Pls. Suggest Improvements on My Workflow

[passedout]

I got a Pinnacle Studio DV a few days before Christmas and have been burning the proverbial midnight oil creating thus far about 8 SVCDs from footage captured from a Canon ZR40 mini-DV camcorder.

Here's how I do it:

1--Capture footage in full DV quality from camcorder to 2nd Hard Drive*
2--Edit (add titles, transitions) using Pinnacle studio 8**
3--Render editted DV footage to AVI on 2nd partition of 1st Hard Drive
4--Use TMPGEnc to render AVI on 2nd partition of 1st Hard Drive to SVCD MPEG on 2nd Hard Drive***
5--Use Nero 5.5 to create menus and burn SVCD onto 700MB CD-Rs

Think I can do better? I'm very open to suggestions so I can be more productive.

Thanks!

*I try to break it up into 15 minute segments.

**Tried Adobe Premiere 6.0 on a buddy's system and I think it's user interface was designed by folks who should design U.I.'s for 10 kiloton nuclear weapons systems.

***I have 2 hard drives. On the first drive are two partitions, the first is for Windows and Programs, the second if for Data. On the second drive is just one partition (where I have backup folders of contents of first drive's Data particiton).

[Peka]

I'm not familiar with Studio 8, but with Premiere and other NLE's you can frameserve directly to TMPGEnc (or other encoder of your choice). This allows you to eliminate step 3 - instead of rendering to another AVI, you render it directly to MPG.

Re: Premiere - I agree the interface is not the best, but it is a comprehensive program. Also, the interface is consistent with other Adobe apps, like GoLive!, Photoshop, Illustrator etc so if you use one of these apps, the learning curve for the others is reduced.

You should also check out Vegas Video by Sonic Foundry - http://www.sonicfoundry.com

It has an easier to use interface, tutorials are available from the website. It gets great reviews.

[new2echo]

Peka,

Could you please explain how you can frameserve directly to TMPEnc with Premiere?

Thanks,

new2echo

[Peka]

new2echo

I haven't done frameserving for a while, as I bought a shitload of disk space. My previous lack of space was the only reason I was frameserving from Premiere. So, I can't remember what I was using......

I read this thread - http://www.vcdhelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=87270&highlight=frameserve+premiere

which says that AviSynth can frameserve for Premiere. Download it from the tools page on this site. Also search the forums on this site for a frameserving guide - I got all the info I needed from here...

Cheers,