yea...BUT for the 5 sources...let me just say that ALOT of the footage on all but 2 cameras is JUNK....I will not be loading in a WHOLE set worth of all 5 at the same time...
I know this will probably be harder...but they didnt tape from start to finish on each camera...DONT ask me why...it wasnt me...i did the audio
I will most likely be using "filler" from other cameras to put into "bad" areas of the two good cameras..if that makes any sense..
I will check into the programs listed so far....thanx and +t
KEEP IT COMING!!!
i use Adobe Premiere Pro. it's decent, and if you're using a PC (which i'm sure you are), then Premiere or Vegas would be the choices i'd go with for mixing the sources... just as others have pointed out. (although, i've never used Vegas, i think it's probably fairly comparable with Premiere... but probably lacking integration that Premiere has with After Effects, Audition, and Photoshop... which you might not need anyway.)
i've never used TMPG DVD Author for DVD authoring, but i'm sure it's decent. there are other programs out there that are easy to use, and you can find them pretty easily ('extended evaluation' versions); like Ulead DVD Workshop. a great program that gives you tons of options (like Scenarist) is DVDMaestro, which is now discontinued. but again, you'd probably be looking for something fairly easy to use that can produce decent results.
when you get your mixing done in Premiere/Vegas/whatever, export to DV .AVI format... or, if you're using Vegas or Premiere, save a step and get FrameServer (google "frameserver" and it's the first hit/result), and then encode with a QUALITY encoder like CCE a.k.a. Cinemacraft Encoder. it's fast, and it's the best quality encoder i've found... MainConcept is okay, and so is Canopus ProCoder. but MainConcept tends to lose sharpness in the original picture compared to the source material (when you look at frame captures, this is easy to spot), and ProCoder takes A WHILE to encode.
i prefer CCE because (a) it encodes the MPEG-2 video (DVD standard) the best of any application i've come across, and (b) it's the fastest encoder i've come across. on my editing machine, CCE encodes faster than MainConcept and/or ProCoder... e.g. MainConcept encodes at about 1.3-1.5x realtime (so a 90 minute video takes about an hour to encode). CCE encodes at 3x+ on my machine, so i can do a lot more passes (which preserves the quality of the video conversion) in the same amount of time.
as someone else said, line up the sources using the audio (from the video feeds) in your editing application. this is fairly easy... in Premiere, you can use the Razor Tool and cut small bits of video you want to use, and discard the chunks you don't want to use (this will save you time later on when you're encoding/exporting, because it means less video for the editing application to process/examine!).
back to Premiere, color correction isn't too difficult to do to match up the sources. and, making video black & white is even easier.
how long is the show? if it's over 90 minutes, you'll need to encode the audio to AC3 format. if the show is under 90 minutes, then stick with PCM (WAV or AIFF) audio!
if you need some info on where to snag some trial software, or help with specific settings to use (for encoding audio/video), just PM me and i'lll be happy to answer all of your questions.
good luck with the project.