David Posted November 15, 2006 Report Share Posted November 15, 2006 Hey, ive just fixed a Mini DV camcorder I picked up really cheap off ebay. Its a good quality one but as Ive never used DV before, which compression format do you recommend? Obviously I dont want it taking up loads of space but I want something with good quality. MPEG2?Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B.E.A.U Posted November 15, 2006 Report Share Posted November 15, 2006 Hey, ive just fixed a Mini DV camcorder I picked up really cheap off ebay. Its a good quality one but as Ive never used DV before, which compression format do you recommend? Obviously I dont want it taking up loads of space but I want something with good quality. MPEG2?Daveyep i use mpeg2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted November 17, 2006 Author Report Share Posted November 17, 2006 Thanks beau, anyone else? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonny Jones Posted November 17, 2006 Report Share Posted November 17, 2006 The older TM videos were all MPEG1. Do a search for TMPEGEnc. It was the encoder I used. I exported the video as Microsoft DV AVI from Premiere. I use QuickTime with H264 compression now - only cos I use a Mac to edit. I think I still have the encoder template settings for TMPEGEnc somewhere. Add me to MSN and I can prob help you out. Nice one on getting a camera J. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben_travis Posted November 17, 2006 Report Share Posted November 17, 2006 The older TM videos were all MPEG1. Do a search for TMPEGEnc. It was the encoder I used. I exported the video as Microsoft DV AVI from Premiere. I use QuickTime with H264 compression now - only cos I use a Mac to edit. I think I still have the encoder template settings for TMPEGEnc somewhere. Add me to MSN and I can prob help you out. Nice one on getting a camera J.one day jonny, people will all convert to this format.its simply the best format. i only convert to divx afterwards because half the replies i got to my video complained about the compression Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manuel Posted November 17, 2006 Report Share Posted November 17, 2006 Just keep it in DV format - either get a cheap extra HD or just burn to DVD as required ...then when you want to edit / watch you arent loosing anything ...only compress when youve finished editing it ... much better ....I do this mainly because when i export vids i do it as DV then go to DivX - because I like the way it looks . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Bleech Posted November 17, 2006 Report Share Posted November 17, 2006 On the subject on compression, premiere and stuff...How does everyone else do writing? I use paint shop pro and import the layer into premiere, but it alays ends up a bit blocky and I want it looking crisper and nice (like it looks when I export something uncompressed) - any ideasI use Mpeg1 mainly, but have used DIVX and wmv recently - Divx is nice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted November 17, 2006 Author Report Share Posted November 17, 2006 Hey, thanks for the replies.I use power dirctor 3 to do my editing but im not sure how to capture the footage in DV? I can only see options for MPEG1/2 or AVI..Of course, it may not support it? Never really got to grips with premiere, I only really need to be able to cut and trim clips which power director does really well.Thanks,Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Bleech Posted November 17, 2006 Report Share Posted November 17, 2006 Hey, thanks for the replies.I use power dirctor 3 to do my editing but im not sure how to capture the footage in DV? I can only see options for MPEG1/2 or AVI..Of course, it may not support it? Never really got to grips with premiere, I only really need to be able to cut and trim clips which power director does really well.Thanks,Davewhen you capture footage it should come off your camera as a umcompressed .avi file - these are big btw make sure you have plenty of disc space.I use a program called scenerlyzer (sp??) to captune it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beigemaster Posted November 17, 2006 Report Share Posted November 17, 2006 Out of interest can standard DVD players (not PC ones) read AVI format or do you always have to compress it to MPEG2? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonny Jones Posted November 17, 2006 Report Share Posted November 17, 2006 (edited) Upon reading further posts it seems I got confused with the original post. Yea like people say just capture normal DV. In fact most packages have this as their workflow, ie capture DV (25mb/sec - so if you look at the file size you can add it all up and see if its the right kind of file - usually has .AVI on the end of the file name you give it anyway) and then just edit as required THEN export (ie compress).Editing already-compressed files sucks as some playback is limited and can become staggered (on slower systems perhaps) and the end file you finish with will look crap basically.Text wise, Leeds trials you seem to be giving yourself way too much work! Simply go File > New > Title and you instantly have a tool to do text/writing/titles with. When finished it should be in your 'bin' then drag and drop onto the timeline over the clip(s) where you want it and it has an auto-composite mode so the text is instantly visible with no background. Also with capturing - go File > Capture > Movie Capture (I think) then its piss to capture, you just have to alter some settings to suit your project which should consist of something like DV - Realtime Preview, 48khz (48,000hz) sound). All this is just to save time opening/closing multiple applications.Hope this helps people J. Edited November 17, 2006 by trialmedia Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John planet x Posted November 17, 2006 Report Share Posted November 17, 2006 (edited) Slightly OT but ive been looking at camcorders myself and been interested in the Sony HDR SR1E (high definition). Has anyone used these before? and i was wondering how easy it is to convert and edit etc on them? they use AVCHD recording format, aparently it uses MPEG-4. Edited November 17, 2006 by John planet x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonny Jones Posted November 17, 2006 Report Share Posted November 17, 2006 (edited) AVCHD is a brand new HD codec, based on Apple's H264 compression. Ive no idea how it works or if you can down-convert to normal definition (DV/SD)... best thing to do would be to check out http://www.camcorderinfo.com and maybe just a general google search? I think im right in saying the AVCHD cameras record to either hard drive of dvd - therefore you should just be able to drag and drop the recorded files onto your hard drive, import them into your editing software and get going that way. But yeah, just have a look around see what info you can come up with... and maybe post some on here for people to see? Jonny. Edited November 17, 2006 by trialmedia Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John planet x Posted November 18, 2006 Report Share Posted November 18, 2006 (edited) Been lookin on the amazon.com reveiws. most people given it 5 stars, sounds awesome but aparently there is no software other than the sony software to edit with, but people seem very confident that software companies will be bringing out updates etc soon. Products only been out couple of weeks.Think i'll wait till some software comes out or is updated before i make a decision. Edited November 18, 2006 by John planet x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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