Hello Walosi-ga.
I am in the process of doing this very same thing myself so I have
recently done a lot of research on this. The first thing you will need
to do is to digitize your video. You didn't mention what kind of
computer you have, but it will help if you have a half decent video
card. If you don't I would recommend getting at least a 64MB video
card which will cost about $50. If you have a newer computer it is
likely you already have one good enough.
The second thing you will need is a capture device. As for myself I
borrowed a Canon video camera which had the feature of being able to
plug in an analog device and digitize the video stream. I think many
Canon (and other) video cameras have this feature.
You can also use a stand alone converter. I recommend the Canopus
Digital Converter - $248
http://bizrate.com/marketplace/search/search__cat_id--405,prod_id--6681795,de_id--200,keyword--canopus%20ADVC-100,prerd--1,ir--660.html
Both of these devices require what is called ieee94 firewire. This is
a port similar to USB, but much faster. If you do not have this port
on your computer you will also need to buy a firewire card. There are
many to choose from and I have not used them (my laptop has one built
in) so I have no particular recomendation. They will all do the job so
unless your going to use it for other things I would buy cheap:
http://shop.bizrate.com/buy/superfind.xpml?search_box=1&keyword=firewire+card&cat_id=4&SEARCH_GO=Find+it%21
You will need roughly 1 Gigabyte of hard drive space for every 5
minutes for the raw video. Bear in mind that you can compress the
final product to be much smaller, perhaps 1 Gigabyte for every hour or
even less. However for capturing and editing purposes I would suggest
getting a large external hard drive.
I researched all of the hard drives and ended up buying a Lacie 200
Gigabyte hard drive:
http://shop.bizrate.com/marketplace/search/search__cat_id--410,prod_id--7434707,keyword--lacie%20200.html
for $250. This has worked well so far except that it does make more
noise now then when I got it. However I do not have it on all the time
so it is no big deal.
One great thing about it is that I now have tons of hard drive space
for other things as well such as MP3's and other videos I download
from the Internet.
You could get away with getting a smaller hard drive. Then you could
do your video a bit at a time...digitize, edit and then compress the
final segment before starting another batch, but for simplicity you
will probably want to get the 200Gig.
This brings us to the editing. When I did my video the first thing I
wanted to do was to get rid of the junk...you know the parts where the
video camers is pointing out the ground while someone saying "is it
on?" or it out of focus. There's usually a lot of footage that you can
get right out of the way before you start serious editing. I used a
program called Easy Video Splitter: http://doeasier.org/splitter/.
This is a shareware program that is functional for 7 days and then
cost $19.95. I did all I needed to do with it in 7 days so it was free
for me. This is a very easy to use program that will allow you to not
only get rid of your junk video, but break up your long digitized
files into smaller, more manageable segments. I highly recommend using
very descriptive filenames when you do this part. Titles like
"john_playing_frisbee_summer_2002.avi". This will come in very handy
when you are trying to manage dozens of these files later.
Another thing I did during this step was to organize my good video
into two categories: segments where the sound was important and
segments when it wasn't. I labelled the latter things like
"nosound_john_playing_frisbee_summer_2002" to keep them clear labelled
and seperated.
The reason I did this was because I then ran all of my 'nosound' video
clips through an amazing program called Muvee Autoproducer ($49.95)
http://muvee.com/. What this program does is process your video into
incredibly good looking edited video for you. You can input an MP3
song, pick a video style (fast cut, lots of fades, etc) and then
choose which raw video clips you want to process. What comes out is a
video that is cut to the beats of the music and looks so good it would
take a pro hours to edit it that well. It will then output into a
compressed video format for you. I was very impressed with this
program. Note that you will want to save the movies in MPEG format.
So at this point we come to the hardest part. You now have segments of
video that need to be strung together in a coherent fashion and you
want a voice over or titles on them. If you used Muvee you will
probably want to intercut the slick "music video" parts made by Muvee
with the home video segments that have talking.sound. The best program
to use would be Adobe Premier, but this is not only very expensive,
but it is difficult to learn. It is a bit overkill for a project like
this.
I can recommend two other options, the first is Avid Free DV
(http://www.avid.com/freedv/index.asp). The best feature about this
program is that is FREE! I have not used it myself, but it is supposed
to be a relatively simple video editing program with stripped down
features. Perfect for a simple project like this. Be prepared for a
learning curve with it though. When you save the movies using Free
DV, they will be in Quicktime format. You will need to convert them to
MPEG format to make them so they can be burned and played on a DVD
player. This is an easy process but requires software. You can get
WinMPG Video Convert 5.1 for $ 30 at
http://download.com.com/3000-2194-10257404.html?tag=lst-0-5
What I used for a video editing program and would recommend was a
decent program called Pinnacle Studio DV which cost $99
http://www.pinnaclesys.com/ProductPage_n.asp?Product_ID=470&Langue_ID=7.
This has a few nice extra features include the ability to add a
voiceover (avid free dv offers only titles) and it outputs directly
into mpeg format. It is pretty straightforward but expect a learning
curve with this program too. Video editing is not an easy process, but
with some perserverance you will be able to string all your segments
together.
So now you have the finished movie segment(s) on your hard drive. Now
you need to get them to play on a DVD player. There are two things
you can do. The first would be to use a DVD-writer. If you don't have
one they run about $300+ depending on what kind of features you want.
All of them will do the job you need to convert your edited video and
burn in onto a DVD for playback. You can read a lot about them here:
http://www.dvd-recorder-buying-guide.com/.
The other cheaper option is to use a regular computer CD Burner, which
you very well may already have. If you don't they run about $60 or
maybe a bit more for an external one. The disadvantage to this method
is you can only fit about 15-20 minutes of high quality video onto a
CD. But it is definitely a cheaper option. Again you will need special
software to do this. There is a good one called VCDEasy
(http://www.vcdeasy.org/). As the name suggests this is an easy
program to use.
And that is it. As you can see this is not an easy or inexpensive
process. If you simply want to dump the raw video over to DVD then it
is easier, but the editing is tricky. I do think you will be very
impressed with Muvee. It really takes a lot of work out of the editing
process. I loved it! You may even want to just forgo the editor and
use muvee for all of it. See what you think. ACD makes a similar
program called Video Magic
(http://www.acdsystems.com/english/Products/ACDVideoMagic/index). I
have not used it so I have no opinion on it.
Here are some links that will help you to do further research:
Desktop Video - About.com - A nice overall collection of links and articles
http://desktopvideo.about.com/
Capturing Analog Video - A good article
http://desktopvideo.about.com/library/weekly/aa121702a.htm
Digital Memories - If you don't need the hassle have someone else do it for you!
http://www.digitalmemoriesonline.net
How Stuff Works - Video Editing
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/video-editing.htm
I hope that this information helps you out. If you need further
clarification or have questions please feel free to ask before rating
this answer.
Thank you,
-John |
Clarification of Answer by
shiva777-ga
on
26 Jan 2004 09:46 PST
Hello Walosi. I will attempt to simplify it more for you. Let's do it in steps.
1) You will definitely need a device to digitize your VHS tapes and
will need a Canopus converter or something similar. This is easily
your most expensive cost, but it is a must. These are also pretty easy
to use.
2) If you have a reasonably good computer and a decent amount of hard
drive space then you can digitize your tapes and process them in
sections. To find out how much space you have click 'my computer' and
look at the C drive. Look at the column that says 'free space'. If you
have at least 5 gigabytes, I would say you can do it without buying an
external hard drive.
3) Use Muvee (http://www.muvee.com) to edit your videos for you. This
is a very simple program to use that will do all your editing for you
and will allow you to add titles to identify people in your videos.
4) Use VCD easy (http://vcdeasy.org), a free program that is also easy
to use to burn your finished video so you can burn with your CD-R
burner and it can be played on a DVD player.
5) Delete your raw video and your muvee compress video from your hard
drive to make room to digitize more.
So, assuming you have a decent PC with a some hard drive space here is
what you will need to get:
$250 Canopus converter
$ 50 Muvee
FREE VCD Easy
--------------------
$300 Total Cost
(If you know anyone with a digital video camera ask them if it has an
input for analog devices. If it does, it can be used to do the same
thing as the canopus converter saving you the $$.)
I hope I have made this process clear enough for you.
If you need further help please let me know.
thanks,
-shiva777
|
