editing video

C

Calwood

New member
I've been messing around with making a music video. I have everything i need already,..basically,...so i thought I'd give it a try.
The problem I'm having is when editing,...it will skip and freeze and generally not cooperate at all.
Whats the solution? More memory,..better program? I'm running a 2ghz processor with 512mb of ram,..using the stock moviemaker program.
I've researched software and think I'll get either Adobe, Pinnacle or Vegas.
What else do I need to edit video smoothly?

Thanks for any help.

Take 'er easy,..
Calwood
 
Why spend money on software . Animation Master(aka Hash inc.) is making a FULL LENGTH 3d movie called "TWO". They are using Aduacity for sound and jashaka for video editing. Both are free programs. They are not the first to use jashaka to edit a full movie, So it will do just fine for a music video. The guys at Hash know their shit.
http://www.jahshaka.org/
and just for fun a link to some of the short films people have made with A.M. (since you got me talking about my fav subject of animation and cartoon's)
http://amfilms.hash.com/index.php?st=

P.S. please get AT LEAST 1 frickin gb of ram. I have seen open box 512's for as low as $20. :rolleyes:
 
Last edited:
A 2Ghz P4? P3? Athlon?

You need to be more specific.

512Mb is not nearly enough RAM for anything these days other than checking email or browsing the web. 1Gb would be my minimum recommendation.

Video is extremely bandwidth intensive. I would make sure your harddrive is at least a 7,200RPM drive.

As far as software goes, I would recommend Adobe Premiere Elements to beginners. It does most of what Premiere Pro does minus features only a seasoned video editing pro would miss.

Finally, you should always edit video in the (relatively) uncompressed DV format. More compressed formats like WMV and MPG are delivery formats not intended for editing.
 
It's a p4 processor 2.3ghz. I kinda figured it was the amount of ram that was the major problem. I think the hard drive is 5400rpm. Sorry 'bout not being specific but I'm not really sure on how to be specific when talking about computers.
Thanks for the advice on hard drive speed and formats. I've been editing mod files. Thats what my camera(jvc everio) saves video files as. I also tried to convert the mod's to mpg and use moviemaker but have had better results with the mod files in power director. Are mod files a good video editing format? I'm not sure what dv format is,..never heard of it. Further research is required on my part. I think after I get all this other stuff figured out I will get some version of Adobe. Thanks for the info.

I'm not really sure what an "open box 512" is. Also,..thanks for the links. I'll check 'em out before making any other decision on software.

Thanks for the help.

take 'er easy,..
Calwood
 
i really like vegas video

and theres a video capture program called WinDV thats nice and simple for getting the footage from camera to CPU

just google it and then download it
 
Thanks! I'll keep that in mind. Thanks for the info for the convertor also.

Much appreciated!

take 'er easy,..
calwood
 
I recently moved over to a pro-level Cannon GL-2 DV cam, but have been editing my old VHS tapes into the computer over the last 6months using a Plextor USB ConvertX.

Sony Vegas Movie Studio + DVD Architect - $70 or less and you can get an HD version for $30 more.
GREAT editing software and DVDArchitect is FANTASTIC for making menu'ed DVDs!
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...-1888200-0959337?v=glance&s=software&n=507846

(I'll agree that you need more than 512Mb of RAM and you REALLY need to be running video on a secondary fast drive!!!)
 
Calwood said:
It's a p4 processor 2.3ghz. I kinda figured it was the amount of ram that was the major problem. I think the hard drive is 5400rpm. Sorry 'bout not being specific but I'm not really sure on how to be specific when talking about computers.
Thanks for the advice on hard drive speed and formats. I've been editing mod files. Thats what my camera(jvc everio) saves video files as. I also tried to convert the mod's to mpg and use moviemaker but have had better results with the mod files in power director. Are mod files a good video editing format? I'm not sure what dv format is,..never heard of it. Further research is required on my part. I think after I get all this other stuff figured out I will get some version of Adobe. Thanks for the info.

I'm not really sure what an "open box 512" is. Also,..thanks for the links. I'll check 'em out before making any other decision on software.

Thanks for the help.

take 'er easy,..
Calwood
Click to expand...
An "open box 512" is just a stick of ram thats 512mb that someone has opened and returned to the store. like any open box item.

To find out your hard drive speed.

1) go to the start toolbar at the lower left corner of your screen
2) open "my computer"
3) in my computer it will say "hard disk drives" with a little picture of a hard drive
4)put your arrow over the picture and click the "right button" on your mouse
5)when you do tha it will bring up a list click on the last one in the list the "properties"
6)this will bring up a screen with tabs. click on the "hardware" tabs.

this will give you a list of your dvd/cr drive and your disk drive(aka hard drive). mine tells me i have a "toshiba mk6034gsx". I then open yahoo and when i put "toshiba mk6034gsx" in i get this site

http://shopping.yahoo.com/p:Toshiba...5YnR2BF9TAzk2NjMyOTA3BHNlYwNmZWVkBHNsawNjb21w
this site tells me its rotation speed is 5400rpm. this is a poor speed for recording. so i went and got an external that runs 7,200rpm. Mine is a craptop thou. i bet if yours is a home pc it runs 7,200 (most do).
 
vegas is good, i use it for audio (yes, complete sessions) AND video. get a gig of ram. i also suggest closing all proccesses and hardware that you dont use, while you are editing.
 
I made a music video with a friend for the first time like a month ago. It turned out decent, we worked on a AMD Athlon 1700+ with 1.5gb of ram & a GeForce 6600GT of course rendering could be a little bit faster but all was fine. No skipping nothing happened, the video went smoothly. Your processor should be fine, just get more memory & maybe a better video card so it doesn't hiccup. Some people say that a video card doesn't matter, I'm running a Pentium D 3ghz dual core, with a crappy GeForce 5200... trust me it does... Rendering times on my system are above average though.... Get at least 1.5-2gb of memory...

We used Adobe Premeire & After Effects.. of course if you get a good camera, it won't look too much amature like ours :D
 
Thanks for all the help! It is very much appreciated.
I'm pretty happy with the quality of video I get from my JVC. My brother works in theater and is pretty much a lighting expert and knows alot about shooting video so that helps alot.
This is what I'm planning for an upgade.

2g RAM
80G 7200rpm hard drive
x1400 graphics card

I'm still not sold on any particular software yet. I think i'll get the video to edit smoothly first and then dig deeper for what software I'm gonna use.

Thanks for the tip about closing al processes and such. I tried that with my current setup and it helped a little,..so I'll be sure to remember to do that as well after my upgrade.

Thanks for all the other tips and advice. I really appreciate it.

Take 'er easy
Calwood
 
I've edited video on my laptop...P4 1,7, 512M Ram, and crappy video card....using Pinnacle, and teh end product has been decent. Takes alot more time compared to the PC, P4 3.0, 1.5G Ram, and good video card, but the end results are the same. It's only been home movie stuff, but has turned out quite fun. The Ram should help, as video seems to be a huge memory hog.
 
Yeah I'm finding that out,... just how important enough RAM is.

The problem I was having is when I start to add effects and transitions as well as very quick cuts and overlays. It doesnt do too awful bad if I just put the clips together and let it play without anything added.
The video I'm trying to make however needs to move along pretty quickly with alot of transitions.
 
Calwood said:
This is what I'm planning for an upgade.

2g RAM
80G 7200rpm hard drive
x1400 graphics card

I'm still not sold on any particular software yet.
Click to expand...

A good friend of mine is a full-time video editor and cameraman, and he uses a PC. I work with him on projects, writing music for him, so we talk about this stuff all the time.

2 gigs of RAM is the way to go, definitely. That 80 gig hard drive is inadequate, way too small. Don't even *think* about getting anything smaller than 300 gigs, and 500 is better.

One program that is widely used is Adobe Premiere, that's what my friend uses. There are a lot of plugins (video fx plugins) available for it, something that is important. I think there's probably a lot of free ones out there too.

That's pretty much all I know on the subject, but just thought I'd toss it into the discussion.
 
For the budget end of things, Vegas is a great way to go for video editing. Avoid Pinnacle and Avid products AT ALL COSTS. You will have nothing but problems.
 
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