Help - new to capturing video from camera

[Chris Gaines]

I have recently bought a Sony Handycam HC90E (very nice!).

The camera records to DV Tapes and I like to edit the captured footage before I write it to a DVD. Problem is that I am shooting more and more and am building up a backlog of footage yet to be edited.

I would like to off-load the footage from the camera to DVD+RW (rather than my PC hard drive) in as close to native DV format as I can, for storage and later editing. I believe it is the AVI format I'm after(?)

I have tried DVDMF but it always seems to write it out as a VOB on DVD Folder structure.

I would prefer to do this off-load using the Video Capture tool in MSP7 - which is my preferred editor - but am not sure quite how is the best way to do it.

I'm ok with video editing once I have the footage on my system, but am a bit lost with getting it off the camera in the first place.

Appreciate some pointers to achieve what I'm after here - ie. how to get video off my camera quickly and easily for working with later.

Alternatively, I'd be interested to hear how others approach this situation.

Many thanks.

[kebrinton]

Hi Chris.

I would consider "storing" DV-AVI footage on DVD to be impractical. Here's why.

Each hour of .AVI video footage is going to take up 13GB of space -- almost three full DVDs' worth. Is that what you want? (That's keeping it at high-quality level.)

Better to "render" the .AVI file as an .MPEG, thereby shrinking it to about 1/3 the size. Do this with VideoStudio. Now it'll fit onto a DVD-RW. If you need to make cuts when you finally get around to dealing with this material, that won't appreciably affect the quality of the data.

I'm suggesting that you actually author a DVD, which means VOB files. Not only will the material be "stored" on the DVD, but you'll be able to review it right on the disk.

[Chris Gaines]

Thanks for the feedback kebrinton,

Guess you're right about those .avi sizes - I'd be better off leaving it all on mini-DV cartridge

Your comment about outputting to MPEG(2) is good if indeed I won't be loosing much in the way of quality from the original. I just kinda felt that it was a bit of an overkill authoring a DVD just to save the data for editing later. This can take a while to do, whereas I'm looking for a way to get it off the camera as quickly as possible so I can re-use the DV cartridge.

The other consideration of course is that my preferred editor - MSP7 won't read in .vob files direct. Although renaming the .vob to .mpg gets around that I suppose.

I'm still curious what the majority of people do - do they invest in huge stocks of DV cartridges and just leave the data on there?

Regards.

[heinz-oz]

Mpeg2 is a distribution format and not meant for later editing. It is ok if you edited the clip and have it at the final stage. Ulead programs can edit mpeg2 files but, depending on GOP size and degree of editing required, the result may not be satisfactorily. I would suggest to keep the footage in DV format on DV tapes until such time that you want to edit and complete your movie.

[sjj1805]

If you want to store your stuff in AVI format then I would consider a second (or third) Hard Drive, they are relatively inexpensive nowadays.
Best option is to go for hard drive caddies. These work by inserting a caddy carrier into your computer casing, the hard drive then fits into a box like carrier that slides into the caddy carrier.

This way you can have several hard drives with not just your AVI files but you can also have other operating systems Windows XP, Win2K, Windows98, Linux etc.

[Chris Gaines]

Thanks all - enough to go on there.

I guess the ideal is to shoot perfect footage in the first place - and avoid having to edit

Appreciate you taking the time to reply.

Chris.

[heinz-oz]

That's easier said then done, it all depends on what you want. I usually end up with hours of footage that is not going to be used. You never know when something out of the ordinary is going to happen, once it does there is no need trying to switch on your camera