basic video questions

[Dan K]

Newbie here. Just purchased a new Dell PC with Vista Home Basic. Didn't realize Basic does not allow me to capture+edit video and then burn DVDs. I bought cheap S/W to do this (Roxio Easy CD & DVD and honestech VHS to DVD 3.0 Deluxe). My most basic question is: should I instead upgrade to Vista Home Premium to get these capabilities? Forget cost. Will Vista Premium and MovieMaker give me better results with less hassle than these 3rd party packages???
Thx for advice. More questions to come !!
Dan

[jagabo]

MovieMaker is crap. It only exists so Microsoft can say Windows comes with video editing software. And it's designed to lock you into WMV format. You can download WME for free if you want WMV.

Much of what you want can be had for free (WinDV, DVIO, ImgBurn, VirtualDub, HcEnc, etc). If you need more series video editing applications try something like Sony Vegas or Ulead Video Studio.

[Midzuki]

Besides, talk to Dell and try to convince them to get you a free "downgrade" to Windows XP.
Unless you've got some very solid reasons to stick to any flavour of Vista.

\\\\\

[jagabo]

I don't think you can get a free downgrade to XP from Vista Home Basic.

[yoda313]

Shouldn't you be able to download movie maker from microsoft.com?

Also you can export to dv-avi from movie maker and then reencode to mpg2 or whatever you need later. You are not locked to wmv. Its just the default mode for movie maker.

And jagabo is right - just do some searching and you can get what you need at a good price or free that will be vista compatible. Just make sure to use the latest versions so they will be Vista compatible. Older versions may be finicky with it.

[Midzuki]

I don't think you can get a free downgrade to XP from Vista Home Basic.

Generally speaking, that must be correct. I only know that some friends and
acquaintances of mine had bought Dell PCs and they did manage to get
free upgrades from ME to XP. OK, this happened six years ago, and probably
things do have changed more than I thought. Apologies for any misleading information

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[edDV]

I don't think you can get a free downgrade to XP from Vista Home Basic.

Generally speaking, that must be correct. I only know that some friends and
acquaintances of mine had bought Dell PCs and they did manage to get
free upgrades from ME to XP. OK, this happened six years ago, and probably
things do have changed more than I thought. Apologies for any misleading information

\\\\\\

New machines, especially laptops, may not have XP drivers.

His video editing issue wouldn't be solved by XP.

[Dan K]

Yoda,
After playing with the S/W for a couple days, I am successful in publishing withing WMM, creating a DV-AVI(NTSC) file. Then I use the Roxio S/W to burn this file to DVD. Results are OK from a quality standpoint.

Next I am going to try capturing analog video tape using honestech's VHS to DVD S/W.
Dan

[PuzZLeR]

...OK, this happened six years ago, and probably
things do have changed more than I thought. Apologies for any misleading information ...

After 6 years? No kidding.

Ok, just can't resist here...

[Midzuki]

Thank you very much, Mr. PuzZLeR.


\\\\\

[PuzZLeR]

Figured you'd appreciate that... :P

Midzuki, you're very much what I use to be in forums years ago - a jester/joker/riddler/crown prince of... puzzlers... thanks for bringing it back.

[yoda313]

@dan k - glad you didn't give up on it.


WMM is not as robust as Ulead or Pinnacle software is but for free its worth maximizing it. At the very least it shows you what you are missing from the more advanced programs.

FYI the Ulead and Pinnacle software can encode directly to dvd mpeg2 from dv-avi sources. WMM can not.

[Dan K]

Yoda,
I think I am discovering the limitations of WMM already.
Someone else suggested I capture video from my collection of MiniDV tapes in clips, what would become chapters in the resulting DVD. One benefit of doing this is that each chapter would be its own avi file, and I could then archive these clips or chapters on DVDs as data files. I can't do this now because I captured a bunch of 1 to 2 hour tapes and the files are much too large to fit onto DVDs as avi files (many are over 20 GB). I can create these smaller clips withing WMM and save these smaller files. but only as WMM Project Files. Also, it seems that within WMM, I cannot create chapters??? I am using MyDVD Express and it doesn't have that capability!?

If I use Pinnacle or Ulead, can I take my existing big avi files and break them apart and save the smaller clips as avi files?
Thx for your advice,
Dan

[yoda313]

First off WMM is not a dvd authoring application. So you can't make traditional chapters in that sens.

Yes pinnacle and ulead can take avi files and you can create clips any way you want. You can than go from there and either export as a dvd compatible mpeg2 for authoring in a seperate application or you can do that withing the product (although probably not as robust as a dedicated authoring application like TMPGENC DVD AUTHOR).

[edDV]

Yoda,
I think I am discovering the limitations of WMM already.
Someone else suggested I capture video from my collection of MiniDV tapes in clips, what would become chapters in the resulting DVD. One benefit of doing this is that each chapter would be its own avi file, and I could then archive these clips or chapters on DVDs as data files. I can't do this now because I captured a bunch of 1 to 2 hour tapes and the files are much too large to fit onto DVDs as avi files (many are over 20 GB). I can create these smaller clips withing WMM and save these smaller files. but only as WMM Project Files. Also, it seems that within WMM, I cannot create chapters??? I am using MyDVD Express and it doesn't have that capability!?

If I use Pinnacle or Ulead, can I take my existing big avi files and break them apart and save the smaller clips as avi files?
Thx for your advice,
Dan

Yes any DV editor can do this. The process in pro-land is called "Logging" the tape. The pros use chips on the tape media to automate the process but here is what I do.

I transfer the material usually the entire tape to DV-AVI, then I sort through it and beak it down to usable scenes which I store as separate DV-AVI files. Then I record the clips back to tape noting timecode of sequential clips into an Excel spreadsheet for access later.

If I have time I dub the clips to MPeg2 or xvid for storage on the server as a proxy. Then it is possible to review clip content without need to cue tape. The proxy files are accessed through the Excel spreadsheet.

As you have discovered, DVD media has too low capacity (~20min) and is too slow for recording DV clips. Someday Blu-Ray recordable media will become cheap enough for archive storage. The BR advantage is clips can be saved as files rather than as timecode index.

[44echo]

I can create these smaller clips withing WMM and save these smaller files. but only as WMM Project Files.

Not true.

File-->Save Movie File-->Next-->Next-->Show More Choices, then select Other Settings option-->Select DV-AVI from the dropdown.

[Dan K]

44E,
Thx ! I will try that tonight. Although I will still look at the suggested S/W packages (Pinnacle, Ulead, etc.) can you answer my other issue with WMM? Can I create chapters with it, so that I am not holding down the fast forward button on the DVD player remote forever to change scenes?
Regards,
Dan

[edDV]

44E,
Thx ! I will try that tonight. Although I will still look at the suggested S/W packages (Pinnacle, Ulead, etc.) can you answer my other issue with WMM? Can I create chapters with it, so that I am not holding down the fast forward button on the DVD player remote forever to change scenes?
Regards,
Dan

No. WMM is not a DVD authoring program although Vista Premium has DVD Maker.