Video Pros - need advice on mini-DV capture and editing software
 

Asking for help on this forum is always very risky, but what the fuck ... hopefully someone will post some useful info along with the usual flames and insults.

I'm not a video content producer, I'm just looking for some home video advice from the pros.

I just bought my first mini-DV camera (I know, I'm way behind the times). It's a "pro-sumer" model, 3CCD Panasonic GS200. It's a nice little camera and takes great video, but I need to know what kind of software to use to capture the video to my computer, edit it and output it to DVD in broadcast quality.

I bought a highly rated consumer grade video editing program called PowerDirector3, but I can already see that the video quality is shit, even if I capture it using their "best" quality settings. I am using an IEEE 1394 Digital Video cable, not USB.

I used to be a broadcast TV reporter and producer, so I'm a video snob. I can't stand half-ass video quality.

What do you pros use to capture video from your mini-dv tapes to preserve the best quality and then edit and burn to DVD's without losing the quality I see on my camera?

Please keep flames and smart ass comments to a minimum.

Thanks!

I capture with Premier 6.5 using a stand alone VTR, but you can get the same results capturing from Win movie maker directly from the cam, (short of using a VTR, best results when using cams to capture, capture from the same cam you filmed on).

Might look to the camera and video card youre using. Im not familiar with that particular cam. Also check your PAL/NTSC setting on capture.

Hope it helps.

:)

use pinnacle http://www.pinnaclesys.com/

easy as hell, It will rip your video into raw avi.
From there you can convert it to whatver format you desire and choose the parameters from compression yourself.

Pretty user friendly and I have never used any other product to capture from DV.

You can also use premier or almost any other program but this one does well

:2 cents:

direct link

http://www.pinnaclesys.com/Category...._id=7&Family=0

We use Vegas 4.0, and we love it... The preview video on my site was created using the WMV setting at about 400kbps... The link to the clip is on this page:
http://www.naughtyalysha.com/videos.htm

Nothing wrong with your camera, quite nice actually.
Buy Pinnacle Studio 9. It is very easy and very affordable.


:thumbsup

It doesnt convert into Quicktime though right?

You do some wild shit!
When are you visiting Las Vegas I would love to shoot with you for your site?
:Graucho

Wild shit? Me? I never noticed, lol.
Haven't been to Vegas in a few years, but I'm due back one day soon... probably Internext next January. Thanks!

Vegas 4.0 converts into Quicktime, WMV, MPEG 1 & 2, AVI, Real Media, and more...

Do research before you invest in any pinnacle software. It
works good for some people but for most...it's buggy as hell.

If your looking for something simple that does all the basic shit
and does it good without bugs - check out Sony's latest offering
for the 'not so technically inclined" called ScreenBlast.
You can find it HERE!

I found a brand new copy on ebay for $40 but it retails for about
$100. It's got all the basic features that one needs for capturing
& editing. It doesn't do such a good job at compressing footage
for the internet - so I just purchased Sorenson Squeeze 3.5 for
that. It's a hell of a lot less complicated than Cleaner 5 and from
what I can tell - does just as good a job.

Good luck,

d*

:1orglaugh im not a pro but i want DVD or broadcast quality cause im a video snob. :1orglaugh

vegas or Premier 6.5

get a shitload of memory too, at least a 1000

I use Ulead Media Studio Pro: http://www.ulead.com/msp/runme.htm

For me it works quite easy and it is extremely stable. I tried Pinnacle, but it is very unstable. I also tried Premiere, but it took too much time to get used with it.

Give it a try - trial version is for free. :thumbsup

Pinnacle is perfect for rookies

i had great results using pinnacle personally.

Speaking of Pinnacle, I have Studio 7. Never used it, but I have been using MGI Video Wave and love it. I taught myself a couple years ago when I didn't even know the diff between mpgs and jps.

Will Pinnacle encode to wmv as well? I have to edit as a raw avi, then use Cleaner to encode.

AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Just say NO to Pinnacle!!

Without having to get into a long story about investing in two Pinnacle DV1000 hardware cards and experiencing constant difficulty with both, even having used their recommended hardware and investing better than $10,000 into each box to try to make them work, I must say that I have been very disappointed both in Pinnacle hardware and Pinnacle support.

With processor speeds and hard drives currently capable of keeping up with anything that even a prosumer camera can produce, a newer machine can can give you anything that you desire with very little cash outlay.

I have a now old Canon ZR-30MC DV cam that I have hooked to a firewire (IEEE-1394) card on a dual PIII450, that works even better than the XL-1 with the Pinnacle on a 1GHz machine. BTW, if anyone wants a used XL-1, please contact me.

Even the ZR-50 with a USB connector instead of firewire works great on a dual 500MHz Celeron machine.

I still use Premiere for my editing, although I have played with Ulead Media Studio, and thought it might be easier for beginners, and definitely worth the price.

Video editing is not something that is easy and automatic though, and a basic understanding of how it works is paramount. I have several machines that work on video constantly, and after having ditched the proprietary Pinnacle hardware and replaced the respective codecs with something that I can work with on any machine, I have increased my output tremendously.

Jere.

Once we graduated to the point of doing full length feature films and are priniting to DVD for retail distribution, I finally broke down and got a Mac G5 running OSX Panther. Being a dyed in the wool PC guy, I was a little nervous about this, but I gotta tell you, PC's SUCK by comparison to Mac for video post production.

For capturing and editing, we use Final Cut Pro and IDVD does a fine job in mastering simple DVD's. For exporting to web versions, "Cleaner" does a fine job for all formats (it's a little slow compared to Premier, but does the job).

If you want to see a trailer that we just released for a new product, take a look at www.spanking-epics.com

my :2 cents:

colin

I recently upgraded to Premiere Pro from version 6.5 for daily video editing and I am digging it. My friend who is also editing part-time for me picked it up pretty fast too.

If you have a PC go with Premiere Pro. It will do everything you need. And It's about about as pro as your going to get without spending a fortune, only like 700-800$

Vegas is ok but very unporfessional.