Question by fresh.snow: Tips, advice, shortcuts and techniques for uploading and converting DV to PC?
I’m filming classes with a Sony DV Camcorder.
1. Are there any tips, shortcuts (quick way) to transfer from the camera to pc?
2. Any way to speed up the conversion from the camera’s bit rate to a smaller bit rate?
3. We have 3 main uses:
a) small clips distributed by email,
b) somewhat longer clips for posting on our website, and
c) full classes (20-60min) for distribution on CD (DVD if
necessary) to be viewed on pc.
What are the minimum bit rates (correct term?) that will still provide acceptable audio and visual quality for those 3 uses?
4. Is Windows Movie Maker good for editing and doing the above tasks?
Is there something faster/better?
I found something called “VirtualDub 1.7.6”
http://www.virtualdub.org/].
The camera came with “Picture Package” and “Image Mixer VCD2”. Are they good? bloatware?
Thanks for any help!
p.s. I’m using a firewire
cable.
Best answer:
Answer by NYC fan
1) For getting DV to a PC, Firewire is the fastest way to do it; in most cases, the only way. No shortcuts exist. This is one thing that has led to wider use of hard-drive and DVD camcorders, though the drawback is lower-quality video in different formats. So, the drawback for DV is that you can capture it only in real time. No big deal, you just have to allow the time for it.
2) For the conversion, I tend to work in the original DV until I’m finished editing my project. Only then do I worry about converting. This way, you get the best possible quality all the way through until you absolutely MUST squash it down. As for the speed of conversion, this all depends on the speed of your computer. The best way to find out is to just do it.
3) Really, the best way to do this is to try a variety of things until you get the file down to the size you want, while maintaining tolerable quality. Things you’ll want to look at include frame size (nobody needs a 720×480 clip in e-mail, for example), bitrate, audio format (do you really need the original .wav stereo audio?), and format (MPEG formats really crunch things down from DV). Mess around with things a bit. Crunch the video first, before the audio. Video takes up much more space.
You can even use sites like YouTube and Google Video for interacting online with users. They use a format called Flash Video, which works on computers that have Flash Player (virtually everyone has it, and even if they don’t, it’s a very easy download/install). The drawback to this is that clips won’t be downloadable via e-mail. Still, there are downloadable formats that should work for you for the e-mailed clips. See above suggestions. Of course, for e-mail, keep things short.
For the website, you can likely use YouTube or Google Video. Upload your stuff to there, embed the clip on your website using their instructions, they make it fairly easy. They even give you a bit of a how-to tutorial (YouTube does, and I think Google also does) about what specifications they like in their video.
For full classes, I say just go with DVD. The discs are a little more expensive, maybe a dollar apiece, but I’ve had trouble distributing things on CD before. Too much guesswork, some formatting/synch issues, a few glitches. DVD is much more widespread, and it’ll be easier to find help if you’re having problems with DVD.
I’m actually not too familiar with the software listed above; haven’t used any of it (though I have Movie Maker). I know that the version of Movie Maker that I have has an option to compress the video to a specified file size, which is, in theory, good if you’re distributing via e-mail. Still, it does the compression automatically, with few specifications from the user, so I’m not sure how well this feature works. For DVD and web stuff, if your software allows you to select file format, bitrate, frame size, frame rate, settings like that, then those programs should work for you. They allow for only basic editing, which is just fine for your purposes. You don’t need a whole lot of bells and whistles for this kind of work.
If your current options don’t work for you, one entry-level paid option I can recommend is Ulead VideoStudio. It generally works pretty well, and it’ll do all of the conversion tasks you want, with the options to dig into the settings and make the changes you want to make. I used it back in version 7, and it fit my uses at the time. Now, they’re in version 11.
Hope this has helped somewhat!
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!