Part II - Starting over... almost

Martin Vikkelsø — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 00:13:51 GMT

Ok. Last time i wrote something about editing video and creating DVDs I got a little bit ahead of myself.

Not that anything was wrong with the hardware at all. In fact i should probably be using this opportunity to state that the capture card is really some piece of engineering. But, the software that came along with it is a whole other story all together.

Please, if your reading this and considering purchasing Pinnacle Studio 10 for any upcoming projects. Dont!
It's gonna leave you like an ex-girlfriend: broke, torn and ready to hit anything with a pulse.

I will spare you the details of my despair with the above piece of editing mayhem, and instead point you in the direction of a more professional tool. TMPGEnc DVD Author.

The TMPG suite of products is not suited for the beginner, since it requires a bit more than 1-click actions. Still, the mildly tech-savvy person should be able to figure out the workings of this tool quite fast.

Another great feature of this software is, that it will render your final files to burn in less than half the time Studio 10 needs.

See this well-written guide for more info: www.doom9.org/mpg/tmpg-dvdauthor.htm

Part I - Starting up...

Martin Vikkelsø — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 00:09:42 GMT

This project has already now been taking a while. First off I had no ide-card to import the video through. Secondly I didnt have a camera to play the tapes on.

The obvious tasks at hand was getting both. Then, once the video was imported, to edit the content and publish onto DVD for my family's viewing pleasure...

Hardware used:
- (borrowed) Canon MiniDV cam
- Pinnacle 500-PCI capture card (with firewire, Yay!)

Software used:
- Pinnacle Studio 10
- Adobe Premiere Pro (for trial purposes)

Other requirements:
- Loads of time
- Patience
- Coffee. And lots of it.

Importing all the content went quite smoothly. The firewire cable from the DV cam into the capture card delivered a seamless stream of frames. 0 (zero) loss.

But here the hard work began. Editing approx 8 hours of raw footage is not a one-day task. Especially not when the PC used for this project is an old box (Pentium III @ 700mhz).

Im currently done with editing the first tape, and trying to convince the box to create some useful DVD output.

Stay tuned - The rendering to DVD format is going to take approximately 24 hours for the lonely, outdated processor...

DVD Project

Part II - Starting over... almost

Part I - Starting up...