Video Software

[Mr Morse]

Guys

I have a Sony Micro MV handycam (no instructions) and am looking for some software to copy the video to the PC.

Any tips please - free stuff preferred!

Edited October 16, 2005 by Mr Morse

[aido]

I did some stuff for Zee which he should still have a copy of - I deleted it off my Mac as I couldn't use it

It's good stuff mate :)

Alternatively just let me know and I'll transfer it onto the mac and edit here, let me know pal :)

[star a]

arcsoft's 'Showbiz 2' is pretty good, and is easy to compile DVD or VCD after editing, or you can use windows 'moviemaker' surprisingly it's not too bad.

[The Editor]

Ummmm.... I shall refrain from contributing on this post as any suggestions I come up with are likely to cost more than a new Lexus !!!

The Editor

[Mr Morse]

Ummmm.... I shall refrain from contributing on this post as any suggestions I come up with are likely to cost more than a new Lexus !!!

The Editor

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Just some basic freeware for a non-nerdy IT luddite will do fine :winky:

[The Editor]

Ok... Deep breath... Here goes...

If you can get hold of a free copy of Adobe Premiere Pro, Sony Vegas or Avid your laughing. You can pick up older versions of these programs if you hunt around on the World Wide Interweb!!!

I assume you will be transferring your footage via 1394 (Firewire)? Do you have more than one hard drive on your machine? lf you don't you may well find your machine struggles and drops frames (even if you have a dual processor super duper machine) Standard DV eats hard drive space at a rate of around 3.5 Mbytes a second and when you try and push that at a sustained rate through the PCI bus it can put a strain on the system and hence dropped frames (I did say deep breath didn't I?? )

If you are running one hard drive (or using the same drive for both your operating system and your A/V storage you will come into real problems if you try and do anything even remotely strenuous) If you are just talking about making cuts and the occcasional dissolve providing you can get your footage onto your system without any dropped frames then you may be OK. The only problem is very little of your transitions/effects will be in real time and so they will need to be rendered prior to preview/export.

Attempting to video edit will show up any limitations on a machine and push a PC even harder than the most sophisticated games out there.

Opps... I'm rambling aren't I? Sorry, I could probably talk for hours on this subject but as I said above will refrain since any recommendations I make will be unfair as they would not really be for domestic use.

Premiere Pro, Avid, Final Cut Pro are all professional software applications that you can pick up older copies and provided your machine can cope will give excellent results.

If you only want to transfer your footage from your camcorder and make simple cuts etc then someone else will be better place to advise you on some freeware in the video editing domain as I don't use it. (Apart from some DVD bit rate analysis progs and some assorted tools)

Regards

The Ed

[The Editor]

Ohhhh... just noticed after my ramblings... You said you had a Micro MV camcorder !!!

They record in MPEG2 I believe. In that case you will need software that will handle the MPEG2 GOP structure and capable of editing in native MPEG2. Since the compression is higher and the bit rate lower than standard DV you MAY get away with editing on a single drive although there will still be limitations. I always advise people when first venturing into the world of Non Linear Editing to see if they can get a copy of the software they want to try on a trial basis first. Ghost your machine, install the software, if everything works then great. If it causes your system to fallover, ghost back and try something else...

The Ed

[Mr Morse]

@ The Editor......thanks, probably more than I'm looking for (and capable of using )

[aido]

Drop Zee a PM Mike as Im sure that little bit of freeware I gave him would do the job!

Have to admit I tried Final Cut Pro on the Mac and it blew my mind, ended up back in iMovie very quickly as that is enough for me for now

[The Editor]

Have to admit I tried Final Cut Pro on the Mac and it blew my mind, ended up back in iMovie very quickly as that is enough for me for now

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Hee, hee.... It's not for the faint hearted is it?? It's quite a learning curve

Cheers all

The Ed

[aido]

You're not kidding mate, I bought a book on it in the end but never really tried it again, iMovie does what I need for basic stuff, would like to try again one day though, fancy doing something like that for a living one day, makes a nice change from working in the command prompt most of the day!

[ColinBarber]

I've Final Cut Express HD, haven't got to grips with it yet!

[Brettster]

can you not just use the free software built into windows XP? windows movie maker?

its basic, very basic but it works and might just cover what you want to do?