Which Video File Quality Should I Use In Emc 10 Video Wave?

[hatchetman]

Hello everyone. I am a new member. I have had EMC 9 (which never functioned right for me) and now EMC 10 running on a new system.

 

I am busy importing many years of 8mm and Hi8 video with Roxio's 'import video' using the AVI format. I am saving the video files in folders by year under "videos" in my windows vista machine. I will eventually copy over to an external hard drive or two for remote storage. I am using a fire wire conection and my Sony TRV480 which converts my older analog tapes to digital, pretty nice...Is the AVI the best format to use if size is no object or am I better off using Windows Media Center or something like that to maintain the very best image quality in my video files I want to edit later?

 

I am also using VideoWave to edit auto-detected scenes and when I go to output the production I need to know what the best video storage format would be for me. Roxio's help is no help and I have little to no knowledge of all of the video formats. I imagine I will eventually want the highest resolution productions available and file size should be no problem.

[hatchetman]

If size is no object, AVI is the correct format. Since auto-detect is quick and easy, why do you want to save the scene selection since you will be editing later. Again, if size is not object, and you have selected the scenes but will do more editng later, select output to DV AVI (icon above preview windows.)

 

I guess I wanted to test everything out before I continued loading all of my 8mm tapes onto my hard drive. If AVI is indeed a suitable format, I will work on getting ALL of my video first copied to thge hard drive and then start messing with the editing (this will be a daunting process). Ultimately, I want to separate video clips of different events from the same original tapes and save them different different folders. Oftentimes, I will have many different events on the same tape and I need to separate them. I don't know how to do this without videowave to break the video up. I guess if I use VideoWave I should use the best format for the production when I output it. Does this sound right? There are 20 or so video file qualities to select. I would use "DV format AVI". Would I loose any quality in this process?

[grandpabruce]

I guess I wanted to test everything out before I continued loading all of my 8mm tapes onto my hard drive. If AVI is indeed a suitable format, I will work on getting ALL of my video first copied to thge hard drive and then start messing with the editing (this will be a daunting process). Ultimately, I want to separate video clips of different events from the same original tapes and save them different different folders. Oftentimes, I will have many different events on the same tape and I need to separate them. I don't know how to do this without videowave to break the video up. I guess if I use VideoWave I should use the best format for the production when I output it. Does this sound right? There are 20 or so video file qualities to select. I would use "DV format AVI". Would I loose any quality in this process?

 

DV-AVI is a straight, lossless, 1:1 quality. That is what you want.

 

My advice to you is to get the largest hard drive you can afford, and save those captures to that hard drive.

 

Put that drive in a drawer, until you want to edit the videos you have on that drive. You don't have to do them all at the same time.

 

[Guest ml]

As someone who has done this, please bear with me and let me share my experience..... It is truly a daunting task......

 

I capture as Bruce advises in DV AVI because you're not going to get as many dropped frames as you would if your computer is trying to capture and encode to mpeg2. It can quickly use up hard drive space and much of it is video that is not usable.

 

So, rather than doing Scene Detect, I put the entire video onto a timeline and do basic editing. I 'split' or use 'markers' to delete scenes from the first event. When I'm done, the production contains only the scenes that I want to keep from event #1.

 

Then I do a File\ Output production... select Video File.... DV Output.....(that's DV AVI) choose a meaningful name ( usually the year, month, day, and event name ) and store it in a folder for the same type of events.... ie. Amys Dance Recital, Johns Baseball.

 

Then I go back and do the same thing for event #2, event #3, etc.

 

When I'm done, I have all the events (minus unusable video) in their own separate folders and in standalone movies and can go back and delete the original video. That can save a lot of hard drive space ( 13 GBs for 1 hour of video)

 

Now you can capture all the video at one time and edit it later, but that can be a bit risky. I discovered that one of my tapes hadn't captured properly even though the preview looked ok. Digging through my box of captured tapes in order to find the video was not fun.

 

Plus if you have a hard drive failure before you create a backup on a second hard drive......( I learn all these things the hard way )

[hatchetman]

As someone who has done this, please bear with me and let me share my experience..... It is truly a daunting task......

 

I capture as Bruce advises in DV AVI because you're not going to get as many dropped frames as you would if your computer is trying to capture and encode to mpeg2. It can quickly use up hard drive space and much of it is video that is not usable.

 

So, rather than doing Scene Detect, I put the entire video onto a timeline and do basic editing. I 'split' or use 'markers' to delete scenes from the first event. When I'm done, the production contains only the scenes that I want to keep from event #1.

 

Then I do a File\ Output production... select Video File.... DV Output.....(that's DV AVI) choose a meaningful name ( usually the year, month, day, and event name ) and store it in a folder for the same type of events.... ie. Amys Dance Recital, Johns Baseball.

 

Then I go back and do the same thing for event #2, event #3, etc.

 

When I'm done, I have all the events (minus unusable video) in their own separate folders and in standalone movies and can go back and delete the original video. That can save a lot of hard drive space ( 13 GBs for 1 hour of video)

 

Now you can capture all the video at one time and edit it later, but that can be a bit risky. I discovered that one of my tapes hadn't captured properly even though the preview looked ok. Digging through my box of captured tapes in order to find the video was not fun.

 

Plus if you have a hard drive failure before you create a backup on a second hard drive......( I learn all these things the hard way )

Thanks for the succinct description of how you do it! I understand completely. The timeline idea gave me a "duh" moment. I also like the idea of delaying editing the video. Over the years, the many years I have been procrastinating, I have always thought I would simply start by getting it all on a hard drive. Also, it seems like in the past couple of years the editing software improvements have been by leaps and bounds. I would be happy just to have the video organized so I could do a production for a particular event...

 

I can get a 1TB external drive for a few hundred bucks. Of course, the hard drive failure comment struck a cord too.

 

Thanks for the comments! I'll keep you posted on this thread if I learn anything along the way.

[sknis]

Thanks for the succinct description of how you do it! I understand completely. The timeline idea gave me a "duh" moment. I also like the idea of delaying editing the video. Over the years, the many years I have been procrastinating, I have always thought I would simply start by getting it all on a hard drive. Also, it seems like in the past couple of years the editing software improvements have been by leaps and bounds. I would be happy just to have the video organized so I could do a production for a particular event...

 

I can get a 1TB external drive for a few hundred bucks. Of course, the hard drive failure comment struck a cord too.

 

Thanks for the comments! I'll keep you posted on this thread if I learn anything along the way.

 

How old are you? Is there someone else who could do if if, heaven forbid, you cannot do it later? Do the full projects including editing and burning to disc now !

 

Nothing says you can't do it now and again in the future when there have been improvements in software and your knowledge about video editing. Remember editing does not destroy the original files unless you overwrite them.

 

I'm old enough to be concerned with my long term plans.

 

 

 

[sknis]

Hello everyone. I am a new member. I have had EMC 9 (which never functioned right for me) and now EMC 10 running on a new system.

 

I am busy importing many years of 8mm and Hi8 video with Roxio's 'import video' using the AVI format. I am saving the video files in folders by year under "videos" in my windows vista machine. I will eventually copy over to an external hard drive or two for remote storage. I am using a fire wire conection and my Sony TRV480 which converts my older analog tapes to digital, pretty nice...Is the AVI the best format to use if size is no object or am I better off using Windows Media Center or something like that to maintain the very best image quality in my video files I want to edit later?

 

I am also using VideoWave to edit auto-detected scenes and when I go to output the production I need to know what the best video storage format would be for me. Roxio's help is no help and I have little to no knowledge of all of the video formats. I imagine I will eventually want the highest resolution productions available and file size should be no problem.

 

If size is no object, AVI is the correct format. Since auto-detect is quick and easy, why do you want to save the scene selection since you will be editing later. Again, if size is not object, and you have selected the scenes but will do more editng later, select output to DV AVI (icon above preview windows.)