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Gear / Technical Help => Photo / Video Recording => Topic started by: HASHTHRASH on March 08, 2010, 11:52:04 AM
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So I'm working on a documentary on a local volunteer run music venue that is approaching it's 25th year being open. A lot of shows happened in this place, and a lot of videos were shot on video over the years, many of which are being submitted to me on DVD, and some I'm archiving myself on a Phillips 4-head VCR/DVD combo.
Now, I'm on a mac, so I had some difficulty finding a way to rip DVDs over to DV files that I can edit on FCP. I found Cinematize 2, and that has worked for my immediate needs. It has a "lossless" setting, which I know is a bit silly because the video itself is already compressed, but I certainly don't want to add any further compression to it.
After I play with the audio a bit, and do some color correction, the videos always come out looking far better than when I received it. So of course at times I like to burn it back over to a DVD through DVD Studio Pro for my own viewing / collecting pleasure.
While this is perfect for the documentary, where most of the videos will be seen in quick montages, and good enough for my own entertainment at home, I wonder if I give out or trade copies, am I sending out lossy DVDs now? Taking a standalone DVDR (and sometimes they are even shot direct to DVD by some folk who use those cameras), rip it to DV, run it though FCP and DVDSP, and back onto DVD.
I don't really know any other quick and reliable way to convert VHS & Hi8 to a DV file either, I tried Dazzle years ago and I didn't like it. Getting the standalone was a huge help in converting the mountain of videos I have, but some of the videos need a little more love to be their best.
So would I be polluting the trading pool if I trade out my remastered DVDs? Should I just stick to keeping my remasters for my own use, and give out the standalone transfers if I have to trade them out?
And is there some simpler way to do analog video transfers direct to mac that I am just oblivious to?
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It has a "lossless" setting, which I know is a bit silly because the video itself is already compressed, but I certainly don't want to add any further compression to it.
After I play with the audio a bit, and do some color correction, the videos always come out looking far better than when I received it. So of course at times I like to burn it back over to a DVD through DVD Studio Pro for my own viewing / collecting pleasure.
While this is perfect for the documentary, where most of the videos will be seen in quick montages, and good enough for my own entertainment at home, I wonder if I give out or trade copies, am I sending out lossy DVDs now? Taking a standalone DVDR (and sometimes they are even shot direct to DVD by some folk who use those cameras), rip it to DV, run it though FCP and DVDSP, and back onto DVD.
Colour correction always requires re-encoding. The lossless setting can only be used for DVD footage when you are doing simple re-edits, in which case it simply copies the exisitng frames around without altering them. If you actually change each frame by changing the colours, you always need to re-encode. So yes, there is another level of lossy compression being used here.
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It has a "lossless" setting, which I know is a bit silly because the video itself is already compressed, but I certainly don't want to add any further compression to it.
After I play with the audio a bit, and do some color correction, the videos always come out looking far better than when I received it. So of course at times I like to burn it back over to a DVD through DVD Studio Pro for my own viewing / collecting pleasure.
While this is perfect for the documentary, where most of the videos will be seen in quick montages, and good enough for my own entertainment at home, I wonder if I give out or trade copies, am I sending out lossy DVDs now? Taking a standalone DVDR (and sometimes they are even shot direct to DVD by some folk who use those cameras), rip it to DV, run it though FCP and DVDSP, and back onto DVD.
Colour correction always requires re-encoding. The lossless setting can only be used for DVD footage when you are doing simple re-edits, in which case it simply copies the exisitng frames around without altering them. If you actually change each frame by changing the colours, you always need to re-encode. So yes, there is another level of lossy compression being used here.
Hmmmm. That part I'll actually just have to be OK with I suppose. Because these days there's no way I'm sending any footage through Final Cut and not throwing some sort of color correction on, even off my own DV masters. I find that damn near every time even just spending 5 minutes playing with the color correction will add greatly to the final video. It has saved many recordings too.
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If you want to do it right, you should not use anything that has a DVD generation before editing.
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If you want to do it right, you should not use anything that has a DVD generation before editing.
Would you mind elaborating please? Of course I'd rather not have that extra DVD step in it, hence my wondering if there was another option. And bear in mind I'm talking about doing a massive amount of transfers, hundreds and hundred of VHS tapes in various condition, usually 10-25 years old, with several thousand shows on them... Sadly not as ideal of source material as my neatly organized minidv tapes.
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Instead of transferring the original tape direct to DVD (using your VCR/DVD combo), you would get a better final result by transferring the footage to your computer using the DV-AVI codec (25Mpbs / 13 gigabytes per hour). You could use something like an ADVC 110 ( http://www.grassvalley.com/products/advc110 ) or if you have a miniDV video camera with analog pass-thru you could use that instead.
Then you would apply your color correction and any other filters you need. THEN, encode it to DVD.
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Instead of transferring the original tape direct to DVD (using your VCR/DVD combo), you would get a better final result by transferring the footage to your computer using the DV-AVI codec (25Mpbs / 13 gigabytes per hour). You could use something like an ADVC 110 ( http://www.grassvalley.com/products/advc110 ) or if you have a miniDV video camera with analog pass-thru you could use that instead.
Then you would apply your color correction and any other filters you need. THEN, encode it to DVD.
Thank You! This will be in my next B&H order for sure.
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Alot of mini dv cams allow analog pass thru so you might not need the grass valley device.what cameras do you have?
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Alot of mini dv cams allow analog pass thru so you might not need the grass valley device.what cameras do you have?
A Sony DCR-HC52 (mainly as a deck), and a couple Panasonic DVX100A's.
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A Sony DCR-HC52 (mainly as a deck)
No good.
and a couple Panasonic DVX100A's.
Bingo! You'll be able to do analog pass-thru using this camera. Here are some instructions.
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/panasonic-dvx-dvc-assistant/9164-using-dvx100-digitizer-vhs-tapes.html
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If you want to do it right, you should not use anything that has a DVD generation before editing.
Would you mind elaborating please?
The other guys explained it better than I could. I pass through one of my cameras to do it.
That said, and despite my earlier comment, I have some stuff on DVD that I want to import to Final Cut Pro to edit. (My friend threw a private show in Boulder with her favorite band - these guys offered to shoot multi cam video for the $100 but after the show tried to extort her for $1000 for the footage. They had given her parts on DVD but she was never able to get the full tapes. I want to sync up a couple songs and edit.) Anyway I use MPEG streamclip to convert. Anybody know the settings to get the best filesize for editing without totally bloating it and wasting space? I'm on a mac of course. Thanks.
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I have some stuff on DVD that I want to import to Final Cut Pro to edit.
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I want to sync up a couple songs and edit.
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Anyway I use MPEG streamclip to convert. Anybody know the settings to get the best filesize for editing without totally bloating it and wasting space?
Final Cut should be able to accept VOB (MPEG-2) files. MPEG Streamclip can combine all the VOB files into 1 file. These instructions illustrate how to do it:
To join the VOBs to a single file using MPEG Streamclip, open the first segment, VTS_xx_1.VOB. MPEG Streamclip will ask you "Would you like to open all the files of the stream together?". Choose "Open All Files" to load the whole video title. Then "Fix time code breaks" and Save As a new file.
http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/268058-How-to-get-a-DVD-title-into-a-single-file
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If you want to do it right, you should not use anything that has a DVD generation before editing.
Would you mind elaborating please?
The other guys explained it better than I could. I pass through one of my cameras to do it.
That said, and despite my earlier comment, I have some stuff on DVD that I want to import to Final Cut Pro to edit. (My friend threw a private show in Boulder with her favorite band - these guys offered to shoot multi cam video for the $100 but after the show tried to extort her for $1000 for the footage. They had given her parts on DVD but she was never able to get the full tapes. I want to sync up a couple songs and edit.) Anyway I use MPEG streamclip to convert. Anybody know the settings to get the best filesize for editing without totally bloating it and wasting space? I'm on a mac of course. Thanks.
i use cyberlink's software to import DV and use 9,000 mbps constant bitrate for the video. i figure thats more than usuaul DVD standard and if you probaly won't render the clip at any higher bitrate (at least for DVD authoring) so why waste 16gb on an hour of video instead of 4 when you're only gonna convert to mpeg post-editing anyway. it only allows me to use PCM audio which sux b/c i never use cam audio anyway