Polling the Faithful for Digital Experts

[Harry Babb]

A lot of years ago I purchased a digital camera. Then for years I did little or nothing with the pics.

Then 4 years ago I went to my cousins wedding and their video gave me a good idea.

Every year we have a company Christmas party and quite frankley it sucked.

My idea was to make a DVD video of machining acitvities, parts and projects that we worked on thru the year.......walllla! ! ! it was a pretty big hit. The video prompted conversation, heckling and really added life to the party like nothing we ever tried before.

Next I made video for my family featuring birthdays, July 4th, the prior Christmas, dance recitals etc and now my video is one of the big highlights at our family Christmas gathering every year.

Now I want to move my "Digital Skills" to a new level.

So far the DVD's all consist of jpeg files.

I have gathered a number of video files with my digital video camera and these files are in the "VOB" format.

I am looking for software that will convert the VOB files to MPEG files then from there I want to edit and trim those files to prepare them for publishing on in my DVD Sony software........and I am looking for suggestions on what software you guys may use.

I have been searching the internet for several evenings now and its obvious that the choices are many. I have downloaded a couple for trial purposes....any suggestions???

Harry

[CaptPatrick]

I'm no direct help, but try emailing Jimmy Gato, (JimmyG). He's the the best video man we've ever had. jimbob1959@aol.com

[Ric]

Doc (dick Ely) is preety good also

[CaptPatrick]

One of Jimmy's videos...

[Harry Babb]

Thanks Pat, thanks Ric
I will be in touch withe Jimmy and Doc to see what they have to say.

I have some video from the Point Judith rendezvous and some video from our fishing trip in the Gulf last week that I want to edit and share.

As usual you can find anything you want right here on B31 dot com.

Harry

[capy]

http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/us/Home/

This is a great package of software.

[ITcookY]

Bob,

I will give you a hand if I can. I will need some additional information to be able to give you the help you deserve. Here goes;

So far the DVD's all consist of jpeg files.

.jpg or .jpegs are still pictures.
1.) Have the DVDs that you created so far, been of a slide show nature, groups of photographic stills playing one after another or something similar? 2.) Which program did you use to Author the DVD? 3.) Which program do you use to Burn the disc? 4.) Are these the same program?

I have gathered a number of video files with my digital video camera and these files are in the "VOB" format

The VOB formated file is a subset of the MPEG (Motion Picture Experts Group) file format .mpg or mpeg. and with digital cameras you may have many different flavors of MPEG files. VOB is already a DVD file. To make a DVD work in your stand-alone DVD player, you need a Disc burned with .VOB and .IFO files. The IFO file is the File that holds the information to create the navigation for your fancy DVD menu. This is where you need a DVD authoring program, to create that DVD Menu. These programs can take raw files and convert, Encode and Render the files you need (VOB) to make this work on the next level. 5.) How do you have VOB files already? 6.) Do you have a camera that records to the MINI DVD disc? 7.) Which video camera do you have?

I am looking for software that will convert the VOB files to MPEG files then from there I want to edit and trim those files to prepare them for publishing on in my DVD Sony software........and I am looking for suggestions on what software you guys may use.

8.) Which Sony software are you referring to? I use Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 software to Edit the Digital Footage that I dump on the hard drive. These are .AVI files. There are many flavors of Windows .AVI files. Next I drag the .AVI files to the time-line to edit (trim). They are converted to a Low Resolution format ( this just takes seconds and is for editing only) so I can edit in Real Time ( no wait to render). I add titles and transitions as well as Digital still pictures. Once done, I export to a DVD friendly format, usually a .mpg file or a subset of .mpg. like .mpg4 or the latest, h.264. Once exported, I open up my trusty DVD authoring program and import the .mpg file, a still picture for the DVD menu and an audio file (usually .mp3 or .WAV) to playback while the DVD menu appears on screen. I use Adobe Encore CS3 and Ulead DVD workshop 2, Ulead is very user friendly and converts many file types. They are now owned by Corel.

If you will answer my questions I will be able to give you some suggestions. A Final Note. the Pinnacle Software mentioned above is the first software I bought to begin my editing 14 years ago. I see they are way up there in the version number. Pinnacle has two high end brothers Edius and liguid. The company is owned by Grass Valley Inc., a high-end television broadcast manufacturing company for Video Switchers and other hardware. I tried both of the programs for a while. When I used Pinnacle, I was able to Capture files directly from Camera Playback, Edit and Author all in the same program. This is a great starter program.

Speaking about Sony, their "Vegas" Editing program is what a lot of the Event Videographers use to edit the Wedding Videos for their clients. As for myself I'm sticking with The Adobe Master Suite Collection for now. The only thing Adobe does not do, is make a couple over easy with toast.

:-D :-D

John Coleman Ritchie

http://www.adobe.com/products/creatives ... ollection/

[Harry Babb]

John
Sounds like you have been around the block several times....as your screen name indicates.

I can and will respond to your post later.....bed time for now

Thanks

Harry

[Harry Babb]

.jpg or .jpegs are still pictures.
1.) Have the DVDs that you created so far, been of a slide show nature, groups of photographic stills playing one after another or something similar? 2.) Which program did you use to Author the DVD? 3.) Which program do you use to Burn the disc? 4.) Are these the same program?

My DVD's are Slide Shows. I use Sony Vegas Movie Studio 60. I have tried several others but like the flexibility of the Sony software....but I have not been able to make the Sony Vegas to accept or edit the VOB files. I use the Sony program to burn the disc

5.) How do you have VOB files already? 6.) Do you have a camera that records to the MINI DVD disc? 7.) Which video camera do you have?

Right now the VOB files are on a Finalized disc. I use a Sony HandyCam, she records directly to a mini DVD

The Sony software requires Rendering and takes quite a while to do so.

Harry

[ITcookY]

First Download the CODEC pack that will allow your video and audio be the most flexible.

1.) Download the CODEC pack from =http://www.free-codecs.com/download/cod ... l_in_1.htm

During install, click through and take the first 2 choices by default and on the 3rd option page, check off Mpeg2 as one of the additional options.


2.) I downloaded the program below and then installed it. Con: Takes a long time Pro: This may be the best quality

=http://www.dvdvideosoft.com/products/dv ... verter.htm

It prompted me to install the latest DotNet framework from Microsoft to help the software. I did that. and then installed the program. This may be the best choice for you. It looks for your DVD drive and then prompts you where to copy the converted file to. You have choices as to which format you want to convert to. Fortunately you are limited to mpeg 4 but this is the best compression scheme to date. This does not allow you to convert individual files so start with one of your shorter DVD's. The good news is that Sony Vegas will import .MP4 files. I did not have time to do a complete run through of a complete DVD.

3.) This program I installed and had success with and converted to .mov. Good News: Vegas will import .mov files. =http://www.convertvobtoavi.com/download.html****

4.) ***This program I had some success with. It allows you to trim your file before you convert it. You can see the files on the DVD and preview them. There are lot's of settings to tweak any many choices for output. This is the most polished of these three. I only had limited success but that was before I updated the CODECs on my computer. -=-=-=-http://www.koyotesoft.com/indexEn.html

That's all I have time for today.

Keep me posted.

John