What project settings for MOV video?

[alanball]

HI, I have a friend that purchased VS x9 earlier in the year. The camera he has takes MOV type files, (which I'm not familiar with). He has the SHOW MESSAGE selected in settings, but no message appears when a video is inserted. The frame size of the video is 1920 x 1080. What property settings would he choose for this type of video?

He used Fastflick to produce a short video and exported to VS which came in as a DV-AVI file selection? Any ideas please?

Thanks

[lata]

Hi

I would use mpeg4 as that may be as near to move as we can get

But it may depend on what you are making, video for pc and YouTube, use mpeg4
If you are burning a DVD them mpeg2
If blu-ray then avchd

[Ken Berry]

Alan -- just by way of background, .mov is really a wrapper extension. Like .avi, it can enclose a variety of formats. Unfortunately, as your friend has found, it does not show a message when first inserted into a new project.

If a mov clip is the first in the project, then your friend might want to look to see if he gets "Same As First Clip" when he goes into Share. That will at least produce a new video with the same properties as the first clip.

If not, then as Trevor has already suggested, setting the Project Properties to mpeg-4 with the same or very similar properties (frame size, bitrate, field order, audio) as the mov files would be the way to go if he wants to produce something very close to the original.

[alanball]

Thanks Trevor and Ken,

I will take a look at the properties of the video in my friends file manager, and see if I can set up a template for him. I have see mentioned on this board, of a small free program that will give the file details. Do you know what that is?

If making an Mpeg file for a DVD, is it better to set the project settings as the original file and save as those settings and then reinsert and save as Mpeg, or do a straight save as Mpeg?

Thanks again for your reply's. I think we will have another member soon

[Ken Berry]

Two common programs are G-Spot (which has a small user interface) and Media Info (which gives quite a bit of info). But as you will recall, if you or your friend right clicks a mov file within VS, you can then select Properties, and this will give all the info necessary to create the necessary Project Properties/Settings.

If making an Mpeg file for a DVD, is it better to set the project settings as the original file and save as those settings and then reinsert and save as Mpeg, or do a straight save as Mpeg?

Personally, I would do as you suggest -- particularly if you have plenty of space to store video files (which can be large) for later use. But this workflow then means you have a presumably high definition high quality clip which you could use to, say, burn a Blu-Ray disc or simply put on a USB drive and plug it into your HDTV direct or via a stand-alone Blu-Ray player.

And it is easy enough to also use the same project to down-convert to standard def mpeg-2 for a DVD. Mind you, there are some out there who even argue that using a high def mpeg-4 and down-converting that to standard def mpeg-2 for a DVD can often give (marginally?) better quality.

[alanball]

Hi Ken,
thanks for reply, it was the G-Spot program I was thinking of, I used it a few years back when I first got into video editing. Yes I did recall the right click on the file to get file details, but was not sure if that would still happen with a MOV file.

Re you last comment, I have never had any success getting my TV to play HD video from a USB, but I have recently been given an Apple TV and can play them via Itunes. I must admit I find it hard to see any difference in picture quality when I play the same video on a DVD!! I have said before my wife finds it easy just to pop a DVD into the player for viewing and being able to to have the option of viewing specific chapters. But I have had a problem with my last couple of DVD's where after playing a chapter, although I have the Back to Menu option selected for clip playback, my DVD's have not been reverting back to the Main Menu after finishing a chapter, but carry on playing to the next chapter. Any Ideas?

My biggest wish is that Corel would upgrade the authoring side of VS so that the menus go full screen, but I don't suppose that will happen after all these years

[canuck]

Perhaps you are confusing chapters and titles. After playing a chapter, play will always the next chapter and does not return to the menu. Titles can be setup to play the next title or return to the menu. Chapters are a sub-menu under Titles. That is the way DVD are set up.

What do you mean by "menus go full screen"?

[lata]

Hi Alan

Play the video via usb
If your video is using mt2s , or mts as the files extension, try renaming the file to use mpeg or mpg not sure which worked for me.
Worth a try

Titles and chapters, as canuck says the navigation controls affect titles not chapters, so playing a chapter will play to end of titles, then back to menu

[Ken Berry]

I also would like to know what you meant, Alan, about the menus going full screen -- or not, which seems to be your case. In my case the menus always fill the screen to the full 16:9 to which they are set. Do you mean that in your case they only go 4:3 and leave black borders on each side? Or do they go even smaller?

[alanball]

Hi Canuck and Trevor

thanks for reply and yes you are correct, I am mixing up my Title and Chapters It came to me last night just before going to bed that the last few DVD's I created of oversea's trip's, instead of chapters I had created separate title's for various areas I had visited. But on the last video which was excerpts from separate plays at the Pop-up Globe Theater in Auckland, I used chapters.

And thanks for the tip Trevor with the file type I will give that a go.

Canuck, Trevor and Ken

As for the Menu going full screen, again a mix-up of terminology. I meant when producing a DVD and using the authoring part of VS, ie The menu screen's to actually produce the DVD menu. Not the menu on the TV screen.
It's been mention several times in the forum, but as I said I don't think it will ever get upgraded after all this time.

Thanks again all for your help.

[lata]

Hi

Yes the menu panel is a little small especially when editing those Title names, would help if there were a full screen option?

The names use the same names for the actual video file, so get that correct and I do not have to change in the menu panel. Just a simple matter of re-naming on the hard drive before using the burner module.

[alanball]

Hi Trevor

your comments noted. I also think it would have been helpful if a "Save" option was avaiable at each menu panel rather than just on completion of the DVD menu itself.

[lata]

Hi

Unless the program crashed there is no need to save our work till completion, but have to agree that a CTRL + S to save our work would be useful, if not peace of mind

But we are prompted to save the work when closing the module, and that option does work and we can return to the burner module to complete editing the menu……