screen.

Editor software set a common project format (i.e new project - preferences) then attempt to convert all supported import formats to that common standard so they can be combined. If the incoming format isn't supported with a codec, then it doesn't get converted.