Edit on an average 2 core laptop, a 7 minute programe that will go online

[persephone]

I would really appreciate some help...

We want to be able to edit, on an average dual core laptop, a 7 minute programe that will go online.

We are using Pinnacle Studio 14 and we have a usb 320 gig external hard drive.

We are complete amatuers so there won't be anything fancy in the programme.

Questions

1) Can we do it?

2) If we can, can we share the external hard drives ? So if i'm working on a part of the programme and my friend is working on another can we swap external hard drives and work on each others?

3) What other questions should I have asked that I haven't?

Any help would be much appreciated

[PSVE]

Is the external hard drive USB or Firewire? USB can be frustratingly slow to edit from.

[edDV]

What video format?

SD MPeg2?
SD DV?
SD other?

HD HDV?
HD AVCHD?

[persephone]

The external drive is USB 2, couldnt afford the firewire : (

I'm not sure what you mean by video format, I've captured the video from the camera which uses mini dv tape. The camera is a Sony HDV 1080i and the footage once captured is .avi

I thought when you're editing you are working on the project file which isn't the actual footage?

[redwudz]

persephone , in the future please use a more descriptive subject title in your posts to allow others to search for similar topics. I will change yours this time. From our rules:

Try to choose a subject that describes your topic.
Please do not use topic subjects like Help me!!! or Problems.

Thanks,
Moderator redwudz

[persephone]

I did consider putting a different subject for the very reason you stated but I wasn't sure what a more appropriate title would be because the questions seemed quite general.

How about

Pinnacle - editing using external hard drive - is it possible?

[edDV]

Your camcorder is HDV format. It is intended to transfer video streams 3 ways

1. IEEE-1394 (Firewire) as HDV (high def) format.
2. IEEE-1394 (Firewire) as DV (standard def) format. HDV on tape can be exported standard def DV.
3. HDMI uncompressed.

USB is supported for stills, not video. Some cameras stream over USB in low res webcam format.

If your laptop doesn't have an IEEE-1394 port, you need to find a computer that does have the port so you can capture to files (DV-AVI or *.mts) and copy them to an external drive.

As for editing, a typical dual core laptop will do well with DV format but may struggle with HDV. You would import the files into your Studio program and run some test edits.

[persephone]

Thanks edDV

I capture the video using my computer, not one of the laptops, which does have firewire. I've just copied the video across to one of the external drives and tried it on my laptop using the usb connection.

When I started using Studio the video was flickering lots on the preview screeen ( and I thought "Oh no I've spent that money and it's not going to work") But then I closed the program and reopened it again and the video is playing fine.

I've seen seen it do that flickery thing before, but I'm not sure what it means and I've not got the language to google it (flickery - I wonder how many hits that would get me lol)

At least I know it's do-able now which was the big question - I'll google the file formats you mentioned in your earlier post to get my head round that - so thanks for that too.

[edDV]

Thanks edDV

I capture the video using my computer, not one of the laptops, which does have firewire. I've just copied the video across to one of the external drives and tried it on my laptop using the usb connection.

When I started using Studio the video was flickering lots on the preview screen ( and I thought "Oh no I've spent that money and it's not going to work") But then I closed the program and reopened it again and the video is playing fine.

I've seen seen it do that flickery thing before, but I'm not sure what it means and I've not got the language to google it (flickery - I wonder how many hits that would get me lol)

At least I know it's do-able now which was the big question - I'll google the file formats you mentioned in your earlier post to get my head round that - so thanks for that too.

It will be a struggle on a typical laptop. It wouldn't be a problem with eSATA disk to laptop connections. Those use a hardware disk controller that is unaffected by OS operations. USB2 drives use a software disk controller that can be interrupted by other running processes.

One workaround is to copy the files to be edited to the notebook drive first. It is best to defragment the laptop c:\ drive first. As the c:\drive fills to near capacity, fragmentation will increase.


Further: Once captured properly to mts files, there is little risk of frame loss during actual editing. The problem is achieving 1x playback for preview and searching the file for edit points. That is where a USB2 disk connection may bog down. Once edited and rendered, the file should play properly on a faster computer even if it doesn't play smoothly on the laptop.

[persephone]

Hi edDV

We are doing a project at work and up to now we have been copying the footage onto the volunteers hard drives but they are already begining to notice the space the footage is taking up on their laptops, thats why I have been looking for another solution.

When I capture the footage off the camera it is captured as .avi not mts?

[edDV]

Hi edDV

We are doing a project at work and up to now we have been copying the footage onto the volunteers hard drives but they are already begining to notice the space the footage is taking up on their laptops, thats why I have been looking for another solution.

When I capture the footage off the camera it is captured as .avi not mts?

So you are transferring the files as DV-AVI? That is standard definition 720x480 but will be easier to edit. The file size is the same as 1440x1080i HDV which is more difficult to edit.

Other solutions will result in lower quality SD.

[persephone]

We are doing an internet TV local news project, so the end result is for hosting on the internet but I think it would be really good to give everyone involved a DVD of all the programmes produced once the project has ended.

[edDV]

What format do you plan for internet distribution? Flash?

If you edit DV format, you can easily export to MPeg2 DVD. DV resolution matches DVD at 720x480.

[persephone]

We have been having discussions about where to host the content once we have done it - our view is to put it on YouTube as that is where most of our audience is viewing their content from - our session facilitator suggested Vimeo which looks much more professional but I don't believe as many people will find it there.

When I did a little tester to see how it went I used mpeg2, although to be completely honest I've only just found an answer to how we manage with so many large files I haven't really thought too much about how we export it - but i would definately be coming here to get advice

(for information we had an editing session today with the volunteers and the reports are that working with the external drives worked fine)

[edDV]

OK, you need to separate issues.

1. Shooting format with Sony HDV 1080i camera. Your choices are
- DV (720x480i) standard def
- HDV (1440x1080i) high def
I suggest you test your process first with 720x480i DV-AVI format. The Sony camcorder can export either format above as DV-AVI (13GB/hr) so you can shoot HD but edit SD. If your clients complain about file size, you could offer an MPeg2 recode but these will be lower in quality and less easy to edit. The HD tape masters can be saved for future HD edits.

2. Client editing would ideally be done DV-AVI to DV-AVI. This gives a DV-AVI quality edit master that can be converted to DVD or any distribution service. The DVD could be encoded 720x480i without need to deinterlace. The Internet distribution uploads may need to be deinterlaced re-encoded to h.264 before upload.

The above can all be done in HD format but you may need to upgrade the field editing laptops. Once you get everything running at standard definition, you could do an HDV test project to see which laptops need replacement. HDV file sizes are the same as DV-AVI but the processing demands are much greater.