Newbie questions about DV to PC to DVD

1. You don't say, but i assume you are using firewire to capsfer from the Cam to the PC. If so, DV-AVI is the best choice. This is the format that video is in, on the tape. So you will have no loss (assuming your computer keeps up with the data stream). Some programs will claim to capture to other formats, but this requires that the video be encoded om the fly, usually resulting in less than desirable results.

2. There is a list of editors that you can access from the Tools menu (on the left).

3. Read What Is DVD on the left. MPG2 is the required format for the DVD standard. (Although some DVD players can play other formats.)

4. The general consensus is you will get higher quality using a dedicated encoder than you will with an all-in-one. Regardless to which you use, encoding takes time. How much depends on the extent of edits and processor speed, but many people set up to encode before going to bed.

5. Not an easy question to answer. At full settings you can expect to fit about 1 hour, but you can easily go up to 2 - 2.5 hours and maintain good quality video. Much of it depends on the source material and your personal tastes. Many people put up to 6 hours an a single DVD and call it good.

6. I don't understand the question. Are you saying you want to continue to store the final (post editing and authoring) file on your hard drive after you burn to DVD? Or do you want to store the original DV-AVI file, in case you want to re-edit later?

Originally Posted by kthan

I am completely newbie in video capture, editing, encording, and exporting. I do have some questions about the process. I tried to find previous threads, but no thread give me detail information about what I need to know.

1. From Camcorder (DV) to PC, which file format would you recommend? I use Adobe Premier Elements 2.0 and it converts the file to .Avi format. Any other (better) format you recommend? What other formats I can convert DV into? Why format matters (for better video/audio quality, or for better compression when converted into DVD)?

2. Once I captured the video, I need to edit it. I know there are many video editing programs out there. Which one would be the best for easy to use and excellent outcome? Also, a certain program only recognize certain type of file only (avi, or else)?

3. Regarding the Encoding, in order to export exisitng video file, I need to encode (by compressing the file size while minimize the loss of quality) it, right? Many people seem to use MPEG2 over others? What's the pros and cons of MPEG2 over others? Why selecting a certain encoding program matters (for encoding speed and quality of the A/V)?

4. Would be a significant difference between using all-in-one program (like Adobe Premier Elements 2.0) or a encoding specific program? If yes, how I can interrupt the process in Adobe and use a specific encoding program? I tried adobe twice, the quality of A/V seems to be okay, but it takes overnight for just 1hour video.

5. Would one hour length video be the optimum length to burn it into one DVD? I can't figrue it out the maximum time (length) I can put into one DVD for quality A/V result with what program?

6. It's hard to store all video capture in a backup hard drive. But, if I want to store (not only in DVD, but in HD), how can I store identical file (to the files burned in DVD...including all the editing and title, etc.)? Do I need to use separate DVD authoring software (like NERO) to do it? I don't think I can do it with Adobe.

Sorry for long, dummy questions. It would be greatly helpful for me if I got useful information. Thank you for your help in advance.

This is what I did -

Grab the vid as DV, used Sony Vegas for editing and effects, TMPGEnc to encode to DVD Standard MPEG2, DVDLab Pro to author the DVD and finally Nero to burn.

As for backup I'd back up the DV footage to a HD, make an ISO of the finished DVD and I suppose you could backup the encoded video files. But this will take an enormous amount of HD space.

4. Frankly, I don't know if you can as I don't use all-in-ones, but you should be able to save the finished product as a DV-AVI file and then use a separate encoder on that.

5. Let me try to explain this another way. The amount of time you can put on a DVD is directly related to the bitrate of the encoded video. In general, the higher the bitrate, the higher the quality, but there are a lot of other variables that play into quality, much of it having to do with what the source material is. High action requires more bitrate than low action, low lighting usually creates noise that requires higher bitrates to maintain quality, etc.

6. Opinions differ, but in general you want to save your original tapes. You can save the finished video back to tape as well in DV-AVI format. Saving the full DVD structure is probably best accomplished with an iso image file. This can be burned over and over again, but you're right, it's not the best format for future editing. I have been known to split my source DV-AVIs and save them as DVD data disks. Not viewable on a DVD player, but easy to import when I want to do more editing. Some people go so far as to keep removable hard drives for storage and swap them in as needed. Or maybe do all of the above, it depends on your comfort level.

As you've discovered, Save Project does not create a finished video but rather saves all of the details about what you've done with the source files up to the point of the save. The purpose is to allow you to stop and close the program, then return at a later date to continue where you left off.
Most editors also have a function, sometimes called "Save", sometimes "Export", sometimes "Finish", but whatever it's called, it's to create a compiled video as you've edited it. I don't use any of the programs you've listed so I don't know what it's called in them, but you want to use this function to create an avi file using the DV-AVI format. This is the file you will use with the dedicated encoder to create a DVD compliant MPEG2 video.
As you've surmised, this is not yet ready to burn. You need to use an Authoring program (TMPGEnc DVD Author, DVD-Lab, etc.) to define chapter points, configure menus, etc. This will create the DVD file structure ready to burn to a DVD. There are several guides on this full process using various tools. Go to the guides section (left) and search for DV to DVD and read through them for details for the software you want to use. If you don't understand something when following a guide, or it's not getting the results you expect, feel free to come back and post your questions. Someone here will be familiar with your specific software and should be able to help.

As I said, I'm not familiar with Adobe Premier (if that's what you used, I'm not real clear on that), but it sounds to me like the AVIs you've described are temporary segments created around things like transitions, etc. and may not represent the entire project. There should be a way to save a contiguous file where you specify the folder and filename. This is what would be used to feed to the encoder and negates your Questions 1 and 2. As far as question 3, we've been discussing getting to a stand alone encoder to avoid using the built in encoder in the all-in-one. This is not to say that the built in encoder is no good, but all-in-ones tend to limit the controls that can best utilyze the encoder and therefore give less than desirable results. If there is no way to save that contiguous file, then I would suggest using a different editor.

The process I use is similar to redwudz except I also use avisynth to edit and frameserve, and I use QuEnc to encode to MPEG2.

I just had a thought. What file system are you using? You want to be using NTFS so that you don't have any filesize restrictions. If you are not using NTFS it is possible that your editor is saving the avi in smaller chunks to stay under the filesize restrictions. If so, you can append all the segments into vdub and frameserve to your encoder of choice.