editing Mpegs... bad idea?

stannmaple · Post by **stannmaple** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 4:41 pm

I've gotten the impression that it is a bad idea to edit mpegs. I'm really just starting out here, so I don't know a ton about this stuff, but here's what I'm working on. I have about 10 hi-8 tapes to put to 1 DVD. So far, I've been editing them into 15 minute segments or chapters, then turning them into an MPEG-2 file. I then delete the orignal AVI file (80GB harddrive) When I'm finished however, I'd like to make a complete compilation of about 10 to 15 minutes of all these chapters and put them to music (this is a home video) The only problem is, everything will be in MPEG format. Is it going to kill me to edit some of these MPEGS together? Thanks for any help.
Dann

THoff · Post by **THoff** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 5:16 pm

I don't think you'll have any trouble with what you are doing. Simple cuts and trims don't pose a problem for MPEG.

However, when you do concatenate multiple MPEG files and render to a new MPEG output file, I would disable the SmartRender feature. SmartRender will speed up the file creation process by avoiding unnecessary decoding and encoding of video that hasn't changed, but it has historically had some problems with the internal MPEG GOPs (Groups Of Pictures) becoming invalid, which then causes the audio to get out of sync.

stannmaple · Post by **stannmaple** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 5:29 pm

Great! Thanks for the advice. I'll be sure to disable that feature.
Dann

TDK1044 · Post by **TDK1044** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 5:31 pm

THoff is totally correct. MPEG2 edits and renders perfectly if smart render is disabled.

jchunter · Post by **jchunter** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 12:50 am

Video Studio 10+ edits mpeg2 and smart renders well as long as you manage your video properties and follow proper Video Studio workflow. The last smart rendering errors that I had were in Version 8.0. I've had none since.

Jerry Jones · Post by **Jerry Jones** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 1:33 am

Remember, if you disable Smart Render, you will RE-RENDER everything and lose one generation of picture quality.

You can successfully edit MPEGs with Smart Render, in my experience.

I STRONGLY prefer to edit DV .avi, however.

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

jchunter · Post by **jchunter** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 1:36 am

Jerry,
You have been missing for a long time. Welcome back.

TDK1044 · Post by **TDK1044** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 11:04 am

Too many horrible experiences with smart render enabled in previous versions of video studio. I'll take the one generation quality loss (which is minimal in my experience) until I'm 100 percent sure that smart render works in VS10.