If you like showing off your home videos, but dread the process of editing, muvee autoProducer will make you look like a video editing rockstar with almost no effort. The hard part of using muvee is shooting the video. After you have your home video on your computer, making a movie is simply. Choose from one of 8 core movie styles, pick some music from your library as a soundtrack for the movie, add some titles if you need them, and let autoProducer work its magic. For any event that has a number of highlights, like a wedding reception, a child's birthday party, family gatherings, or prom, for example, muvee autoProducer will showcase all the good stuff from your video making you look like a genius. Several other applications have an auto-movie feature that attempts to do what muvee autoProducer excels at, but none come close to actually generating compelling movies from your video clips. If you've been hording video on a series of tapes, because you can't bear the thought of spending all that time building the perfect movie, downloading autoProducer is your chance to finally get the family off your back and deliver what will be some stunning moments on DVD or on your iPod. If the price tag for the app seems a little scary, autoProducer has a cheaper sibling in muveeNow, offering similar but stripped down features from the full autoProducer at a fraction of the price. [Windows 2k/XP/Vista $129.95]
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Chris writes, "We have tried Sonic and Roxio to transfer our digital camera movies to DVD. The movies burn to DVD OK, but when we play in our DVD player on TV screens, the movies are pixilated and not clear... is there some way to correct this problem? If I am understanding the 160 box in the bottom of the camera's movie screen window, our recording pixels may be set at 160 x 120 (compact). Any hope for making to big screen? Or is there a way for the video to only play at 1/4 the size instead of full screen - thereby hopefully keeping integrity of video?
160x120 video is never going to look good on a television screen. The resolution is simply too low. What Sonic does when it authors a standard definition DVD is size the video to fit at a standard full screen NTSC television (or PAL television if you're authoring a PAL disk). That means your 160x120 video is getting stretched to approximately 4 times it's original size. You're on the right track with attempting to play the video at 1/4 the size of full screen, but you need some additional tools to make it work.
The solution to the problem is to add a black border around the video to pad it to an optimal size prior to authoring the DVD. To do this, you'll need two tools I frequently mention here: VirtualDubMod and AVISynth. We're going to use the tools to create black bars all the way around the video to center it on the screen and force the DVD authoring software to maintain the video at it's proper size.
Required Software:
After installing both applications, follow the directions below specific to your video file format.
Putting Borders Around an AVI
If your source file is an AVI, you can force a border within the VirtualDubMod application directly (or with VirtualDub). Open your AVI file in VirtualDubMod and choose Video > Filters from the menu. Click the Add button and choose the resize filter from the list.
On the filter configuration window, leave the original width and height unchanged. Check the box to Expand frame and letterbox image, setting the new Frame width to 640 and the new Frame height to 480. Click OK when you are finished.
Save the file by choosing File > Save As from the menu. When finished open your favorite DVD authoring app and import the AVI you just created with VirtualDubMod and make a DVD.
Putting Borders Around WMV, Real and other Formats
Other formats, like WMV, ASF, MP4 and Real require AVISynth to add a border around the video. This will help you import those files, add a border, and save an AVI you can use in your DVD authoring software.
Note: If you need to add a border around a MOV file, you need to convert the MOV to AVI before attempting to add a border.
Open notepad and type the following, replacing C:\yourfile.wmv with the path to your video:
For 160x120 video use:
AddBorders(DirectShowSource("C:\yourfile.wmv"), 240, 180, 240, 180)
For 320x240 video use:
AddBorders(DirectShowSource("C:\yourfile.wmv"), 160, 120, 160, 120)
Save your notepad file as yourfilename.avs (where yourfilename is whatever you call the file).
If you need to convert a bunch of files, I included AVISynth templates in the VirtualDubMod download.
Open the .avs file you just created in VirtualDubMod. After you add a border around your video with VirtualDubMod save the file as an AVI. Import the AVI you just created into your DVD authoring software and burn a DVD that respects the original resolution of your video.
Here's a before and after show of the video with border in VirtualDubMod.
For more on using VirtualDubMod and AVISynth with video projects see these other tutorials:
Reversing a video clip to play it backwards
Convert PAL to NTSC with VirtualDubMod
How to Convert RMVB with VirtualDubMod
How to make an HD-DVD using standard 4.7GB DVD media or 8.5GB dual layer disks.
After shooting numerous hours of high definition video footage, I've been itching for a way to create some HD-DVDs. There are no HD-DVD burners on the market at the moment. And media seems to be in scarce supply. Sure, I could shell out $700 for a Blu-ray burner, but then I'd need to spend another $600 for a player that conveniently connects to my television (like a PS3, for instance). At least I can use the Xbox 360 HD-DVD player with Windows Vista or my 360, and there's now an HP HD-DVD player in the wild as well. When I found out Pinnacle added support for HD-DVD burning to Pinnacle Studio Plus, I was thrilled. Better yet, they do it by burning to standard 4.7GB DVDs or to 8.5GB dual layer disks.
The HD-DVD burning feature is a $50 upgrade to the existing Pinnacle Studio Plus package and works well for authoring in either Windows XP or Windows Vista. The first time you go to the Make Movie menu and choose HD DVD from the Disc Type menu, Pinnacle opens a window asking you if you want to activate the feature. You can also add it to an existing copy of Pinnacle Studio Plus directly from Pinnacle's site.
How to Make an HD-DVD with Pinnacle Studio
Once you have the HD-DVD portion of Pinnacle Studio Plus activated, it's relatively easy to make an HD-DVD. Click the Make Movie button and choose the Disc tab. Select HD DVD from the Disk Type drop down and choose a Video Quality. Based on my testing, you want to stick with Best Quality, which gives you 23 minutes of movie time on a 4.7GB disk and 42 minutes on a 8.5GB disk. There is an option to maximize movie on the disk and anther one that dynamically adjusts based on how much footage you have, but if you want your video to look great on disk, stick with Best Quality and edit accordingly.
The Settings page is where you might need to make a few changes. It's here you can set a custom bit rate for your video content, convert the video to progressive scan content as the disk is authored and choose whether to burn to disk directly or create a file on your hard drive and then burn.
The only time you want to use progressive encoding is if your content is already progressive (like if your camera shoots in 720p rather than 1080i).
Based on the test DVDs I burned, I highly recommend choosing the Safe mode for Burn Options. I made several coasters and had to go back and re-render my project, which made the whole process of burning disks take several times longer.
Menus and HD-DVD Authoring in Pinnacle
In my tests of adding menus to HD-DVD projects, the final DVD would not play. In each test, the video launched to the menu screen and selecting a chapter caused the video to error out. This leads me to believe that the menuing in Pinnacle Studio Plus is a standard def only feature. This isn't a show stopper for me, but at some point it would be nice to have a working menu structure for HD-DVDs.
Some tips on HD-DVD Authoring with Pinnacle Studio:
- Pinnacle labels the disk the same name as your video project, so if you want a meaningful disk name, choose your project name accordingly.
- The software does not automatically adjust based on the type of disk you put in the drive. If you're using a dual layer disk, make sure you set the software to dual layer or you'll still only get 23 minutes of recording time when burning the project.
- Don't check the box to re-encode your content. The software will re-encode as necessary and it's almost never better to re-encode your files without reason.
- Know your format and playback options before authoring - in general, HDV cameras record interlaced content. You should master your disk with the interlacing intact under most circumstances.
- If you recorded your video at 59.94, you need to decimate the video to 29.97 with something like VirtualDub or Pinnacle won't recognize the video footage
While this isn't the perfect solution of having an HD-DVD burner and actual HD-DVD blank media, Pinnacle's $50 add-on for HD-DVD authoring is worth the investment. The disks play in the Xbox 360 HD-DVD player both connected to a PC and to an Xbox 360 console. They are also compatible with the Toshiba HD-DVD players. One especially nice feature is support for playback in Vista even without connecting to an HDCP compliant display, which makes for a more compelling story for those of us who don't have HDCP compliant monitors yet. You can acquire both Pinnacle Studio Plus and the HD-DVD add-on direct from Pinnacle.
Peter writes, "I have captured some video and now I would like to play it backwards and insert it into a film to give the appearance of catching a knife when in fact I threw it. How can I do it? I have Videowave II and Pinnacle Studio, neither of which seem to be able to do this. Do I need extra software?"
To the best of my knowledge, even the newest version of Videowave still lacks support for playing film clips in reverse. The latest version of Pinnacle Studio does support playing video clips backward, although the way you get there is a not intuitive. I'll also show you another way to play your video backward using AVISynth and VirtualDubMod to make a reverse clip compatible with any video editor.
Playing a Clip Backward with Pinnacle Studio
With the clip you want to play backward on the timeline selected, open the Video Toolbox Effects lists by choosing Toolbox > Add Video Effects. (You can also do this by clicking the video camera icon 
above the timeline and then clicking the power plug icon, but the menu gets you there faster)
In the Standard RTFX category of Video Effects, choose Speed and click OK.
On the Speed effect configuration, check the box next to Reverse. You can speed up or slow down the reverse playback by changing the Speed percentage.
Your video should now play backward on the timeline.
Read how to play a video backwards using AVISynth and VirtualDubMod. (This method works for any video editor, including Windows Movie Maker and Roxio Easy Media Creator).
Many of the popular consumer video editing apps lack an effect for playing video in reverse. Windows Movie Maker has no method for playing video backward on the timeline. The Videowave editor included with Roxio Easy Media Creator has no video reverse mode. Using AVISynth and VirtualDub you can play out almost any video file backward, saving an AVI to import into your favorite video editor.
The following method will work for almost any video that plays back in Windows Media Player, including WMV, MP4, and most AVI files. Your mileage may vary depending on which codecs are installed, but installing ffdshow certainly can't hurt.
Recording video straight to hard drive using an AVCHD camcorder should speed up your video editing workflow. It is not without some frustration in the editing process. Two years after the first AVCHD camcorder hit the market, a handful of tools now work well for editing AVCHD files created with Sony's camcorders and the AVCHD camcorders from Panasonic. I strongly recommend using:
either Pinnacle Studio Ultimate or Sony Vegas
The Sony Vegas option probably makes the most sense considering many of the AVCHD camcorders are made by Sony. Nero Ultra Edition ENHANCED is an additional solution for editing the AVCHD files, however, I find other aspects of Nero frustrating and don't use it for my own editing needs. Pinnacle wins on ease of use, but it's more limiting than Vegas if you're willing to learn the interface.
David writes, "Is there a way to take my DV tape and put only the audio onto a cd? So that people can listen to the audio from the program in their car? I do the multimedia for my church and we are just begining to get into this."
It's definitely possible to take the audio from your digital video tape and put it on a CD. The process will vary slightly depending on what video editing software you use, but the basics of getting the job done are the same in every application. I'll walk through the process of using Windows Movie Maker to capture and edit the video here.
After capturing the video with Windows Movie Maker, add the video to the editing Timeline on the Audio/Music track. Keep in mind that the maximum length for Audio CDs is 72 minutes, so if your audio is longer, you may want to split the video into two files.
From the menu, choose File > Save Movie File. Select My Computer from the list of options presented in the Save Movie Wizard.
Name the file and choose a location to save the file.
Select High Quality Audio (160 Kbps) from the list of Other Settings.
After Windows Movie Maker finishes exporting the audio, open the audio file in your favorite CD burning application and burn an Audio CD.
Additional Notes on Capturing Audio from a DV tape
If you want to save yourself some time in processing the audio, you could record the audio directly from the digital video camera's headphone line out with a computer or external audio recorder. This would give you immediate access to the audio file, without needing to wait for the computer to capture everything on the DV tape. Then simply open the file in an audio editor (like Audacity), edit the audio, save the file and burn it as an audio CD.
Brittany asks, "How can i get YouTube video's onto my iPod? Is this even possible?"
The files YouTube plays back on their site won't play on an iPod directly, but if you download the files to your hard drive and convert them to an iPod compatible format, they will definitely play on your iPod. Depending on whether you have Mac OS X or Windows XP, there's are two different software tools that make putting YouTube videos on your iPod almost automatic.
Putting YouTube Videos on an iPod for Windows XP
If you're a Windows user, the software you need to put YouTube videos on your iPod is iTube.
The software prompts you to paste in the link for the YouTube page with the video you want to convert, then it downloads the video, automatically converts it for your iPod and adds the video to your iTunes library. The next time you connect your iPod to your PC, you can sync the video to your iPod.
Find the video you want to download and copy the URL.
Paste the URL in iTube and click Go!
The software locates the video, downloads the video, and automatically converts the file to an iPod compatible video. The whole process takes a few minutes to complete depending on how long the video is. When the conversion process is complete, the video will be in the Movies section of your iTunes library.
Putting YouTube Videos on an iPod for Mac OS X
If you're downloading YouTube videos to Mac OS X, you need an app called PodTube. The software works almost automatically and gives you a couple of options. There is a slight trick in that the video you want to download from YouTube needs to be your top window in Safari when you start PodTube.
PodTube gives you the option to Encode the video for your iPod as well as letting you toggle whether the software will add the finished file to your iTunes library or not, so if you simply want to play the video locally on your Mac, you don't have to have the file in iTunes.
William writes, "I have a HP PAVILION 783c Desktop. I would like to make still photos from home video on a DVD+R disc. I contacted HP and they said to contact you."
The process of capturing a still image from a DVD is essentially the same, regardless of whether the DVD is one you purchased or one you made from a home movie. The model of computer you have should not matter either. As long as your computer has a DVD drive the process of extracting a still photo from a DVD is relatively painless. There are a number of ways to grab still images from a DVD, but my favorite method uses one software application to do all the work.
May writes, "I have made a slideshow on Windows Movie Maker. I am trying to add music to it but every file I try to import says it's not supported so it can't be used. I am trying to use Windows Media Player files. I need them to finish this. How do I make them compatible or where do I find music compatible with the Movie Maker?"
Windows Movie Maker supports a number of file formats. Uncompressed WAV and AIFF (.aiff, .aif, .aifc) files are supported. Windows Media Audio .wma files and Microsoft's ASF format both work with Windows Movie Maker. MP3 files can be used in movie projects. Even the slightly more obscure .snd, .au, .mpa, and .mp2 audio files should all import into the Windows Movie Maker Collections without issue. Assuming the files you are trying to use are one of the formats listed above, they should work with Windows Movie Maker. Like anything else, there are a few caveats.
Amber asks, "I figured out how to make my YouTube video play automatically, is there a way to make it keep playing over and over again without having to press the play button?"
YouTube enables a number of parameters by appending data to the URL of the video file. They do a lousy job of making the information easy to find, but once you know how it works implementation is fairly easy. I recently stepped through how to automatically start a YouTube video, with specific steps for MySpace users. The same trick will also work on any other online publishing space. To make the video loop, so that it restarts when it reaches the end, you need to add a slightly different command either in addition to the auto-start feature or by itself if you want viewers to click play the first time.
Zachary asks, "Once I have inserted a YouTube video into myspace, is there any way to get it to play automatically? If so, how?"
In a previous article I talk about how to add a YouTube video to MySpace, without all the headaches caused by the MySpace blogging interface. Making a video start playing automatically requires one additional step, which requires modifying the code provided by YouTube for posting. This step will also work if you want to make a YouTube video automatically start playing on any other type of Web page, although the exact steps for adding video to a particular blogging engine vary.
Aimee writes, I have a two part question - first, how the heck do I put a YouTube video on my MySpace pages? You have a bunch of articles about embedding video, but I can't figure out how to do this with YouTube. Second, how do I get rid of a friend from MySpace? There doesn't seem to be any way to delete them.
YouTube provides an Embed code in the About This Video section of every video. Similar to my demonstration on how to post Flash video to the Web, you can use this Embed code to post a YouTube video to MySpace. The steps to post the video are listed below. I address your question about how to delete a friend from MySpace elsewhere.
Is there a simple video editing application to convert MOV or AVI files to Flash? Ideally, I'd like to have play control buttons for the Flash player and the HTML code to put the video on a Web page as well.
There are a couple of ways to get your video files from any of the common desktop formats like MOV, AVI and WMV to a more Web friendly playback format like Flash. One easy way to convert a video to Flash is to upload the file to one of the many free online hosting services. This gets the video in format you want, but you lose control over the file and possibly some of your rights in the process. Using a desktop application provides more control over the appearance of your final video and makes it easy to only convert the portion of a video file you need. I haven't found a free Flash conversion app I'm willing to recommend for Windows users, but Mac OS X users, have the option of using ffmpegX to convert video files to Flash with ease. Read on for Windows Flash conversion options.
Converting Movie Files with a Video Hosting Service
For the absolute simplest way to convert movie files to Flash, uploading your videos to a service like YouTube is the path of least resistance. Simply sign up for a free account, follow the onsite upload instructions and use the provided embed code to host the video on your own Website or blog. You won't incur any of the hassles of managing bandwidth for a popular video and you don't take up any space on your Web server in the process.
The risk in doing this is giving up some control over your video. By uploading your video to a site like YouTube, you are expected to comply with their terms of service. In some cases, like YouTube specifically, the video hosting service owns rights to your video. It's important to decide whether the ease of use is worth the tradeoffs before uploading your videos to a service.
Converting Movie Files with a Desktop Application
The app I use to convert movies to Flash is Flash Video Studio. It imports MOV, AVI, WMV, DivX, MPEG-4 AVI files, and a handful of other formats. Flash output is either as SWF or FLV depending on your preference. You can watermark videos with an animated graphic or image file. The playback buttons are customizable. Video effects like brightness and contrast correction, grayscale, motion blur and embossing add a number of creative options. Additional soundtrack audio is optional. Built-in FTP automatically uploads files to the Web after processing and you can batch convert files if you have many videos to convert at once.
If you download the trial version of Flash Video Studio from this site, later registration helps support the free information provided here.
You can view a quick tutorial on how to convert a video with Flash Video Studio elsewhere on this site. The example shows converting an AVI, but the steps are the same for MOV and other formats.
As mentioned above, Mac OS X users should definitely check out ffmpegX as a great solution for converting many video formats to Flash.
Not to be confused with the other iTube! for Mac OS X, which is designed for easy location of online streaming video, this iTube makes downloading YouTube videos easier for Windows users. Put in the URL for the YouTube video you want to download, iTube converts the video to an iPod compatible MPEG-4 file and automatically adds the video to your iTunes library. The premise is simple, just paste in a URL and let the conversion magic happen, but it's a much better way to manage viewing of YouTube content offline than something like KeepVid, which merely grabs the Flash file and puts it on your desktop. [Windows 2k/XP $0.00]
Whether you like Philip K. Dick or not, A Scanner Darkly looks amazing. The rotoscoping technique used by Richard Linklater was perfected in his previous film Waking Life and applied in a beautifully disturbing way in A Scanner Darkly. If you want to make something similar yourself, all you need is a video, Photoshop and a whole ton of patience. A guy named Jared at barnt.org walks through how to start with a video clip, export it as individual images using QuickTime Pro and then edit the resulting image files in Photoshop using specific filters before ultimately re-importing the files back into a video editing app to publish your finished file. While this isn't exactly rotoscoping, the visual appearance of the footage looks very similar and you get a striking result.
Learn how to make your own Rotoscope video
You can see a sample video hosted on Metacafe (for best results, right-click save target as).
Or here's one based on the same tutorial from YouTube:
Shawn writes, I've got a 4.25 GB .avi file that I need to get to somebody. Every time I try to FTP it, I time out after about 25 MB transferred. Any suggestions on how to shrink it (tried to zip and was told it was too large)?
There are several ways to tackle this issue. If FTP is timing out, one way to address the problem is to use an FTP client that automatically resumes uploads when a timeout occurs, this way you get the file transferred without the frustration of numerous restarts. A second option is to use a compression utility that breaks large files into smaller chunks for easier file transfer. A third option is to simply burn the file to a data DVD and send it via overnight mail. Sure you're out $15, but it's a foolproof method for getting files from Point A to Point B with reasonable quickness. Read on to look at how each of these options plays out.
Deciding which video formats to support when creating a Web video project is confusing. Whether you're video blogging, posting video how-tos online or sharing your short film with an online audience, you need to offer video in formats the audience can handle. At the moment, this means publishing in several formats to a number of different services to make sure the widest audience possible can watch your video creations. One video maker with a massive online viewing audience is my pal Bre Pettis who makes video for Make Magazine and for himself. Bre recently posted a detailed list of all the formats he outputs for the Web, including the reasoning behind why he choose the formats and resolutions. While not everyone has available bandwidth to distribute a 1280x720 HD version of their video project online, it's great to see he's looking to the future and offering a high res version that should look great both on computer screens and on television. The rest of the formats are definitely good common sense and should be emulated by anyone making video for the Internet.
Brian writes, I just started watching videos on YouTube recently, but I can't figure out how to save them to my hard drive. Is this possible, or am I stuck bookmarking the pages?
YouTube uses Flash video to playback movies on their site. In addition to being universally supported on most computers, one of the many benefits of using Flash from a publishers standpoint is making it harder for people to download the movies. It's not impossible and depending on how the Flash movies are played, you can sometimes simply dig in your Temp directory for the file because the server actually downloads the entire movie to your computer during playback.
When you want your entire video project to stand out, a first impression goes a long way. The first images displayed in most movies are the opening credits, which are often an afterthought at the end of a long video project. Keeping them plain is one way to leave no impression, saving the bigger bang for the actual movie footage. Another option is to create something simple that captures the essence of your movie without going over the top. Something unique to the event on video goes a long way toward setting up the movie and leaving a lasting impression about the whole package. When I shot a video of Steven Page performing at a live in store in Seattle's Easy Street Records, I used the store marquee as the backdrop for my title screens. This tutorial shows you how to take any outdoor sign and fit it into the context of your video project.
For this tutorial, I'm using Adobe Photoshop Elements and Adobe Premiere Elements. You could also use something as basic as Microsoft Paint for the photo editing, although it might take longer and paint doesn't support creating multiple layers. Any video editing application can handle the JPG photos we're creating here.
The first stage is to get a high resolution photograph of the sign you want to use. This can be done either before, during or after the actual event you are covering, just make sure the shot looks good. Bring the photo into your favorite photo editing application to convert it from a still photo into the backdrop for your opening credits.
The marquee sign has a bunch of text on it related to the event. I'm going to erase the original text and replace it with my own text.
Erasing Text with Photoshop Elements
Open the photo in your photo editing app and save a copy with a new name. Zoom in to at least 200% of the original size (Photoshop uses the shortcut Ctrl+'=' to zoom)
Use the eyedropper tool to select an area in a section of the sign with a color closely matching the background where letters currently appear.
Select the Eraser tool and switch the selected color to the background using the Foreground / Background color swapping tool. Use the Eraser tool to eliminate all the letters currently on the sign, being careful to keep the individual sign spaces intact.
Once you erase all the letters resize the image to 720x480 (cropping as necessary) which is the default size for video recorded using a DV camcorder. Save the file to use this image as the template for your titles.
Adding Title Text Using Layers
Choose a font and size that fits your sign. For my sign I went with Placard Condensed both because it was easy to read on screen and because it fit reasonably well in the marquee sign. In lining up the font with the boxes, I was generally able to simply add a single space between each letter to fit text in the boxes. Not perfect, but close.
The trick here is to use the layer capability of your photo editor to save time in creating titles. I use the same base template image and reveal layers as needed in creating new title slides.
When I have the text I need for a title, I simply do a save as and create a JPG image which only shows the currently visible layers.
After saving hide the current layer and add new text in it's place.
After all the title slides are created, import them into your video editing application to assemble the titles ahead of your movie.
Insert your title slides in order on the video timeline.
Adjust the display duration on each file until you get the timing right for your titles. Photoshop Elements should let you set a default based on frames, but I'm getting a glitch where it won't recognize a minimum smaller than 150 frames for the global value (5 minutes). Right-clicking the image in the timeline and choosing Time Stretch lets you set a different value for duration. For my titles 2 seconds is almost too long.
Save out the finished movie project. You can see an example of the titles demoed here in action below:
You can take the concept of using individual layers in Photoshop Elements a step further to build out titles that appear to write text on the screen as well. Start with the same basic image and gradually add a series of letters to spell out what you want giving you an effect like what's demonstrated in this video:
The full movie where I used these titles is at pmcmovies.com.
I have several movies available in Windows Media WMV format. I want to convert the files for playback on PSP and iPod. What can I use to convert WMV to MP4?
If you edit movies using Windows Movie Maker or simply saved a bunch of video in WMV format, there's no direct conduit to getting videos to your PSP or iPod. Sony added WMA support to the PSP sometime back and it would be great to see WMV support if only because Windows Movie Maker is installed with every copy of Windows XP and ultimately Windows Vista. In the meantime, there are a handful of options for converting WMV files to MP4 files compatible with both PSP and iPod devices.
Bob asks, What do you recommend for a video camera for video blogs at a reasonable cost?
No matter what video recording solution you currently own, the real key is to just get out there and start creating. You can always purchase the perfect tools later. Having said that, it's important to consider several factors (including cost) when you're planning to video blog. Recommending a particular video camera or style of camera depends greatly on the subject and style of your video blog. If you are always providing talking head commentary with very little on screen action, camera options more open than if you plan to shoot a weekly video serial with several participants and scene changes. Here are the key things to think about:
1) Who is your target audience?
2) How is your video blog staged?
3) How big is the video camera?
4) How much time does it take to import and edit the files?
5) What format do you plan to distribute the files in?
Who is your target audience?
Target audience is one primary factor in determining which type of camera to use. If the audience is anyone who might stumble on to your work, the bar is lower than if you are trying to convey a specific message to corporate clients or using your video blog as the pilot project showcasing a certain set of video skills.
How is your video blog staged?
Whenever you shoot video, you might spend 5 seconds or 5 minutes preparing to shoot. This is staging. Think about whether your video blog will be completely ad hoc using a handheld camera at arms length with your smiling face starring, whether you have a basic set and tripod mount, or whether you are truly staging a production of some kind with multiple participants and scenes.
In the ad hoc scenario, the video function on a digital still camera might work great. For tripod mounting, virtually any digital video camera might work and for complex productions, you want to be sure you are using a 3CCD digital video camera.
How big is the video camera?
Camera size is important because if you video blog on the go, you want something portable. A larger form factor digital video camera almost always results in better looking video with more color depth, but is more likely to stay at home when you don't want to be encumbered by extra bulk in a pocket or bag. A pocket-sized camera, like one of the newer digital video cameras that record to SD or a small form factor digital still camera like the Canon Digital Elph series easily goes everywhere you go. If you shoot in a stationary location, video camera size doesn't matter, but factors like image quality might.
How much time does it take to import and edit your video?
The more time required to import and edit your video, the more a video blog starts to feel like work. In many cases, when something is too much like work it gets abandoned when there's no clear advantage to continuing. Recording to a digital card like the JVC Everio pictured here means faster than real time transfer of files. If you are a one take wonder, this means the raw footage is immediately ready for upload with no waiting to import tape and output a file. If you require minor editing, the time investment is minimized because you aren't waiting the same number of minutes importing you just spent shooting.
Keep in mind that I'm not referring to the SD cards used by digital video cameras to record still images. I'm specifically referring to video cameras that record video direct to SD.
What format do you plan to distribute the files in?
The standard in video blogging is 320x240 video in Flash, WMV, MOV or MP4. Flash is fast becoming the online streaming standard for video with MP4 h.263 video becoming the standard for downloads because of universal iPod and PSP compatibility (let's hope Sony adds h.264 someday soon). Depending on which camera you select for recording and the list of other factors above, you might be able to simply record and upload a file direct from your camera. For instance, my cell phone records MP4 video compatible with both iPod and PSP form factors, although the image size is smaller than I would like.
Recording format is important for simplifying distribution. Camcorders with record-to-DVD support cause headaches for many people by dramatically increasing the hassle of working with video during editing. For widest compatibility, starting with a miniDV tape or hard disk based recorder and importing DV-AVI requires the least conversion hassle when you're saving files in multiple formats. If you use a digital still camera, the format is typically AVI, MP4, MOV, or WMV. The trick here becomes figuring out which software will convert your video to the format you need for publishing.
I downloaded a movie and when I opened it there were several .rmvb files. How can I combine those into files into one so that the movie isn't interrupted while I'm watching it?
Large downloads are often broken into smaller chunks to make them more manageable for compression tools or to speed the upload/download process. Tools for joining RealMedia Variable Bitrate (RMVB) files are becoming more popular as a method of distributing video online, thanks in large part to Real making source code available via the Helix Community. While it's possible to get RealMedia authoring tools directly from Real, there are a few solutions available for editing and joining files through independent software developers.
I recently clicked a link to download a movie and when I unzipped the file it contained something with a .ogm extension. Windows doesn't recognize the file. Is this a virus or did I do something wrong?
While it's always smart to scan any download for viruses, the OGM extension is typically associated with video files. OGM is the Ogg Vorbis video container format, similar to AVI or MP4, that generally contains Ogg Vorbis audio and a video stream that is often DivX, XviD or Theora video format. To play an OGM file, you have one of two easy options.
In a recent tutorial, I provided instructions on grabbing a still image from a video file using VirtualDub and Windows Movie Maker. Another free option, recommended by subscriber Elfi, is Video2Photo. The app accepts input from a variety of "live" sources, including digital video cameras, live streams, TV tuner cards, and Webcams. Video2Photo also processes AVI, MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and still image formats. Essentially, you locate the section of video you want to grab a still, apply some effects (like deinterlacing and color correction) if desired, and outputting a finished image file. A pre-buffer option is available to capture high-motion images. Free registration is required to get rid of nag screen and image watermark. [Windows 9x/2k/XP $0.00]
Todd writes, I am running WinXP Media Center 2005 Edition SP2 on my P4, 1GB Ram, home machine. I recently did a Windows Update and part of that was to update Windows Media Player. I was using Version 10 already, so it was just a small update (but, if recall correctly, it was classified as "critical"). After the update, WMP would no longer play .avi files in color...only in black and white. It handles everything else just fine. Media Player Classic, VLC, BSPlayer, and Nero Showtime all handle the files just fine. I am using FFDshow for most of my codecs and I can find nothing wrong there nor can I find a way to rollback that particular WMP update.
It shouldn't require a Windows Media Player rollback in order to fix your problem. In all likelihood, this problem doesn't impact every AVI file on your system, only ones using a common codec like DivX or XviD. Sometimes updates to Windows Media Player disrupt the way a specific codec is addressed by Windows Media Player and you need to re-install that codec in order to return things to normal. These are generally third-party codecs not officially supported by Windows Media Player with their own custom integration with the player. Before proceeding you need more information.
The first step in solving your problem is to download the codec information application GSpot. This will provide detailed information about specific AVI files impacted by the problem. Open one of the files with GSpot and make note of the codec information provided.
After determining which codec is associated with the quirky AVI file, download the latest version of the codec and re-install the specific codec to solve the problem.
This solution will also fix video playback with no audio, as well as fixing video playing back upside down.
Roger writes, Can you please tell me how to get a still picture or print a picture from a home movie? When my grandson was born, I used my camcorder to make a home movie. My daughter is starting a scrap book and wanted me to print pictures from the movie I made. I don't know if there is a way to do this? i have been reading and searching without success.
There are two key parts to the problem of extracting a still image from a video for printing. The first part of the problem is to grab the image. The second part is being able to print a usable image from a source that's lower than print quality. Extracting a still from the video is the easy part. Getting a good looking print is slightly more complicated.
Assuming your camcorder is digital, connect the camcorder via FireWire and import video to your computer using an app like Windows Movie Maker or WinDV. You can read more about capturing video in From Digital Video to DVD and a second article on Transferring video from camcorder to PC.
If you use Windows Movie Maker for video editing, select the movie clip containing the frame you want to export in the video collection, scroll to the frame you want to export and click the Take Picture button. This generates a 640x480 clip from your movie, which is then saved to your hard drive. Export it into your favorite photo editor to clean up the image or print.
A second option is to use the free video editor VirtualDub. Open the video in VirtualDub, scroll to the video frame you want to export, and select Video > Copy source frame to clipboard from the menu.
Next open your favorite image editing application and paste the frame into the image editor. For example, if you use Adobe Photoshop Elements, this is accomplished by choosing New > Image from Clipboard. You can also use the free image editor Irfanview and choose Edit > Paste to copy your frame into the application. With the video clip in the image application, choose Save As and select JPEG or JPG as the output format. Choose the maximum quality setting which results in the biggest file size and least compression of the image (in Adobe this is 12, in Irfanview the max is 100). This is necessary to make sure you get the best possible print when you are ready to print the image. The Irfanview settings are pictured below.
Because digital video is a much lower resolution than the majority of digital still cameras, 4x6 is the maximum size you should attempt to print your image. Anything larger starts looking extremely grainy. One test for choosing a suitable image size is to run through the photo printing wizard located in the My Pictures folder. Copy your still image to the My Pictures folder and click the Order prints online option in the sidebar to step through the wizard with your image, selecting the Kodak option. This sounds strange, but Kodak does a great job indicating which print sizes work best with your photo.
Conversion between PAL and NTSC format video is among the more complicated problems to solve in video editing. If you've got a PAL format video you want to play back in the NTSC world, you need to do some complex transformations in order to get a compliant video stream. DGPulldown aims to solve this problem by performing a 3:2 pulldown to convert your existing PAL video at 25fps to an NTSC video stream at 29.97 fps without altering the actual speed of the video in the process. To make the process work, you start with a PAL video source, separate the audio and video with a demuxing tool, deinterlace the video if necessary and resize to 720x480 (standard DVD resolution). Next encode your video source to MPEG-2 at 25fps. Running DGPulldown after this encode step makes the conversion to NTSC at 29.97 frames per second possible. The last step is to recombine the audio and video using your favorite DVD editing app. Not for the feint of heart, but it gets the job done and the result looks better than previous hacks for PAL to NTSC conversion. [Windows 2k/XP $0.00]
I got the chance to see one of the GVD-1000 MiniDV VCR decks in action the other night; I'm convinced I need one. The feature set of the GVD-1000 makes it a digital video camera without a lens, optimized for reviewing and editing your movies. It's got a screen to 4-inch preview your movie. On board editing features let you specify up to 20 clips on each tape, making it easy to pre-edit or do a rough edit before importing your video into your computer. A Memory Stick slot makes a quick solution for saving reference movies. S-Video and composite video inputs and outputs act as a source for recording virtually any analog video signal or passing through a Hi8 or VHS source directly through FireWire. If you record and edit video frequently, possibly the best reason to consider the GVD-1000 is to extend the life of your digital video camera. All that time spinning the motor on your camcorder during import will dramatically reduce the life of your camcorder. The GVD-1000 is optimized for editing and playback, with considerably more robust features optimized specifically for recording and playback. Another key advantage of this style deck over larger decks is portability. If you frequently record while traveling, you can easily fit the GVD-1000 in you camera bag and take it with you. Battery life is much longer than camcorders using the same Sony battery pack common to many of their cameras. If you still use Digital8, there's also the GVD-800.
Compare Prices on the Sony GVD-1000
Search eBay for a Sony GVD-1000 Mini DV Walkman
MPEG-4 is fast becoming the most popular video distribution format thanks to the growing numbers of iPod video and PSP owners, combined with all the consumer electronics devices with DivX support. Creating an MPEG-4 file with all the right settings gets confusing, especially with all the options for creating an AVI wrapper file with DivX or XviD, or adding h.264 video to an MP4 container. If what you want at the end of the day is an MP4 file, you need an easy way to get there from whatever your original format happens to be. Command line app MP4Box is a complex and capable app for creating MP4 files, but command line options get confusing, unless you're addressing them from a graphical interface. YAMB provides a graphical front end to MP4Box, creating a sensible solution for joining audio and video files, adding subtitles and chapter markers, splitting or joining MP4 files and getting detailed information about each file. [Windows 9x/2k/XP $0.00]
When you purchase something new, you expect it to work. Whether it's a brand new HDTV screen or a commodity like a MiniDV tape, the potential for failure isn't part of the thought process as you remove the packaging. Jason Dunn of Digital Media Thoughts recently recorded a friend's wedding with his Canon GL2 mounted on a pro tripod. While being a skilled videographer certainly goes a long way, if your gear lets you down, no amount of video chops can salvage faulty equipment (short of hiring MacGyver).
As Jason puts it: Here's a little story, and an important life lesson, for anyone that uses a video camera to capture memories. Please learn from my mistake so you don't have to go through what I did.
Read Jason's Cautionary tale to videographers
How do I convert RMVB files to AVI or DVD?
RMVB files are great for online downloads, but they aren't widely compatible with all available media players. Converting these RealMedia Variable Bitrate files currently requires either purchasing a video converter or hacking together an AVISynth script for VirtualDubMod, which starts getting a little geeky. Below I provide both conversion options, with a link to software that gracefully handles the easy route and step-by-step instructions for converting RMVB files using VirtualDubMod. If you want to go straight from RMVB to DVD, I also include a third free option that requires a little creativity.
What is an RMVB file and what do I do with it? I downloaded what I thought was a video, but my computer says it doesn't recognize RMVB as a valid file format.
RMVB is a RealMedia Variable Bitrate file. This is one of the newer formats from Real for publishing video files, which is quickly becoming a popular format for Anime and Asian movie titles because of smaller file sizes and lower bitrates with exceptional quality compared to DivX, which has long been the standard for trading videos online. There are two options for playing back the file.
I have a Sony DCR TRV-640 Digital8 camcorder. How can I get video from my camcorder into my computer?
Sony created Digital8 primarily to address backward compatibility with all the 8mm video people created with their Hi8 camcorders for years leading up to digital video hitting a consumer price range. With a Digital8 camcorder you can playback old Hi8 tapes from the Digital8 camcorder or to record in digital using the same tape blanks. You get an advantage of FireWire capture (or as Sony calls it, i.LINK) with any of the Digital8 camcorder models, just like you would if you purchased a MiniDV camcorder.
Without know which video editing software you currently own, I'm going to walk through the process with free video capture application WinDV. WinDV is one of the best apps for video capture because it has a larger than average buffer queue to help prevent dropped video frames during capture. Whether your digital video camera is Digital8 or the more standard MiniDV variety, I highly recommend stepping through the list of recommendations to prevent dropped frames before beginning your video capture.
Connect your Digital8 camcorder to your PC using a FireWire cable. The i.LINK connection on the Sony Digital8 camcorders is always a 4-pin connector. Most desktop PCs, with the exception of Sony computers use 6-pin FireWire connections. Sony uses 4-pin connectors on their desktop PCs as well. On a laptop, the FireWire connection is almost always 4-pin. Make sure you get a FireWire cable to match your needs. For most desktop systems, this means you need a 4-pin to 6-pin cable. For laptops and all Sony computers you need a 4-pin to 4-pin cable.
With both ends of the cable connected, turn on your camcorder in VTR or VCR playback mode. Make sure the tape is rewound to the point you want to capture from. Launch WinDV. Create a name for the video capture file by clicking the ... button next to Capt. file.
The software shows your camera as Paused...Press
Press the Capture button in the software and then press play on your camcorder. Other software applications integrate play controls, which is useful, but WinDV is one of the single best apps for preventing dropped frames, which makes me willing to put up with this shortcoming. When capture is finished, press the capture button in WinDV again and stop playback on your camcorder.
This file is now ready for editing in any video editing application. A great free video editor is VirtualDub.
Video DVD Maker is a straightforward app for capturing video and burning DVDs. The software accepts virtually any video capture device, including DV cameras over FireWire, Webcams and TV tuners. After capture, you can re-organize clips, import additional clips and output a fairly simple but playable DVD. The interface for importing video clips is a little confusing if you are only using video already located on your hard drive, but standard capture from camera, edit and burn is quite well organized for basic steps. The software supports burning video to CD, DVD and dual-layer DVD. If you want fancy menus, you'll need to invest in other software like Sonic MyDVD, Nero Vision Express, Roxio Easy Media Creator or one of the many other capable DVD authoring suites. For free, Video DVD Maker handles the functions of capture, edit and burn quite nicely. [Windows 2k/XP $0.00]
I'm importing old VHS movies to my hard drive using a Plextor USB ConvertX. The hard drive where I'm storing the video is also external USB. Should I anticipate any problems during video capture?
In the world of USB 1.1 it was easy to have too many devices connected to your USB controller, with printers, Webcams, scanners, mice, keyboards, hard drives and a whole host of other peripherals all vying for available USB 1.1 bus speed of 12mbps. Over the past several years, most new computers ship with USB 2.0, which has a 480mbps bus speed (about 40 times faster). In most cases, including a scenario you describe with both hard drive and analog video capture using the USB simultaneously, there should be plenty of USB bandwidth available. If you're unsure how to find out what type of USB controller is in your PC, see my guide on checking for USB 2.0. There are several things you can do to help insure an errorless transfer (not all related to USB).
One key thing I recommend in doing video transfer over USB is to disconnect unused peripherals. If you have a Webcam, scanner, printer, etc connected, disconnect them while doing the video transfer. If you are stuck using USB 1.1, this can be vital to your data transfer, It's likely these peripherals won't have any impact on USB 2.0 transfer, but erring on the safe side never hurts.
If the external hard drive has both USB and FireWire connections (many do) use the FireWire connection on the hard drive instead of USB. Since the video transfer is happening over USB, you'll insure more available transfer bandwidth at both the import and writing to hard drive phases of video capture.
Consult my list of 8 ways to prevent dropped frames during video capture for additional ways to help improve your video capture results. The list was compiled specifically for capturing video from DV camcorders, but most of the advice is also applicable to analog video capture.
In the continuing search for an effective way to edit video files created by Sony Handcam DVD models, I got some great feedback from a number of people.
Marc Bowyer and a number of other people pointed out Sony does include a ripping solution for their DVDs in their Sony Vegas editing suite. That's great, but where's Sony Vegas or a disclaimer or a free trial in the camcorder packaging when I get the DVD camera home from the store? If I just purchased the DVD camera to shoot my kids birthday only to discover I couldn't do anything with the video when I'm finished recording, I'm not a happy camper. I have a copy of Vegas; it's a great editing product, but this creates a lousy experience for anyone who actually elects to own a Sony DVD Handycam. The DVD cams are generally more expensive than MiniDV cams with comparable features, even though I can edit my video out of the box if I buy MiniDV.
Gary writes, My wife uses one of the Sony Handycams which writes the files to a mini-DVD. I'm trying to figure out how to do something with these files other than duplicate the entire mini-DVD. I've tried using the Nero 6 decode routines to convert to .mpg files, but that often doesn't work well, and it generates one file per "scene" instead of just converting the entire thing into one long MPG file.
Ideally, what I'd like to be able to do is to:
1) Start with the original DVD VOB files
2) Remove bad takes
3) Combine several mini-DVD's worth of movies into one longer regular DVD, and
4) Be able to put some sort of menus onto the front of the final DVD to get to different sections, preferably not every scene, but user chosen points. Even being able to just delete some of the original menu items generated by the camera would be great.
I've got Nero v6.6.01 and I purchased Adobe Premier Elements in an attempt to work on these, but they don't seem to be the right tools to work on this.
While there's plenty of debate suggesting XviD does better job of encoding files with a similar AVI MPEG-4 wrapper than the DivX company does themselves, the tools DivX releases are generally more user friendly. If you ever encoded a movie with the original Dr. DivX, using one of the default settings, you are already well aware of just how simply converting a movie from any format to DivX is. Awhile back, DivX changed their software line-up, kicking Dr. DivX to the curb in favor of the new and improved DivX Create bundle, which includes a bunch of drag and burn tools for easily converting video to DivX. If you don't feel inclined to spend the $20 for DivX Create, you can still get most of the functionality using the newly free Dr DivX 2.0. The software has a few kinks, but generally provides the familiar easy to navigate interface for converting video files. If you get confused by all the options in other open source video conversion apps, Dr. DivX 2.0 beta will take some of the confusion out of conversion. [Windows XP $0.00]
Don writes, I have recently purchased a Sony DCR-HC21 handycam recorder and am trying download the video and audio tracks from the camera to my computer using my USB Instant Video software. (Unlead VideoStudio 7 SE)
The video as displayed on the camera monitor is good but when I try to copy the video and audio tracks using the camera USB streaming tool, the video signal displayed on my computer screen is very jerky but the audio is great.
The Unlead VideoStudio 7 SE is using the following setup:
MPEG = MPEG1
Video Bit rate = 4000 kbits
Frame rate 29.97
I have tried all the combinations of settings available on the software package without any success.
Using the AV output connection on the camera and the ADS analog to digital convertor I can get clean (non jerky) but diminished video and audio quality.
Do you have any suggestions to correct this problem?
With any digital video camera, you will get the best quality results when you keep the video in the highest resolution available until you are ready to output your finished movie. You specifically mention your DCR-HC21, but the same rules apply to any DV camera. In this case, you are using USB transfer hardware to import video as MPEG-1. MPEG-1 is a compressed format, generally used for VCD output or digital playback at less than DVD quality. To get great looking video, you need to make a few small changes to the way you import your video from the DV camera to your PC.
The ADS Instant Video hardware you mention here is primarily designed for capturing analog video for import to your PC. It's also an option for capturing video from digital video cameras, but you are limited by the bus speed of your USB connection, which is variable and depending on the age of your computer, may not be fast enough to prevent dropping frames (the jerky video you describe).
The highest quality format supported by your digital video camera is DV-AVI, the native format of MiniDV tape. The only way to import DV-AVI video to your PC from the camera is using FireWire (also called iLINK or IEEE 1394). The DCR-HC21 and all other digital video cameras include a 4-pin FireWire port somewhere on the camera body. PCs typically have a 6-pin FireWire port. If your PC doesn't have FireWire, consider buying a PCI FireWire card for under $20. 4-pin to 6-pin FireWire cables are available at most consumer electronics stores. Ulead VideoStudio supports importing video via FireWire, as do most other editing applications.
If upgrading to FireWire is simply not an option, make sure you are giving your computer an optimal environment for capturing video through USB. Eliminate any unnecessary USB devices by unplugging them during video capture, including your printer, scanner, Webcam, or other random devices. In most cases these devices are sitting idle, but occasionally they can take up available USB bandwidth.
One serious gotcha is if you have a USB external hard drive connected while doing the capture. With the video capture and hard drive both vying for time on the USB bus, you can cause a bottleneck resulting in dropped frames. If your capture is routed to a USB drive, seriously consider moving to FireWire for the camera.
Before you embark on any video editing project, be sure to consult my tips on preventing dropped frames during video capture.
Sometimes after recording footage with your digital video camera you just want a video file to playback. Dealing with an editing app is more trouble than its worth. Exsate DV Capture Live imports video from a DV cam and automatically saves the footage as an AVI or WMV. Options include video timestamping, full tape import and scene-by-scene capture and encoding. One of the slickest features is the option to append the current footage to an existing file, automating the process of combining multiple tapes. The companion Exsate VideoExpress will automatically add video to the front and back of imported projects and apply previously configured settings to your movies automatically, saving you time for repetitive tasks. DV Capture Live won't eliminate any time from projects that require editing, but for simple tape-to-digital transfers, this is a solid alternative to dealing with video editing apps. [Windows 2k/XP $0.00]
"I downloaded an AVI movie and Windows Media Player shows the video but I can't hear any sound. Is the file corrupted or am I doing something wrong? Other AVI movies play just fine."
Getting video and no sound or sound and no video is more common than you might realize. This problem is almost always caused by one of two problems. Either you don't have the required codec installed on your system to decode the audio portion of the file you downloaded. Or Windows Media Player isn't properly associating the correct codec on your system in a way that makes playback possible. The tricky part is the sheer volume of codecs out there and the number of poorly programmed codecs that potentially cause your system to crash. So how do you get the file to play?
Watching A9 demonstrate their project to geo-locate the front of every building in major cities and coordinate the images with a map at Where 2.0 earlier this year is keeping my wheels turning. I don't have any interest in replicating their efforts, although I could duplicate the A9 scenario for Seattle by using the ShotMapper. I'm currently more interested in figuring out ways to mount a digital video camera to my car for other video projects.
Traditional mounting dollies used to film car scenes in movies are pricey and are likely overkill for the single camera setup most home movie enthusiasts use. I looked at the Sticky Pod and realized I can probably build something as good or better for a fraction of the cost. Inspired by my previous efforts in creating a bottle cap tripod from available parts, I'm on a mission to do something on a larger scale for DV cams.
The bottle cap tripod is made entirely from parts available at almost any hardware store. Building a car mounted tripod requires some fittings that aren't readily available from off-the-self components. Fortunately, eBay comes through again with a massive selection of tripods at cheap prices. They also have tripods at typical retail prices, but many bargains await. Monopods at eBay seem particularly suited for providing parts to this project. The key piece to acquire is the tripod head mount to hold the camera securely in place. The actual mounting component isn't as difficult.
The other thing I'm on the lookout for is an inexpensive DV cam. eBay is looking like the best bet for this too. I'm more concerned with price over quality at this point, because I want to test the car mounting system prior to attaching a camera I care about losing. eBay offers this vast list of no name DV cams that probably don't take the best video, but will offer a credible test of mounting a camera on the car and taking it for a drive.
As I put everything together, I'll publish the list of parts I use to build the car mounting kit.
How can I create a Flash movie for my blog?
There are a number of options for creating Flash movies for the Web, all with different prices and varying degrees of control over your content. The most expensive option is to use Macromedia's Flash application, which offers a maximum amount of control over output options for around $400, if you qualify for upgrade pricing. Unless you make money from these Flash movies, that's expensive. A second option is Sorensen Squeeze, which retails for around $120. Sorensen is well known for video compression efforts for a wide range of video formats. The option I currently recommend for most people is Flash Video Studio, because it's affordable at $49 and offers most of the options people require for displaying video online. Here's a quick demo of how I use Flash Video Studio to convert other video formats to Flash SWF files.
1. Locate the video you want to convert.
2. Apply any Effects you want to use for your movie. In general, I bypass this step, apply no effects because I already made all edits in my video editing application.
3. Add a watermark image or text to display on screen during video playback.
4. Set the audio and video quality and change the output dimensions. In most cases, I use Best for both audio and video. I generally change the dimensions of the video to 320x240 maintaining the aspect ratio.
5. In publishing the video file, you select a name for the output file. Choose the playback controls for the video.
6. Also optionally upload the video file to your Website automatically by choosing the FTP option.
7. One additional option on the publish page is instead of simply stopping the video choose Stop and open a website to launch a specific page following video playback.
Flash Video Studio outputs both the Flash SWF file and the HTML code required to display it on your site.
Download a free trial of Flash Video Studio here.
One of the tricky parts about shooting home movies or recording video for your video blog is lighting. In professional video production, there are people who spend their careers perfecting video lighting. Most of us don't want to think about the complexities of getting lighting just right; we just want to record something and play it back later. One of the biggest tricks in lighting is eliminating shadows. For a professional setup, you eliminate shadows by positioning multiple light fixtures in a way that diffused light is evenly spread on your subject to prevent any unwanted shadows. A quick way to help reduce shadows is to make use of existing light by reflecting it off a shiny white surface back at the person or thing you are recording with a bounce card. In a short video tutorial, I demonstrate how to do this, by yourself, using a piece of foamcore from the local office supply store.
How do I convert a QuickTime MOV file to AVI?
The QuickTime MOV format is the video output format for many digital still cameras. MOV is also becoming very popular as the distribution format for video bloggers; primarily because many video bloggers are also Mac users. If you want to edit your MOV files in Windows Movie Maker or playback video blogs on one of the many portable video players from companies like Creative and Archos, it becomes necessary to convert those files to a compatible format. In most cases, converting to AVI is the quickest intermediate step for converting MOV to something portable to applications and portable devices.
"I have videos with dialogue in both Spanish and English. I want everyone who watches the movies to understand what's being said. Is there an affordable way to add subtitles to my movie? All the programs I found online seem expensive and complicated."
Depending on what your subtitle expectations are and which computing platform you use, adding a subtitle track to your video project doesn't need to cost anything. Where subtitles get complicated is including alternate subtitle tracks like the ones found on DVD releases. It's also tricky to make the subtitles an option you can switch on or off. For these advanced subtitle features, you need DVD authoring software with subtitle support. For video files offered for download or streaming, you don't need complex DVD authoring. Since you don't specify whether you are using Windows or Mac OS X, I'll suggest alternatives for both.
Windows Movie Maker Subtitles
Windows Movie Maker includes subtitles as an option in the built in title tool. The disadvantage is the software only allows you to add on title per clip, so a dialogue intense movie needs to be broken into many small clips in order to get subtitles matched up with every verbal exchange. The other disadvantage is very little control over where the subtitles appear on screen. The only option is at the bottom of the screen with either one or two lines of text.
To create a subtitle in Windows Movie Maker, select the movie clip on the timeline by clicking on it and choose Tools > Titles and Credits from the menu. Choose the option to Add title on the selected clip in the timeline.
Type in your title text in the empty box provided and click Change the title animation. Find the Subtitle option in the list of choices. The last thing to do is adjust the color (and possibly the font) of your subtitle. The default color for titles in Windows Movie Maker is white, which is almost impossible to read in light colored sections of your movie sequence. As someone who watches many films from Korea and China, I know reading subtitles on screen is much easier is the color is a shade of yellow. Click on Change the font text and color and make selections to fit your needs.
Repeat these steps for each of the clips in your movie.
iMovie Subtitles
Apple's iMovie is more versatile in it's subtitling options, although still not perfect. When working with iMovie, you have the limitation of titles appearing in overlay on the video. iMovie supports two subtitle options, not counting the Stripe Subtitle, which is more like the marquee you see appearing at the bottom of a screen to identify the current person speaking. Option one is a two line subtitle for adding text detail on a per clip basis. A more versatile option for adding subtitles to a dialog intensive movie is the Subtitle Multiple Option.
With the Titles button selected in your workspace, expand Subtitle in the titles menu and choose Subtitle Multiple. Type in your title information and click the plus (+) button until you get all of the subtitles added for the clip.
By default iMovie uses television margins for positioning the subtitles, which means the text is bumped up higher in the picture to prevent cutting it off on your screen. If your movie is for the online distribution, check the box next to QT Margins to neatly adjust the subtitles closer to the bottom of the frame. If you have a light colored background, be sure to change the text color from the default white to something easily readable.
When you create a WMV movie using Windows Movie Maker, Windows Media Encoder or any of the dozens of video editing apps supporting WMV, you have a number of options for sharing your video. The widest audience is obviously online. Windows Movie Maker includes a rather deceptive Save to the Web option, which really means, "save to Web if you have an account with Neptune Mediashare." You don't need to use Neptune or the Save to the Web option to in Windows Movie Maker to share your videos online.
There are two primary ways to share a WMV file online: direct download or streaming playback. A third option would be to offer the video as an RSS subscription, which is loosely related to direct downloads and gets covered in another article. When you offer a direct download, users click on a link to the video file and either view the video in their desktop Windows Media Player or save it to their hard drive. To stream a Windows Media video file, you need to embed the Windows Media Player in the page where you post the video. This requires some specific HTML code included in the page or blog post where the video is linked.
Publishing QuickTime MOV files for people to view takes one of several forms. The simplest way to share a QuickTime movie is to simply upload the file to your hosting provider and create a link to the file. People clicking the link will either save your movie to their computer or wait for QuickTime to open and play the movie back. While this is the easiest way to share a QuickTime movie, it's not the most elegant way to do it because some viewers still don't understand how to watch a movie on the Web without play controls right their helping them out.
A better alternative is to embed the MOV file in you Web page. This is possible whether you are linking to the file from a blog or from a corporate video site. The process of embedding the movie is the same for virtually every circumstance. There are a few optional configurations, but the basics will get you started.
To create your own Windows Movie Maker custom export profile, you need the free Windows Media Profile Editor, which is installed as part of the Windows Media Encoder download. Despite Windows Media Player being at version 10, the latest version of the encoder is still associated with the Windows Media 9 Series codecs. You can download the encoder from Microsoft:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/encoder/default.aspx
Once you install Windows Media Encoder, open Profile Editor from Start > All Programs > Windows Media > Utilities > Windows Media Profile Editor. You can create an export profile from scratch by manually configuring each setting
The first part of this process is naming your profile and providing a description. This makes it easy to identify in the Windows Movie Maker Save Movie wizard. Check the boxes next to Audio and Video, accepting the default Windows Media Audio 9.1 and Windows Media Video 9 for the codecs.
With the basic configuration out of the way, define the parameters for your video output by adding a target bit rate. Click the Add button to get started. Select a target bit rate type of either K (kilobits), M (megabits) or G (gigabits). Assuming your movie will be viewed on either a portable device or by people downloading it from the Web, K will suffice. The actual target bit rate will vary depending on your project, in my Smartphone example, I'm using 160Kbps while something like the Portable Media Center has a maximum bit rate of 800Kbps.
The target bit rate is a combination of audio and video settings. My ears perceive a noticeable audio quality difference for most audio below 64kbps, so that's my audio minimum. You may have different preferences. If I set a hard limit on 160Kbps, my maximum video bit rate is 88Kbps, because the combined 64.04kbps for audio and 88Kbps rounds to 160Kbps (in the example I rounded up to 89Kbps video rate). I prefer full motion video at 30fps. If you switch to 30fps from the 15fps default, it's a good idea to change the keyframe interval to 3-4 seconds from the default of 8 because the number of frames between keyframes is doubled when moving from 15 to 30fps.
With all your settings configured, click the Save and Close. Name your profile and save it in the
Another option is to base your profile on one of the settings already included in Windows Media Encoder. To use one of the encoder profiles as a guide, click the Import button and browse through the list of options included in:
There's a certain style to movies from the late Sixties and early Seventies that managed to maintain a PG rating through subtlety. It's not that you don't know someone is violently murdered off screen or that the main characters just participated in some illicit act. The story is told in a way that allows your brain to fill in the details. If you don't know what the details are, your innocence isn't tainted by the images or the dialogue. One of the more clever cinematic tricks, used primarily in zany comedy from the crew that spawned The Kentucky Fried Movie and British television like Monty Python's Flying Circus, was the use of illusory images in place of onscreen intimacy.
The thing these companies had at their disposal was access to stock footage, either through a licensing budget, or in the case of Monty Python, likely through the BBC archives. If you wanted to do something similar in a short film today, tracking down the clips would take hours of browsing newsreels and paying prohibitive licensing fees. Or would it? It recently occurred to me the Internet Archive; particularly the Prelinger Archives and Universal newsreels are perfect for this sort of thing.
If you ever watch sitcoms on network television, you've seen a J-cut in action. The characters in the show comment on plans to meet for dinner somewhere. A traveling exterior shot breezes through the streets of New York before framing the exterior shot of a restaurant. Dull metal on ceramic sounds of knife and fork contacting plate as someone slices the steak in front of them play as the camera lingers on the storefront. A conversation begins as the scene dissolves to the characters engaged in mid-meal dialogue.
This setup subtly tells you a number of things about the story unfolding. You know they left the previous scene. You know they traveled outside to get to the restaurant. And it leaves room for the characters to have a conversation about the cab ride to the restaurant, without needing to act it out on screen.
You just witnessed a J-cut in action. J-cut refers to any audio transition where audio from the upcoming scene plays as the video from the current scene continues to run. You can use a similar trick to compress the timeline of your own video without losing any of the story.
For instance, if you record a Little League game, you could show the fielding team running out from the dugout onscreen, play audio from the announcement of your son as the lead-off batter and dissolve to him at the plate, compressing the downtime that takes place as the kids dig around in the dugout locating batting helmets and bats for their turn at the plate.
To create a J-cut, drag the two movie clips you want to edit to your video timeline. Drag another copy of the second movie clip number to the Audio/Music section of the timeline, matching it up with the version on the video timeline.
Select the second clip in the timeline, drag the slider to the point where you want the video from the second clip to start playing and use the Split button to divide the clip at that point. Make an identical split in the clip on the Audio/Music Timeline. If you can't get the exact spot you want to line up using your mouse to position the slider, use the Previous Frame and Next Frame buttons to tweak your settings for a more accurate position.
Slide the Audio/Music clip over so the end of the clip lines up with the end of the first video clip. You may need to zoom in on the time line for a perfect match up.
Once this section of audio is moved, delete the fragment from the second video clip from the timeline. Slide the remainder of the Audio/Music clip over to eliminate the gap between clips.
If you haven't already done so, expand the Video on the timeline to show the Audio and Transition sections. Right-click the Audio clip associated with your second video clip and Mute it to eliminate duplication of the audio between tracks.
To further make the transition between video clip one and video clip two, you may want to split video clip one at the point where the Audio/Music track starts and fade the audio associated with the video clip.
If you add a transition between your two video clips, be sure to account for the offset created as the software overlaps the two clips to make the transition.
Note: If you prefer not to clip the Audio/Music track, keep track of the exact minute:second:fraction where video clip two was split and slide the Audio/Music track over an equivalent number of seconds to keep it in sync with the video. If you use transitions, this particular strategy can get messy because you also have to factor in the offset for the transition.
Doug asks, "I have a Sony DCR-HC30 Digital Video Camera Recorder. I want to take the movies from the small tape and create a DVD from them. I have a Dell Computer and will get a DVD burner if it will work. Can you help?"
Like all of Sony's digital video camera's the DCR-HC30 uses an iLINK interface (which is known as IEEE-1394 or FireWire to every other company) to transfer footage from tape to your PC for editing. Typically, Sony does not include the required cable for making the connection between DV cam and computer. The connection on the camera is a 4-pin iLINK connector. One thing you don't mention is whether your Dell computer has a FireWire port somewhere on it.
The connection on your PC will either be a 4-pin or 6-pin connection depending on which version the PC manufacturer chose to include. Look for a logo like the one at the left to help identify the connection. If your PC has a 4-pin connector, you need a 4-pin to 4-pin FireWire cable. If your PC has a 6-pin connector, you need a 4-pin to 6-pin FireWire cable.
Depending on your operating system, I have a few different recommendations for video editing. If your operating system is Windows XP, you already have Windows Movie Maker installed. Connecting your camera via the iLINK connection and setting it to playback mode should automatically launch a wizard in Windows XP asking you if you want to capture the video. Use Windows Movie Maker to import the video to your computer, edit the file and output a finished movie.
If you're running an older version of Windows, like 98 or 2000, a shareware app called Video Edit Magic is a great option for capturing and editing your home movies. The trial version of the software is fully functional for 30 days, but does watermark your video output if you create a movie. After 30 the software will still do editing, but can no longer capture.
In both of these cases, you'll need DVD authoring software for making your DVD. If you are purchasing a burner, it's quite possible the burner will include software. My personal preference for DVD authoring is Sonic MyDVD.
Another option for Windows XP users, with a great feature set is Adobe Premiere Elements. The software handles all necessary capture and editing tasks quite well and includes DVD authoring as part of the package.
I cover the process of digital video editing end-to-end in my book, Easy Digital Home Movies.
Darren writes, "I'm trying to import a movie of my daughter's birthday party from my digital video camera. My computer keeps telling me there are dropped frames. How do I fix that?"
Dropped frames are a video capture nightmare. Losing frames means losing data from your video and typically results in a choppy video playback. Since I don't know which software application you are using for video capture I won't be able to pinpoint any specific problem, but there are a number of issues common to all video editing software with respect to dropped frames. Video capture requires many system resources, particularly memory and disk writing operations. During capture, you want to make sure your system has the best possible access to both of these critical resources. There are a number of easy ways to accomplish this.
Turn Off Video Preview
Using the preview pane during video capture consumes additional computer resources because your PC is both capturing your movie and displaying it on screen. This is one of the more common causes of frame dropping. Unless you are capturing a small segment of your DV tape and need to monitor the import process turn off the preview. Leaving the preview window off helps reduce processor and memory usage, which in turn helps prevent dropped frames.
Turn Off All Unneeded Applications
Stop checking your email during video capture. Close your Web browser. Sign out of your instant messenger. Cease downloading from BitTorrent. Exit your RSS reader. In general, if an application isn't involved in the video capture process, shut it down.
Turn off background applications like anti-virus, firewall and spyware detection tools. Yes these are important for safe Internet browsing, but your browser is closed and you exited every network connected application in preparation for video capture. If shutting off protective apps makes you uncomfortable, unplug your network cable while you capture video. There are no known viruses associated with video capture. When you finish capturing your raw footage feel free to reconnect to the world.
Shutdown Unnecessary Services
Several applications are known to run in the background even when you don't have them open. This consumes extra memory that could be dedicated to your video or audio project. The software companies do this so the apps load faster when you click on them, but you don't want extra stuff running during processor and memory intensive media projects. One common culprit is iTunes, which runs two helper apps in the background waiting to launch if you dock your iPod (even if you don't own one) or click on a music file. The iTunes example uses a tiny amount of memory, but it adds up when coupled with other background services.
Some services are required by Windows, like lsass.exe. explorer.exe and alg.exe. Don't terminate any of the processes Windows requires to function or you will be rebooting. If you aren't comfortable shutting processes down, this might be a step worth skipping.
Defrag Your Hard Drive
Defragment your hard drive regularly. This is among the best ways to keep your system optimized for video capture. Over time Windows stores pieces of files in non-contiguous parts of your hard drive. Among the potential issues caused by this file fragmentation are increased file seek and write times. Disk write times are vital to video capture. Microsoft bundles Disk Defragmenter with Windows XP, which does an acceptable job of keeping your system running smoothly. If you do frequent video editing defrag at least once every week.
Say No to Disk Compression
Saving video files in a compressed format like WMV or DivX is a necessity for online distribution of files. Compressing your storage space is the kiss of death for video capture. With this feature turned on, each time Windows needs to write something to the hard drive, a compressed volume is temporarily decompressed and recompressed. Since video capture is a long series of write operations, disk compression causes major problems with capture performance.
Disable the Indexing Service
Indexing claims to make it faster to find files on your system. Whether indexing is turned on or not, Windows is not a very capable search tool. Save the system resources consumed by Indexing for your multimedia processing and turn off indexing. If you need an effective search tool, download the free Copernic Desktop Search. Copernic does index your files, but you can configure it not to hog the system while you're using other applications and it finds things far more effectively than the built in Windows Search. Like other apps, it's a good idea to turn off any desktop search while you are actively capturing video.
Import Video to a Second Drive
The drive where Windows is installed is busy handling the tasks that make Windows work properly. It's likely the place you installed your video editing and capture applications. Use a second drive (either internal or external) to store the media for your projects, allowing the second drive to handle all the write-intensive operations of importing video from a digital video camera.
If you don't have a second hard drive, make sure the drive you have is formatted NTFS, not FAT32 (assuming you're running Windows 2000 or XP). NTFS offers a number of performance improvements helping prevent dropped frames during video import.
Capture with WinDV
Sometimes optimizing your system for video capture simply doesn't solve the dropped frames problem. Some video editing apps simply don't handle the capture process well. When all else fails, I recommend the free WinDV capture tool. It's optimized for capturing video from DV sources via FireWire. The creator built-in a memory buffer to help prevent frame loss, which typically means a perfect capture in a place where others fail. It works with most versions of Windows. Use WinDV to capture your video and your favorite editing solution for editing clips and creating a movie from the raw footage.
You still have plenty to keep in mind to achieve a great looking movie. These simple steps will help prepare your system for best possible performance, insuring your source material is everything it should be when you start.
I'm addicted to the idea of taking tons of video with me everywhere. A $10 Compact Flash or SD card will hold the equivalent of three Hollywood features. A Zune or an iPod will hold hours of video. For an easy 1-click solution for converting DVD content to a portable WMV file use Xilisoft DVD Ripper Ultimate. Or if you prefer a do-it-yourself solution to convert the VOB movie files created when a DVD is ripped to Pocket PC and Portable Media Center friendly WMV files, follow the steps in the rest of this tutorial. The DIY method is free, but downloading DVD Ripper Ultimate will get the job done more quickly.
Normally it would be grossly unfair to compare a 3CCD DV camera against a 1CCD DV camera, because the playing field is anything but level. With Panasonic's recent foray into consumer-friendly pricing on 3CCD DV cameras, I decided to put my Canon ZR70 to the test against the Panasonic PV-GS70.
In a nutshell, CCD stands for Charged Coupled Device, which are the chips used by a DV cam to capture image information. 1CCD camcorders capture images by capturing one of the three RGB color values and interpreting the other two. 3CCD cameras capture image data by assigning one color to each chip, resulting in more accurate color information. This is one instance where more is almost always better.
At the time I purchased the ZR70 last year, it was still priced around $700. With a new model year on the horizon, the ZR70 is currently priced under $450, with its generational equivalent, the ZR90 priced at just under $600.
Panasonic's entry level 3CCD DV cam, the PV-GS120 sports the same lens/CCD configuration as the PV-GS70 I tested and may be found for as low as $665. Because I didn't want to wait for the PV-GS120 to become available, I picked up the PV-GS70 for $699. The extra $35 got me MPEG-4 recording (in addition to uncompressed DV), Webcam functionality, and a wired external microphone/remote control. I point out these differences only to illustrate the pricing proximity of the 1CCD and 3CCD DV cams being discussed here.
For my testing, I set each of the two DV cams on tripods positioned as close together as possible, in order to approximate the same angle from each camera. I'll let the images speak for themselves.
1CCD images are displayed on the left - 3CCD images on the right
Outdoors Mostly Sunny
Outdoors Cloudy with a Slight Haze
Indoors Basement Incandescent Lighting
This comparison is obviously unscientific in nature, but it's fairly clear which DV cam produces better images, especially in low-light situations. 1CCD cameras with larger lenses would probably fare slightly better, by allowing more light to hit the CCD, but the color information will still be lacking.
There are many 1CCD cameras priced well below the Panasonic PV-GS120. Quite a few cost several hundred dollars more. Unless you are looking for a professional level camera, like the Canon GL2 or XL1, until Canon and Sony offer competing 3CCD models, I won't be recommending anything but the Panasonic 3CCD line for home and small business users for the foreseeable future.
Buy the Panasonic PV-120 from JandR  |
One of the more frequent questions I see related to creating movies with Windows Movie Maker is how to normalize the soundtrack audio. Normalizing is the process of leveling the peak volume of an audio selection, which is particularly useful when combining a series of tracks mastered in different locations at different times. Currently, Movie Maker is very limited in audio editing features, so any heavy duty audio editing must be done in some other application. This video tutorial demonstrates the process required to normalize a soundtrack for a Movie Maker project using the Sound Editor app included in Roxio Easy Media Creator.
http://www.jakeludington.com/free-tutorials/videos/moviemaker/
Step through the process of using Windows Movie Maker to create photo slideshows with this 10-minute video.
Please feel free to provide criticism of the tutorial. This is something of an experiment, which may become a regular addition to the newsletter, if there seems to be enough interest. I'm also open to suggested topics.
Camtasia handled screen capture duties, with Windows Media Encoder shrinking the file size down to a manageable size.
