Recently in Video Editing Category

"I am using two Samsung SC-MX20. They give me really good video in low light, however, Samsung uses MPEG-4 compression and this can be a real hassle (time consuming) to uncompress. I tried a USB video capture device but (of course) it drops frames. Since Samsung does not have a FireWire connection, would a PCI video capture allow me to take the compressed video and capture in AVI format? If so, which PCI video capture card(s) should I consider? I have tried searching the web, but it seems everything is more aimed at capturing TV to PC and I am not sure it that will work for me?"

Since the Samsung SC-MX20 camcorders record MP4 files, rather than capturing to tape, you should be able to optimize a setup that will get you faster editing by simply opening the files. There could be a scenario where you could capture over component video connection using something like a Black Magic or AJA capture card, but upgrading a few components on your computer may get you to where you want to be for less money.

"The .avi file has two audio tracks, Spanish and English. When I use a converter to get it ready for my iPod, it will use the Spanish track. How do I get a converter that I can chose which audio track to use?"

Since I don't know which converter you're currently using, I'll offer an easy solution that will get you the result you want without buying more software and an investment of about 5 minutes extra time. Before you covert the video file, open it in VirtualDubMod, modify the audio properties of the file, and save it without needing to recompress the audio. You can either save a copy with the Spanish track still there or overwrite the file and ditch the Spanish track altogether. Here's how it works:

I specifically like VirtualDubMod better for this because it does a better job of displaying audio tracks visually. VirtualDub will also work if you prefer, but the screenshots below are specific to VirtualDubMod.

First download a copy of VirtualDubMod and open your AVI file.

From the Streams menu choose Stream list, which opens a window like the one below. I don't currently have any AVI files with multiple audio streams, but yours should show several tracks here instead of the one in my screenshot.

I would do this in two steps to make sure you get the result you want. Disable the Spanish language track in your file by selecting it in the available streams list and clicking the disable button. Now select the second audio track in your list, which should be the English language track. Click Move up to make it the first track in your list. When this is done click OK.

From the File menu, choose Save As. Name your file and be sure to choose Direct Stream Copy in the Video Mode dropdown menu (this makes sure you aren't recompressing the video). Click the Save button when you've adjusted the settings.

Saving a two hour file this way takes less than 5 minutes, so the process should go fairly quickly. When finished, you should have a video file plays back the English language track by default. Convert this file in your video converter.

Tip: If you have a bunch of files to change audio tracks on, queue them up by checking the Don't run this job now box. You can then run them all by selecting File > Job Control from the menu.

"I have recently purchased my first video camcorder, a Sony DCR-SR55E. Are you able to offer me some advice on what video editing software would be good for a complete beginner?"

Normally I'd recommend starting with Windows Movie Maker, which comes with every Windows XP and Windows Vista install. While Movie Maker isn't a perfect solution for every video editing need, it's simple to use and will quickly get you from video on your camera to an edited file you can output for playback elsewhere. I particularly like the fact that Movie Maker gets you started without spending any additional money. Because your camera is a hard disk camera, Movie Maker is simply not an viable option, so you'll need to try something else.

"If I shoot video in 1080i mode with my camcorder can I output later in 720p?"

Most consumer high definition camcorders shoot video in a 1080i mode, usually 1440x1080. The format the camcorder records video in does not dictate the format you output from your editing software. If you start with your 1080i video in your favorite video editing application (for HD editing, I typically recommend Pinnacle Studio or Sony Vegas) you can export several versions of the video when you are finished. Most video editing applications offer either outputting your video as MPEG-2 1080i, which is the same format you started with, or they give you a number of additional choices.

Several questions came through this week (for both Mac and PC users) on how to rotate video clips shot with digital cameras. Apparently there's a whole crowd of people titling their digital cameras sideways this week. :)

For anyone with a Windows computer, rotating movies is easily done using Windows Movie Maker. This is one case where the defacto video editor for Windows outshines Apple's iMovie. Mac users will need to install an additional effect before rotating video clips in iMovie. For Movie Maker users, simply add your video to the Movie Maker timeline and apply a Rotate effect to turn the video right side up. Watch the video to see this in action.

"Is there a way I can rotate a video I recorded with my digital camera? I recorded a movie sideways with my digital camera and now I need a way to turn the video right side up. I'm using iMovie, but it doesn't seem to have a rotate feature."

You are correct that Apple doesn't include a Rotate tool in the Video FX. Fortunately, there's an excellent freeware solution you can download and install that adds a rotate effect to iMovie. You'll want to make sure you have iMovie HD or iMovie 6 on your computer, because that's what you'll be editing with instead of the new iMovie 08. You can track down iMovie 6 on the Apple Website, if you don't have a version of it available. Watch the tutorial video to see how to step through rotating your movie clip in iMovie.

"My camcorder needs to connect to a FireWire port on my computer in order to capture video, but my computer doesn't have one. It's a laptop, so I can't install one of those PCI cards. What are my options?"

Whether your computer is a laptop or not, there are ways you can get the functionality of a FireWire port without needing to install anything in your computer. One easy way is to get a USB hardware solution that passes FireWire connections. Laptop owners have more options because there are numerous PCMCIA and PC Express cards available with FireWire ports built in.

"How do I change the speed of my video in Sony Vegas so that the speed slightly faster or slower? How can I apply this to the video and make it work? When I changed the video playback rate on the Sony Vegas timeline, I went to Make Movie and it wasn't in fast motion."

The options for speeding up a video in Sony Vegas are a little quirky. You can adjust the playback speed by applying a video effect, but it doesn't always "take". The video plays back faster on the timeline, but doesn't take up less time on the timeline. Doubling the speed of a 1 minute clip doesn't actually shorten it to 30 seconds, for some reason.

"I'm running Windows XP with Movie Maker but Movie Maker isn't recognizing my Canon HV20 camera. What do I do?"

The Canon HV20 is a great camcorder, but it is not compatible with the Windows XP version of Windows Movie Maker. At the time Windows XP originally appeared, most consumer camcorders were still standard definition, so no support for high definition video was built into the XP version of Movie Maker. Now that Windows Vista is on the scene, it supports all HDV format camcorders, including the Canon HV20. You have three options for editing video recorded with your Canon HV20:

Monty writes, "I just bought a new HP computer with Windows Vista and yes I want to edit video. My MiniDV cameras won't work with Vista and I don't know if there are any HD cameras that will work with Vista. If there is do you know if a HD camera can play MiniDV tapes?"

High definition camcorders that record in the HDV format on MiniDV tapes typically have a standard definition mode as well. For instance, the Canon HV20 I use regularly will automatically detect that the tape in the camera contains MiniDV footage, so that when you transfer video to your computer from the camera, it will capture the standard definition MiniDV footage. The only caveat to this is the software you are using must support the HDV format as well as standard MiniDV, otherwise the software will not recognize your camera. This shouldn't be a problem for Windows Vista users, but in testing standard definition capture from my Canon HV20 on a Windows XP machine, I couldn't get the XP version of Windows Movie Maker to recognize the HV20.

As a side note, most MiniDV cameras will work with Vista software as long as you are using the FireWire connection. I know there are a few MiniDV cameras from Sony that also added support for transferring video via USB and that typically fails on Vista because there are no Vista drivers for most of the cameras.

"I recorded an old 8mm movie by projecting it against a white wall and then recording it with my MiniDV Camcorder. When I finished recording the 8mm movie with my camcorder, I played back the tape and still ended up with some flickering in the recorded video. Is there any way to remove the flicker from my video?"

Recording 8mm movies with a camcorder is still the cheapest way to preserve them, but it's not without a few hoops to jump through. If you have a n 8mm projecter with adjustable frame rate, you can generally get flickering down to zero by setting the projector's frame rate to 20 frames per second. Since your projector may not support adjustable frame rate you need to use software instead. The best solution I've found (even compared to some that cost hundreds of dollars) is the freeware Deflicker filter for VirtualDub created by Donald Graft. Here's how it works:

After you download VirtualDub and the Deflicker filter, you need to copy the Deflick.vdf file into the Plugins folder in the VirtualDub folders. This is important or you won't be able to use the filter.

With the Deflicker plugin in the VirtualDub plugins directory, open VirtualDub and open your recorded video file. From the VirtualDub menu, choose Video > Filters. Click the Add button and scroll until you locate the filter in the list.

Double click on the filter to bring up the configuration screen. Initially you need to pay attention to only a couple of these settings:

Windows Size is important. This determines how the software looks for flicker. Many 8mm movies are either 18 frames per second or 20 frames per second. MiniDV is 29.97 in the U.S. and other places that use NTSC and 25 in the rest of the world where PAL is popular. You may have to try different settings, but in most cases a setting of somewhere between 8-10 will eliminate almost all flickering.

If your video was recorded using an interlaced camera (as most MiniDV camcorders are), check the box next to Interlaced source. Leave other settings at default. Softening works similar to smoothing between frames to reduce motion blurring, but can lead to smudgy video if overused. The Scene change threshold is set to determine when scenes change in the video - unless you notice lost of picture due to not setting this, leave it at 256, which means it's disabled.

When you've tweaked the settings to your satisfaction, click OK until you get back to the main editing interface, then save your video.

"I don't like spending time capturing high definition video from tapes I record with my Canon HV20, but I also don't like the video quality I get from hard disk camcorders. Can I bypass the tapes in my Canon HV20 and record direct to my hard drive?"

Any camcorder with a FireWire connection can be used to capture directly to a PC hard drive, as long as you have software that supports capture. As you point out, this is a great way to save a step and avoid capturing video from tape after you record. In some cases, this is also a good way to reduce noise your recorded audio, because you won't get bleed over from the tape mechanism.

Download Avidemux

I use VirtualDub for all kinds of video processing tasks, but there are several types of MPEG files that VirtualDub is a hassle to deal with. Avidemux offers an interesting alternative to VirtualDub for processing and editing these MPEG files, along with AVI, MP4, and most other common formats. One key area I'm finding Avidemux useful is a free alternative for editing the M2T files created when capturing from HDV camcorders using HDVSplit; the combined tools offer a completely free way to go from HD camcorder to edited HD movie. Like other video editing apps, you can crop files, color correct video, separate audio and video, save out multiple formats. Like VirtualDub, Avidemux supports queuing tasks, so you can line up a bunch of edits on multiple files and walk away while they all run. Another neat feature of Avidemux is OS X and Linux support, which is something you don't get with VirtualDub. [Windows 9x/2k/XP/Vista Linux Mac OS X $0.00]

Jash writes, "I wish to convert M2TS / AVCHD files to an alternative format to send to people without the HDD software that comes with my Panasonic HDC-SD1. Is there a tool that will do this as most information is based around editing the files not converting them?"

At the moment, the best tools for converting files created using either the Panasonic or Sony AVCHD camcorders are the same tools used for editing the M2TS files. My personal preference is to use Sony Vegas for converting the files from AVCHD to whatever other format you want to work with, specifically because the interface makes it simple to either save the movie to a second format or do some additional processing if you want to crop the 16:9 video to 4:3 for standard definition conversion. Pinnacle Studio will also do something similar, but I like the Sony output configuration better.

"I unintentionally recorded in HDV mode on my Canon XH-A1 on DV tapes (instead of DV) and now cannot transfer the videos into any software I have. Is there a way of overriding the software? If not, which program will accept the HDV."

Most of the HDV footage I've seen from the XH-A1 looks amazing, so hopefully you'll be pleasantly pleased with your unintentional results. If you recorded in HDV mode then what's on your tape is HDV, not DV (the tape doesn't matter, the HDV and MiniDV tapes are the same with different packaging). HDV is reasonably mature as a format, with widespread support from most of the major video editing packages. Here are several options for capturing your HDV footage.

"How do I get Flip camcorder videos in Microsoft Movie Maker? I tried adding a video to Movie Maker by dragging and dropping the file, but it shows up as an MP3."

Flip makes it insanely simple to record and edit movies on your computer, as long as you use the Flip Video application. Things get a little more complicated if you want to use other applications, like Windows Movie Maker, Roxio Easy Media Creator, Nero Vision Express, etc. The best way to insure success, is to first launch the Flip Video software from your Flip camcorder, which makes sure their video codec installs on your computer before you save the videos to your hard drive. After you step through the Flip Video software for the first time, follow these steps each time you want to edit your Flip videos with Windows Movie Maker.

Download muvee autoProducer

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]

Richie asks, "How do I convert RealPlayer files to whatever so I can put them on a disc to view on my DVD player?"

There are several ways to go from RealMedia files like RM and RMVB to DVD. The way to get the best looking DVDs is to first convert the RMVB files to AVI and then use a DVD authoring software tool like Nero Vision or MyDVD to add the AVI file to a disk. If you have Windows Vista, you can also use the DVD Maker app included in Vista Home Premium and Vista Ultimate. The MPEG-2 encoders in any of those tools are better than what you might find in free DVD authoring software. If you're simply looking for a fast solution for converting RMVB to a DVD playable on your set top DVD player, there are faster methods using a free DVD converter.

"I'm trying to blur a friend's face out of a video I made. How can I do this using Windows Movie Maker on my computer?"

While there is a video blurring feature in Windows Movie Maker, it does not allow you to blur only a small portion of the screen. You either blur the entire video or you blur nothing. If you want to blur a face in your video, you'll need to use a different video editing tool. The easiest consumer tool I've found for blurring a portion of a video is Pinnacle Studio, which includes a Blur effect in the Studio Plus RTFX collection.

Larry writes, "How do I change a file extension from VOB to MPEG?"
Presumably you're looking to rename a VOB file to .MPEG or .MPG so that you can edit the file in a software video editor that doesn't recognize the .VOB file extension as valid. To change the file extension on a .VOB file to .MPEG or .MPG you simply need to rename the file.

You can't rename the .VOB file on a DVD because DVDs are read only, so the first thing to do is copy the VOB file from the DVD to your hard drive. Right click the VOB file on your hard drive and choose Rename from the menu.

Amit writes, "How do I convert Digital8 tapes to DVD?"

Digital8 is Sony's alternative to MiniDV and remains available only in limited camcorders in the Sony product line. Fortunately, the capture process is identical to what you'd expect from a MiniDV camcorder. You connect the Digital8 camcorder from the iLINK (aka FireWire or IEEE 1394) connection on the camcorder to the FireWire connection on your PC and import the contents of the tape. You can then edit the footage with your favorite video editor and author a DVD.

For a tutorial on capturing video from a Digital8 Camcorder follow the steps here:

Capturing video from a Sony Digital8 Video Camera

Once you capture the footage from the Digital8 camcorder, here's a number of tips for editing video:

Video Editing with Windows Movie Maker

For authoring DVDs, my favorite solution is Sonic MyDVD. You can walk through the process of making a DVD here:

DVD Authoring Step-by-step

 Download Flash Video Studio

Publishing movies to the Web as Flash files with a SWF extension is the easiest way to deal with managing things like playback controls, fast forward, rewind and volume control. There's no need to figure out how to embed QuickTime or Windows Media player in a browser. Most everyone uses Flash, so you don't need to worry about people watching your movie having the proper codecs installed. In general, using Flash guarantees your movies will just work. The one trick to all this is you need a tool capable of turning AVI, WMV and MOV files into flash FLV or SWF files. Sorensen Squeeze can do it for about $119. You can use Macromedia's Flash suite to do it automatically, but that will set you back at least $400. Flash Video studio converts AVI, WMV, MPG, MOV and ASF files to SWF or FLV for a small fraction of either price.

If affordable Flash conversion isn't enough reason to like Flash Video Studio, the app includes several handy publishing features. You can add trigger links in your video to launch Web pages while the video plays. Flash Video Studio supports calling a new SWF file from your video (so you can do something like the play next video option on YouTube). The app supports configurable output options, including batch conversion, watermarking, a handful of effects and masks and a simple set of video and audio compression choices allowing you to maximize quality while minimizing file size. When you output SWF, the app automatically generates the HTML for your page and offers customizable play controls. Built-in FTP makes upload almost automatic. So far, I haven't found any other app I like better for this purpose. [Windows 2k/XP/Vista $49.95]

For a limited time use Coupon Code MBDISCOUNT for $10 off.

 Try Flash Video Studio Now
 Order Flash Video Studio for $49.95

Download AVIcodec

With the myriad of video and audio formats available, it's hard to know which codec is required to play which file. Just because a video has the .AVI file extension, doesn't mean you've got the necessary video decoder to play it back. With AVIcodec, you can find out which codecs are installed on your PC and export the list as a CSV file for use in Excel or as plain text so you can provide the details to a tech support pro. AVIcodec goes further to identify which codec is required for individual media apps on your system and will point you to the site where the codec may be downloaded whenever possible. The ap is currently available in 12 languages. If you've ever downloaded a movie or song, only to find out you can't play it, this app will put an end to your frustration. [Windows 9x/2k/XP $0.00]