Going mad!! help with programs movie factory & video stu

[Ken Berry]

VS's burning module is opened via Share > Create Disc > DVD. After that, it behaves identically to MF.

In both of them, instead of actually burning a hard DVD, you can either (my preference) "burn" a DVD folder (Video_TS) which has the exact, identical tree structure of burned DVD. You can play this with a software DVD player like PowerDVD or WinDVD.

You also have the alternative of burning disc image (.iso) file which is a mirror image of the final DVD. It is more difficult to view such a file -- you have to 'mount' it on a virtual drive using a special program to do so. I 'burn' a DVD folder and watch it on the computer to make sure everything is OK. If not, then I can reopen the project and edit it and produce another DVD Folder. If all is OK, I use Nero to burn it to an actual DVD.

[cacaofemme]

Mr. Ron and Mr. Berry, I have put my HD Camcorder on the market for sale and just got a "hit" from an interested buyer this morning.

Would all of my AVCHD-compressed source video problems be solved if I simply purchased a standard digital or optimal (don't know which is best) camcorder? Then could I purchase pretty much any video editing software and be assured that it would work?

[Ken Berry]

Well, on a simplistic level, of course not having an AVCHD camera any longer would resolve your AVCHD problems!!! However, we still have no idea what sort of computer you have. Most people seem to have problems with AVCHD because they hadn't realised it when they bought their AVCHD camera that, although it might be the technological wave of the future, they also needed a fairly powerful computer to be able to edit or even play it back smoothly. Second, they need VS11.5+ or the fully patched MF6 (or some other program) which is capable of editing AVCHD. Though even there, it has to be acknowledged that there is some difficulty with output from the Panasonic S9 camera. Moreover, the relatively few programs out there capable of editing AVCHD appear to vary in their capacity.

Then there is the question of what you are going to do with the product of the camera. Having a high definition camera implies that you want to play its output back in high definition. At the very least, this further implies you have a high definition TV and some sort of equipment, if not the high def camera itself, capable of playing back edited high def video into the HDTV. Otherwise you would be limited to playing it back on your computer. Again, with the latter option, you run into the difficulty that even playing back AVCHD smoothly requires a fairly powerful computer.

The other major high def format out there is HDV, which records in high def mpeg-2 format to a mini DV tape. In some senses, using the mini DV tape is "old" technology. It also captures via Firewire. However, that is pretty foolproof for most people. And most importantly, it is pretty easy to edit using a more middle of the road computer. And its output is excellent -- whether sending the edited HDV back to the camera in its native high def format and connecting the camera to the HDTV via HDMI; or else playing the edited video in its native format via a Blu-Ray rated player which can recognise the format (such as the Sony PlayStation 3 or some of the stand-alone Blu-Ray players currently available); or else converting the HDV to a hybrid AVCHD disc (high def on a standard DVD) which can be played back by the PS3 or other rated Blu-Ray player which can recognise these hybrid discs. Again, these alternatives produce excellent high def results.

But if you only intend to down-convert your high def video from the camera into standard definition for burning to a standard definition DVD, then it seems to me a bit like using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut to have bought a high definition camera, whether AVCHD or even HDV, in the first place. You will get excellent standard DVDs, but you can get excellent standard DVDs from a good standard definition camera which costs one third the price or less of a high definition camera. You will have the choice of SD hard disk cameras, mini DVD cameras and mini DV cameras. My own money is still on the mini DV camera (using a mini DV cassette) for the reasons I prefer that variety in my HD camera outlined above. But others will have reasons for preferring mini DVD or hard disk cameras.

The choice is yours!

[cacaofemme]

Mr. Berry, for the record, this is the system info for my computer:

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Inspiron 1520
INTEL Core 2 Duo CPU T5250@1.50 GHz
2.00 GB
32 bit operating system

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So, if I purchase a basic standard definition camcorder, is the correct understanding that I can purchase most any editing software and not have to worry about file conversions? Do most (all?) standard def camcorders capture in mpeg? Mr. Berry, I just want to video my family, edit the video with an easy to use software program and burn the outcome onto a DVD. I don't need the HiDef camcorder and all of the headaches that come with it. I simply made a mistake in purchasing the one that I have b/c I didn't do the necessary homework that I didn't know I needed to do. So, again, I just want to purchase a basic camcorder and find an inexpensive software to purchase that won't give me the headaches that this one has. I've already placed it up for sale on Amazon. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks so much for the previous answer.

[Ken Berry]

Just to keep your life complicated, I am afraid I can't confirm that all standard definition cameras out there use mpeg-2 as their format. In fact, the one a lot of us here would recommend does not. Instead, it uses a high quality and essentially lossless format called DV/AVI. It is simple to edit, maintains high quality through numerous renders, and after editing is done it is a simple matter to convert the DV to DVD-compatible mpeg-2 (Share > Create Video File > DVD) which you can then burn. The 'downside' is that the only way to capture DV is via a Firewire cable and of course your computer also has to have a firewire port.

Other than that, the market is taken up mostly with SD mini DVD and hard disk cameras, both of which use varieties of mpeg-2, and a much smaller group of mini cameras which film to SD cards (the predecessor of the current high def AVCHD cameras) and which use mpeg-4 format. However, for any number of reasons, I suggest you forget totally about this latter category.

For people wanting to do minimal editing, and still produce a final DVD, the mpeg-2 cameras are possibly best. There are one or two pitfalls for the unwary, though they have been mostly (all?) overcome by recent versions of software editing packages. Quite a few mini DVD cameras, for instance, require that the disc be "finished" in the camera before you can import video from it, and with some cameras, the finishing process can be lengthy. And some of the hard disk cameras use proprietary versions of the mpeg-2 format. JVC, for instance, does this by using a .mod format in their SD cameras (and .tod in their HD versions). But as I say, most software packages can usually deal with these peculiarities these days.

But I am afraid you just need to be aware of these things before you make another purchase.

[cacaofemme]

Thanks so much Mr. Berry. I really appreciate all of the information and the time you given trying to point me in the right direction. Unfortunately, I didn't come to this forum first. I'll be back if I purchase a new one. Thanks again Mr. Berry.