Advice on Video Edditing needed.

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Thu May 29, 2003 10:14 pm

I’ve been told several times in the Z to get the Matrox G550 or the later EP650.

Are they well suited to work with video editing and stuff? Sorry, I know nothing about it. All I want to do is to be able, in the future, when getting a Digital Video Camera, to use it properly with the chosen video card. I think you need something called E-Link to plug your camera to your computer, is it right?

Spirit, I think you are the one to get this…

What do you use for video editing? Can you advice me a little about that? Which camera should I look for video editing and which program to use to do it? Cheers.

wayne · Post by **wayne** » Fri May 30, 2003 1:30 am

I'm no big expert, Nestor, but i have a Panasonic nv-gs5a camera, which has DV out (firewire), so all i needed was a firewire card, and some low-end Pinnacle software.

a lot depends on whether you want to spit it back out of your computer onto vhs, which requires analog video out of your machine.

hope this keeps you going til the specialists arrive

bosone · Post by **bosone** » Fri May 30, 2003 2:02 am

as i'm still living in the past, i'm using a matrox marvel g200 (that with the external blue conversion box) with an old analog cam!

and i think i will not change the video card when i'll buy a P4 2.4GhZ!!

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Fri May 30, 2003 2:52 am

Yes, like everything in this business it all depends on exactly what you want to do and what the ultimate destination is.

I get all my video files for editing either as AVI or MOV files on corporate FTP sites; or as files on CD; or as VHS video which I capture. There's no way this sort of stuff is even going to be TV broadcast quality, but then everything I do is web-bound so it doesn't matter.

For VHS capture I use an Osprey 210 which is cheap and good - no gimmicky home-user BS. It happily resides in my DAW as well.

For editing I like Vegas 3 (which talks nicely to the Osprey card). Have you tried Acid ? Vegas works in exactly the same way. So if you know Acid then to start with Vegas you will not even need to read the manual. It also has very powerful audio handling features so you may even end up using it as a music app - it's truly high-end.

I used Premiere at work for a short time and disliked it. I found it slow and arcane.

Visit SoFo forums and site. Vegas 4 has been very well received and is generally regarded as value-priced, feature-packed and very stable. I'll upgrade as soon as I've looked after a few other upgrades.

Vegas 4 can be bundled for sale with DVD Architect which has also good reviews, so you might consider that too depending on what you're doing.

If your stuff is for the web then you might also want to look at Sorrenson Squeeze to crunch your video output files down into something manageable.

I also use a lot of Flash MX based apps to convert the video to swf format, but that's another story....

As for cameras, I use an old Panasonic VHSc camera which is good since I primarily use an analog capture card. But I'm looking to upgrade. Ideally I'd like to skip the mini-DV with Firewire route and go straight to a videocamera with direct AVI or mov recording of some sort. That way I could just download the video file direct and eliminate the capture phase.

Some of the better digital cameras capture a respectable amount of video, but of course it is much lower resolution than a full videocamera. but again, I'm thinking of the web...

Etc etc. I could burble for hours.

Edit: some links
http://www.sonicfoundry.com/forums/Show ... ?ForumID=4
http://www.sonicfoundry.com
http://www.viewcast.com/products/osprey/osprey210.html
http://www.sorenson.com/
http://www.digitalpostproduction.com/Ht ... dlines.htm
http://www.wideopenwest.com/%7Ewvg/tutorial-menu.htm

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Spirit on 2003-05-30 03:57 ]</font>

marcuspocus · Post by **marcuspocus** » Fri May 30, 2003 2:55 am

Same here Bosone...

I have my audio PC with G450, perfect for dual head, etc

And my video pc has a Marvel G400, yeah with that big blue box.

The thing with this box is that if you are like me using bunch of sources for video, not necessarily latest firewire dv cam, this is the best, as matrox is doing hardware compression in realtime for capturing video from analog input. Not many card do this! Especialy with the need for a pci card.

Plug, matrox provide plugin for Adobe premier so the later can use the hardware codec for editing. Speed up the preview process alot. also the ability to monitor video on a real TV output while editing on the pc monitor is great.

For analog input, the only 'better' options i know of without costing an arm & a leg is the MATROX RT series (rt1000, rt2500, etc).

They cost more, but they are far better. Things like realtime preview, effects etc.

Those card (Matrox RTxxx) are like the creamware of video. They include 'vsp' or Video signal processors onboard.

In 'about' the same price range, you also have Canopus pro cards.

Nestor, if you plan on doing video, get LOTSA HD SPACE!!! 60min of 'near DVD quality' is 13gigs once rendered. So while working on videos like this, you could need 30gigs free on your HD.

Also, got a DVD-+RW lately, this is fantastic, very very usefull, and particularly well suited for saving bunch of audio tracks or videos in DVD format, or even doing a complete backup of your system hd on one disk.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: marcuspocus on 2003-05-30 03:55 ]</font>

marcuspocus · Post by **marcuspocus** » Fri May 30, 2003 12:12 pm

BTW, you're right spirit, Vegas Video4 + DVD Architect is a fantastic combo for authoring nice DVDs

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Fri May 30, 2003 12:24 pm

If I could afford a DVD burner then I'd go for the package myself. The problem is that once you've built up a nice suite of software it's like a hungry animal - it requires constant feeding with expensive upgrades.

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Fri May 30, 2003 6:57 pm

This is what we can call a fantastic ensemble of answers… Very much appreciated.

Despite all this answers, I’m still naked facing up video editing. I’m 100% new to it.

Cheers Wayne: What I want to do, is to get the system ready for the day the camera arrives, I don’t want to upgrade later, cos I’ll need the money to buy a video camera. In regard to software, everybody talks about Vegas Pro as being a very good option, and nevertheless, I have always liked much Sonic Foundry stuff.

Thanks Bosone: I think I’ll go a little farther than you, cos I intend to work professionally with this, so I have to be a little more up to date.

Thank you Spirit: What do I want it for exactly? Well, I want to be able to do all sort of web applications and stuff as you do, and eventually, some commercial Spots for TV, not necessarily of very height quality. I’m not talking about TV broadcast quality, of course.

I’m going to check the Osprey you are talking about, as long as it is affordable. But, do you need to chose your capture card in accordance with the camera, or all cards are good for all cameras?

I would definitely go Vegas in the future, if everything goes well. I have seen this app and liked it, never worked with it, but did like it.

What you do with the MX is exactly what I would like to do too, in the future.

I’ve seen some fantastic Sony little marvels, I’m going to post here which one so you can see it for yourself. Here in Chile, they use it for broadcast TV quality and you cannot tell which is the difference between the high-end stuff. Sort of Pulsar versus big Studios, (almost)

Thanks for the links, I’m going to go through them with time, there is a lot to read about.

Hello Marcus, and thanks for the answer: Well, I thought I could get one single card having everything, the video, the capture stuff, etc. Perhaps there is a cheaper solution which is all together instead of having two cards? And, this would be better for your PCI as well…

I’m going to check the Matrox RT you are talking about… Cheers for the tip.

I’m planning getting two HDs, one will be 120GB and the other 80GB, I think that will be all right.

I can’t afford a DVD burner for the moment. But they will definitely be much cheaper in a year or so, and then I’ll perhaps get one, for the moment, this is the most I can do.

Thanks for your answers Z people! After having done a research about it myself, I’m going to come back with my own impressions, and a few more questions. Thanks to point me out the right goal…

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Fri May 30, 2003 8:58 pm

Just to clarify: The Osprey card is an analog capture card. It accepts the feed from an older-style videocamera via video-out and audio-out. Likewise, it allows you to plug in a standard VHS videorecorder and capture that. It does NOT capture from miniDV videocameras etc.

A Firewire card will connect to most modern videocameras directly and capture that way but can't accept an analog signal. So, these two capture methods are completely separate.

It's your choice of videocamera that can be the bridge here.

You can run a VHS machine into your MiniDV videocamera and then take that into your Firewire card. That way you don't need an analog capture card.

In that way a good digital videocamera will heavily influence what capture solution you go for. It depends where you want to spend your money and which component is most useful.

Certainly buying a camera and capture solution at the same time should ensure an economical and logical solution.

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Sat May 31, 2003 8:08 am

Much, much clear now to me, thanks Spirit!

And now I'm going reading...

wayne · Post by **wayne** » Sun Jun 01, 2003 12:06 am

On 2003-05-30 02:30, wayne wrote:
a lot depends on whether you want to spit it back out of your computer onto vhs, which requires analog video out of your machine.

Just found my camera's manual, and worked out that it can do firewire to and from the computer.

So, as spirit said, you can use this sort of mini dv cam as a sort of ad/da converter between vcr & computer.

another plus is that you can (on this panasonic) record jpeg and mpeg to an sd card for web quality product, with usb connection option.

All in all, i recommend this solution - panasonic nv-gs5 + pinnacle studio dv clip - comes to less than $1750 aussie dollars (1140 usd, 965 euro)

the only drawback would be that still picture quality is less than 1 megapixel, but heck, its a video camera

dehuszar · Post by **dehuszar** » Sun Jun 01, 2003 6:40 pm

Hell, you might even get by fine with an ATI 8500DV AIW. It's got all the ins and outs you need, firewire, I'm told it works great with Vegas, and it's cheap these days.

Might be worth investigating.

Sam