Topic: Mixing miniDV with harddrive camera

[cavis]

what would be the best way to go about mixing a dvd with one source being miniDV and the other from a harddrive camera? i should be able to get the video from the hdd cam in whatever source it was recorded in, but i'm assuming the quality would be the same if i just got a dvd from him extracted it myself (which would likely be easier and less likely to mess up for him).

also, can i do video editing with mpeg2 files in vegas? any other tips regarding this process would be helpful if anyone has experience. i just don't want to get started with this and find out there is a better way and have to start all over again.

[hummat]

I'm about try have to do this myself.  I've never been a fan of HardDrive camcorders because ithey immediatley compresses the video.  However, I think you may get better results working from the initial files (.mod ??) than the mpeg. It may save a step of compression, but I'm not sure. Working with mpeg-2 video is like working with mp3 audio.  you don't really want to .  and I wouldn;t be at all suprised if the footage from the Hd and the tape look vastly different when edited together.  May take a good amount of work to get it to look right.

Once I get rolling on my HardDrive/MiniDV project I'll try and chime in with anything that may be helpful.

[leatherman]

I'vd done this a couple of time lately (on a mac) and the best results I got were when I took the mpeg2 files created on the HDD cam and burned them to a dvd (without recompressing the mpegs) and then played the dvd back and recorded it to mini dv via the analog input on my cam.  I know this doesn't sound like the most efficient method, but the results were vastly superior to when i took the mpeg2 and converted it to dv with various softwares.

[taper420]

Huh...this is interesting, cause I just did this about 10 minutes ago, came on the the forum, and here it is. But the HD cam we're using records directly to .dv, and the tape records to mpeg2 (because it's HiDef). Anyway, I would recommend staying as far away from mpeg2 as possible if you are editing (unless you have a miniDV hidef cam, and have no choice). See if there are settings on the HD cam that will allow you to do it in another format. I would have similar problems mixing the signals, but I was kinda going for a sharp contrast of styles between the two cams, so it shouldn't effect me much. I may even add effects on one to make it even more different. But for you, I would first try converting to dv, see how it looks, and if not try the analog method leatherman mentioned. If all else fails and you can't get the HDD to look like the minidv, try to make the minidv look like the HDD.

[BayTaynt3d]

There's a WHOLE LOT of factors at play here, the first and most important of which is what codec is the HDD recording to? Without that, a good strategy can't really be formulated. Is it recording standard def or high def? Is it recording DV, MPEG2, or MPEG4?

Also, you're idea of "just getting a DVD" from him would be OK only if getting it on the DVD doesn't require re-encoding it. If he has to re-encode or transcode it to put it on a DVD I wouldn't take that route (it's like making an MP3 from another MP3). Also, not sure, but maybe you meant just have him copy the files to a "data" DVD, and not for him to make a "playable" DVD.

Like someone else said, editing MPEG2 is not usually preferred. You can do it, but it can be painful and not all software can do it. It can be especially painful with respect to the audio which in all likelihood is in a seperate file from the video (if the HDD recorded to MPEG2).

You really have two main approaches in my opinion: (1) get the HDD into DV, then edit both in DV, or (2) if the HDD was HD, then you could also upres the DV footage to HD, then edit everything in HD (that would preserve the HD quality for the stuff shot on the HD cam).

The other thing to watch out for here is progressive scan vs. interlacing. Make sure you know what each source is. The DV will be 480i, but if the HDD is HD, then it could be 720p or 1080i. So, it's possible you may need to deinterlace one of the sources and work entirely in progressive mode or you may not have to worry about it much because both sources are interlaced.

The key here is to know what codec the HDD used...