WOT: Anybody ever do any video editing on a pc?...

[Guest Anonymous]

I'm video taping a short season of Junior Olympic volleyball and would like to edit it at the end of the season and burn it onto a DVD. I've never done anything like that before and wondered if anyone else on the board has experience. I would be using my system here at work (3ghz HP Workstation with a DVD writer). Is there a software package I should use for a pc that is good for beginners? I've heard that getting the image from the tape to the computer is an important step as far as quality goes. Firewire?

I'm a complete newbie to this stuff, so keep it simple if you have comments. 8-)

Dan

[Guest Anonymous]

... I use a mac, but for a pc Adobe Premiere ($500 or thereabouts)

is probably a good editor to start with. And yes, if the footage

you shot is on a digital camera, Firewire is the only way to go.

Once you Firewire it into Premiere you can edit it, then export it to

DVD.

I've also heard about a good basic pc video editor called Vegas...

haven't used it, but I hear it's good and simple to use.

If you have access to a Macintosh, what you're describing would

be very easy with apple's basic iMovie software (free), or their

higher-level Final Cut Express ($300 or so). I use apple's Final

Cut Pro for my professional work.

hope this helps,

Dave

[Guest Anonymous]

I think you would need some software.

[Guest Anonymous]

I'm currently using Pinnacle's original Studio DV (about $200 complete with firewire card, but there are multiple versions of it out now, with and without the card depending on your computer setup). It's very user friendly and has three editing modes: thumbnail view, time line, summary. Very comparable to iMovie but for PC's in that it's almost all click and drag which makes changes very fast and simple. It has a built in title decko (for adding text your movie, titles, credits, subtitles etc.), and a fairly comprehensive selection of transitions that are also in a drag and click format. (fade in/out, roll in/out type stuff) The one thing it doesn't have much of is special effects (slo-mo, 'old time', etc.) but since my camera has a lot of those effects built in, it hasn't hampered me enough to warrant switching software yet. (Just remember to add the effect while filming or else there's no going back) One other limit I've found is that there are only three tracks of audio (camcorder track, voice over track, and a music track), they are drag and click as well and easy to use, but for really complicated shots three tracks can run out of room fast.

The one thing to be aware of when editing video on a PC that I've found is that you need to make sure your hard drive is a 7200rpm variety (almost all are nowadays, so that shouldn't be a problem) and that you scan and defrag the drive before you do any editing to make sure the transfer rate is at it's maximum for best quality. I usually defrag my drive the night before I want to edit since a 70+gig drive can take awhile to do that. I use a secondary drive soley for my video editing to cut down on my need to scan and defrag as often. 70gigs holds about three hours of video.

Ultimately there are many editing packages out there to choose from for the beginner, with various learning curves, so finding the right one really depends on your own needs and preferences and how your very personal computer (your brain) works. (after using pc's for so long, the so called 'user friendly Mac' is not so user friendly to me because my brain is not used to it...video software can be the same.)

Hope this helps, have fun, and be careful: it's addictive.

-shad

[Guest Anonymous]

(nt)

[Guest Anonymous]

(nt)

[Guest Anonymous]

final cut pro all the way

[Guest Anonymous]

I talked to a friend who's son does a lot of video editing and he's going to "loan" me a copy of Adobe Premiere. He said its not really easy to learn, but given a little play time I should be able to figure it out for what I want. I also verified that the video camera I'm using is digital, so he said if I connect through Firewire I won't lose much video quality at all.

I've heard about the addictive part too! 8-)