Camcorder Video Editing/Audio Muxing

[Dionysus]

Does anyone know of any good programs that will allow me to transfer film from a video camera to my computer and then edit it, add shit, and do the audio editing as well. I've done a few things with it from what I've learned doing the DVD thing but I need a program to edit the video and audio.

Thanx ppl.

[theReal]

Adobe Premiere or Ulead Media Studio Pro are generally good solutions, not for encoding, but for editing (including audio).

[DDogg]

Take a look at videovegas (highend) or video factory (low end) from SOnic foundry. I think they have a demo.

[Dionysus]

which one of the two is better, the Adobe Premiere 6.0 or the Ulead Movie Studio Pro??

[dumb13]

Originally posted by Dionysus
which one of the two is better, the Adobe Premiere 6.0 or the Ulead Movie Studio Pro??

Depends on what is your goal actually.

If you want to put together a nice movie from your own footage, utilizing some easy-to-understand-and-use toolbox, than use Ulead MovieStudio. For even faster learning curve, and for beginners in the video footage editing area, one may try Ulead's VideoStudio - limited features, but quick success feeling, also, good basis to step-up to higher levels.

If you want to achieve a real professinal level of video(audio) editing, and want really dig into the knowledge of this "art", than your precious tool is Adobe Premier - lots of extras, effects, filters, ready to adopt filters, etc. etc. - surely would take much longer time to get understanding on and get comfortable with the environment Adobe offers.

As personal comment: after several hours of cut home movies behind me, I still use sometimes Ulead VideoStudio, for very simple tasks, just because quick and easy.

So, it is your decision, finally :-)

Regards
dumb

[ulfschack]

Vegas video has most premiere features. At least the ones I used, but then again that's probably cause I've used them on Vegas before going to Premiere :).

Blabber aside. One Big difference is that Premiere is to my knowledge the only commersial tool to allow frameserving (to external apps). Saves you the trouble of going to HD yet again when having done your master cut. Only thing is you have to use Microsofts DV codec while exporting independantly of what CODEC was used during capturing (canopus, sony, DV-soft, mainconcept etc.). There is, of course as always, ways around but sometimes it seems to me like there's an awful lot of work-around instead of working WITH in this business :)

cheers

[Dionysus]

Thanks for your time and respones to my question.

[Dionysus]

This might be another stupid question but am I rendered useless without a capture card. Is there anyway to get away with what I want to do without buying a capture card?

Thanks.

[theReal]

you definitely need a capture card. That would be any kind of analog capture card (tv-tuners, graphics adapters, dedicated capture cards - all available from cheap to unbelievably expensive).

If you have a DV camcorder with firewire in/out, then you're lucky because a cheap firewire adapter will transfer the video in premium quality with no hassles.

[ulfschack]

Like theReal says, use ieee 1394 (firewire) as the last link. Do you have a modern computer chanses are that they've integreated a firewire port into your mainboard. Then go borrow an analogue-in enabled DV camera from your good friend and hook it up to your camera. No cost.

Much more realistic though is of course the capture card. Sells for $40. I bought myself a terraTV with which I'm very pleased.

@others-who-are-reading-this:

Just thought of the posibility to go via USB 2.0 (well admittedly I would hardly be the first, but ... ) How's the support for that protocol in todays capture apps? Anyone?.

cheers

[theReal]

Much more realistic though is of course the capture card.I thought Dionysus maybe says "video camera", but has a digital camcorder. A lot of people refer to a DV camcorder as a video camera...

I mean, only buy a firewire adapter if your camcorder, the one with your movies, is a dv camcorder. If it is an analogue camera/camcorder, go for a capture card.

[ulfschack]

Well, if such's the case it's a no-brainer.

Use the on-board firewire port if available. Or go buy a PnP one. Slightly more expensive than a TV/(a/v) capture card where I come from.

The thing about the analogue-in I mentioned still holds, tho. No need to open the box. And if dionysis really does have a DV then I think it's safe to assume that he has a firewire card. Then again, why would he be asking this question if he does? :)

Aaah to hell with this speculation. He has to open his mouth himself and tell us.

CYA

[Dionysus]

I have a digital camcorder yes. And I do have a modern computer, only a couple months old. So with that, all your saying that I need now is the adapter from the camera(camcorder) to the USB port on my computer. If not then could you give me some sort of detail on it. Cuz I almost went and spent 200 cdn. on a capture card today but decided to hold off for a bit. So you know that I have a modern computer, USB, Firewire and a Digital Camcorder.

Thanks guys.

[theReal]

I have a digital camcorder yes@ulfschack, see what I mean? ;)

@Dionysos, if you already have a firewire adapter in your pc (either onboard, or as a seperate pci card) and your dv camcorder has a dv-out connector, all you need is a cable.
Connecting to USB won't work (USB can't handle a 3.2MB/s DV stream) - there might be a solution for USB 2.0, but I have never heard about it.

A firewire adapter is very cheap, you don't need more than a no-name card - it's either an MS or a TI chip anyways and Windows has no problems with both of these. You should be able to get one for 70 Canadian Dollars or even less.

[ulfschack]

@TheReal

Gotcha! :)

[Dionysus]

Okay here's another one for ya. I've got everything that was discussed previously. Now I'm using Adobe Premiere 6 for the editing and stuff but I want to mux the video with different audio that came with the video when I was recording. Is there a program I can use that suits this format ie. nandub for muxing audio and video really easily. Cuz the audio is just mp3 format. Thanks again.

[theReal]

As far as I know you can import mp3 audio in Premiere 6.
For only muxing the audio and video, you can of course use Nandub, but then you can't edit the audio according to the video.

[Dionysus]

well what I was going to do because I want the music to overlap over top of each other. So there's flow between songs so I was just going to find the length of the video and then make my audio accordingly using it as a wave file, making one big wav file then to mp3 and then muxing the two. If i have video with an audio file cuz I just delete it using adobe 6?? thanks.

[theReal]

Why don't you import the 2nd audio track in Premiere? This is one of the main reasons why you would use a video-editing program: adding a 2nd audio track. You can adjust it perfectly like you need it and you can mix it with the original sound (or you can delete the original sound, just as you like).

When you mux an audio track with your video, you have no options: you simply delete the original audio. Usually, muxing is only used for combining a video with the original audio track. For adding new audio, it's kind of impractical.

[ulfschack]

Just to complete TheReals post:

Get the video and the two audio tracks lined up the way you want them in Premiere. Render the audio as wav. Frameserve the video to Virtualdub, where you encode with your favorite CODEC. Use Lame for wav->mp3 and finally NanDub for muxing a/v.

cheers