| Author |
Message |
Jan Nademlejnsky
Guest
|
 Posted:
Tue Oct 11, 2005 12:35 am Post subject:
How to edit MPEG-2? |
|
|
I placed order for JVC GZ-MG50 video camera which is using 30 GB HD instead
of tape. I was finally able to download the camera manual and I was
surprised that there is no editing possibilities either in camera or on PC.
There is some limited editing possibilities on Macintosh, but nothing for
PC.
I am calling on all experts in this field to tell me if I should avoid this
format (MPEG-2) for now and wait until it develops further, or that there is
some reasonably priced ($200) software for frame to frame editing.
Thanks for your help
Jan
|
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Dave Martindale
Guest
|
| Posted:
Tue Oct 11, 2005 12:35 am Post subject:
Re: How to edit MPEG-2? |
|
|
"PTravel" <ptravel88-usenet@yahoo.com> writes:
| Quote: | Mpeg2 is a delivery format, not an editing format. Your camera is not using
a hard drive "instead" of tape -- tape-based digital consumer camcorders use
miniDV or Digital8, both of which utilize the DV-25 standard.
|
I do wonder why the hard drive-based camcorders do *not* provide a mode
where the drive is literally used instead of tape. If the data was
recorded as an AVI file using a DV codec, it would be absolutely
indistinguisable from tape in image quality, editability, etc. You'd
only get a bit more than 2 hours of recording time from a 30 GB disk
instead of the 5-10 hours you'd get using MPEG2, but that's a tradeoff
I'd happily make when I'm planning to edit the video (i.e. almost
always).
It *can't* be difficult for the manufacturers to supply two different
codecs. The data rate of about 3.5 MB/sec for DV shouldn't be a
problem. So why don't they do it? Hard drive storage is a great idea
if you don't care about archiving tapes as backups; why hobble the hard
drive camcorders in comparison to tape by forcing MPEG?
Do the manufacturers of these camcorders allow mounting the internal
disk as removable storage, rather than just "playing back" the video.
Playback just lets you get the data into a computer at realtime speed,
while mounting the drive as a Firewire or USB2 disk should allow copying
data at near drive read speed, which ought to be a couple times faster
than realtime for AVI/DV data, and 2-4X faster again for MPEG-2 data.
Dave |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
PTravel
Guest
|
| Posted:
Tue Oct 11, 2005 12:52 am Post subject:
Re: How to edit MPEG-2? |
|
|
"Jan Nademlejnsky" <jannade@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:woz2f.151347$tl2.58259@pd7tw3no...
| Quote: | I placed order for JVC GZ-MG50 video camera which is using 30 GB HD instead
of tape. I was finally able to download the camera manual and I was
surprised that there is no editing possibilities either in camera or on PC.
There is some limited editing possibilities on Macintosh, but nothing for
PC.
I am calling on all experts in this field to tell me if I should avoid
this format (MPEG-2) for now and wait until it develops further, or that
there is some reasonably priced ($200) software for frame to frame
editing.
Thanks for your help
|
It depends on what you mean by "editing" (and I don't know what you mean by
"frame to frame"). If all you want to do is simple cuts-only editing, then
there are a lot of solutions for mpeg2. If, however, you want to do
anything reasonably sophisticated, e.g. transitions, effects, compositing,
titling, etc., and you want to wind up with good-quality DVDs after, then
mpeg2 is not the format to use.
Mpeg2 is a delivery format, not an editing format. Your camera is not using
a hard drive "instead" of tape -- tape-based digital consumer camcorders use
miniDV or Digital8, both of which utilize the DV-25 standard. DV-25 results
in compression at a 5-to-1 ratio, and only compresses physically, not
temporally. Your camcorder uses mpeg2, which, at DVD-compliant standards,
compresses temporally (it uses the change over time before and after a
reference frame to determine intermediate frames), and at a compression rate
of 10-to-1 or higher.
In order to do any sophisticated editing, you'll either have to transcode
the mpeg2 to into something that is non-temporally compressed, e.g. DV-codec
encoded AVI, or rely on a very limited number of low-end, kludgy software
packages. There are some decent editing packages that can accept mpeg2.
However, none do so smoothly (or without requiring expensive add-in plugins
to do so smoothly), or do so without internally transcoding to a
non-temporally-compressed format.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Jan Nademlejnsky
Guest
|
| Posted:
Tue Oct 11, 2005 2:44 am Post subject:
Re: How to edit MPEG-2? |
|
|
Hi PT,
It looks like you are the person to shed some light on this subject. This
JVC camera does not have tape. It stores the info on HD. The JVC site is
claiming that it is easy to transfer the files from camera to DVD. Is this
process time consuming to wait for the file conversion? I have experience
with the DV from tape and it is pain. Two hour movie takes two hours to load
to PC. I was hoping that it would be simple process to transfer files from
camera to PC. I tape very short scenes and I am very conscious how and what
to tape to eliminate as much editing as possible. My clips are around 4 sec
long.
I would like to do the following:
1. Transfer files from camera to PC (drag from camera HD to PC HD)
2. Open Video editor
3. Import all files into the editor
4. I would see a film strip (all frames)
5. Run each strip (file) and cut out unwanted stuff
6. Ad some gimmicks (transitions, music and titles)
7. Burn it to DVD
Is it possible to get at reasonable cost, very good quality movie which
would look as good as from the DV tape camera?
Thanks for your help.
"PTravel" <ptravel88-usenet@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3qvv4pFh5rc7U1@individual.net...
| Quote: |
"Jan Nademlejnsky" <jannade@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:woz2f.151347$tl2.58259@pd7tw3no...
I placed order for JVC GZ-MG50 video camera which is using 30 GB HD
instead of tape. I was finally able to download the camera manual and I
was surprised that there is no editing possibilities either in camera or
on PC. There is some limited editing possibilities on Macintosh, but
nothing for PC.
I am calling on all experts in this field to tell me if I should avoid
this format (MPEG-2) for now and wait until it develops further, or that
there is some reasonably priced ($200) software for frame to frame
editing.
Thanks for your help
It depends on what you mean by "editing" (and I don't know what you mean
by "frame to frame"). If all you want to do is simple cuts-only editing,
then there are a lot of solutions for mpeg2. If, however, you want to do
anything reasonably sophisticated, e.g. transitions, effects, compositing,
titling, etc., and you want to wind up with good-quality DVDs after, then
mpeg2 is not the format to use.
Mpeg2 is a delivery format, not an editing format. Your camera is not
using a hard drive "instead" of tape -- tape-based digital consumer
camcorders use miniDV or Digital8, both of which utilize the DV-25
standard. DV-25 results in compression at a 5-to-1 ratio, and only
compresses physically, not temporally. Your camcorder uses mpeg2, which,
at DVD-compliant standards, compresses temporally (it uses the change over
time before and after a reference frame to determine intermediate frames),
and at a compression rate of 10-to-1 or higher.
In order to do any sophisticated editing, you'll either have to transcode
the mpeg2 to into something that is non-temporally compressed, e.g.
DV-codec encoded AVI, or rely on a very limited number of low-end, kludgy
software packages. There are some decent editing packages that can accept
mpeg2. However, none do so smoothly (or without requiring expensive add-in
plugins to do so smoothly), or do so without internally transcoding to a
non-temporally-compressed format.
Jan
|
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
PTravel
Guest
|
| Posted:
Tue Oct 11, 2005 3:34 am Post subject:
Re: How to edit MPEG-2? |
|
|
"Jan Nademlejnsky" <jannade@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:TgB2f.152538$tl2.113662@pd7tw3no...
| Quote: | Hi PT,
It looks like you are the person to shed some light on this subject. This
JVC camera does not have tape. It stores the info on HD. The JVC site is
claiming that it is easy to transfer the files from camera to DVD. Is this
process time consuming to wait for the file conversion?
|
It depends. If you're not going to edit the video, there are two ways to
get it to DVD. You can either get a stand-alone DVD recorder and run the
video directly (either as analog or, if the DVD recorder supports it, as
digital), and let the DVD recorder create the DVD. That shouldn't take much
time.
Alternatively, you can transfer the video to your computer as mpeg2 and use
and authoring program to format it for DVD and burn it from the computer.
It shouldn't take long to author it, and burning speed is a function of the
DVD drive that you buy.
| Quote: | I have experience with the DV from tape and it is pain. Two hour movie
takes two hours to load to PC. I was hoping that it would be simple
process to transfer files from camera to PC. I tape very short scenes and
I am very conscious how and what to tape to eliminate as much editing as
possible. My clips are around 4 sec long.
|
Again, it all depends on what you mean by editing. I edit my home videos,
but I don't think I'm using the term in the same sense that you are. I trim
clips, rearrange scenes, add transitions and effects, do corrections of a
variety of sorts, add music tracks, etc. An HD camcorder that records mpeg
is completely unsuitable for that. If all you want to do is cut stuff out,
or re-arrange it, than the HD camcorder would be okay, questions of video
quality notwithstanding.
| Quote: |
I would like to do the following:
1. Transfer files from camera to PC (drag from camera HD to PC HD)
2. Open Video editor
3. Import all files into the editor
4. I would see a film strip (all frames)
5. Run each strip (file) and cut out unwanted stuff
6. Ad some gimmicks (transitions, music and titles)
7. Burn it to DVD
|
Number 6 in your list is where you're going to run into trouble with mpeg2.
| Quote: |
Is it possible to get at reasonable cost, very good quality movie which
would look as good as from the DV tape camera?
|
In a word, no. Consumer hard drive 'corders do on-the-fly, single-pass mpeg
encoding and will not produce as good a result as you'd get transcoding
DV-codec AVI material to mpeg2. Of course, the trade-off is speed --
transcoding takes time.
Additionally, the very few consumer "editors" around that can handle mpeg2
are kludgy and, for transitions and titles, will further degrade what is
already lower quality video by re-transcoding the transitions and titles.
If you have any aspirations towards producing something that is more than
real-time "home movies" of the kids' birthday party, I'd recommend steering
clear of hard drive and DVD-based camcorders.
| Quote: |
Thanks for your help.
"PTravel" <ptravel88-usenet@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3qvv4pFh5rc7U1@individual.net...
"Jan Nademlejnsky" <jannade@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:woz2f.151347$tl2.58259@pd7tw3no...
I placed order for JVC GZ-MG50 video camera which is using 30 GB HD
instead of tape. I was finally able to download the camera manual and I
was surprised that there is no editing possibilities either in camera or
on PC. There is some limited editing possibilities on Macintosh, but
nothing for PC.
I am calling on all experts in this field to tell me if I should avoid
this format (MPEG-2) for now and wait until it develops further, or that
there is some reasonably priced ($200) software for frame to frame
editing.
Thanks for your help
It depends on what you mean by "editing" (and I don't know what you mean
by "frame to frame"). If all you want to do is simple cuts-only editing,
then there are a lot of solutions for mpeg2. If, however, you want to do
anything reasonably sophisticated, e.g. transitions, effects,
compositing, titling, etc., and you want to wind up with good-quality
DVDs after, then mpeg2 is not the format to use.
Mpeg2 is a delivery format, not an editing format. Your camera is not
using a hard drive "instead" of tape -- tape-based digital consumer
camcorders use miniDV or Digital8, both of which utilize the DV-25
standard. DV-25 results in compression at a 5-to-1 ratio, and only
compresses physically, not temporally. Your camcorder uses mpeg2, which,
at DVD-compliant standards, compresses temporally (it uses the change
over time before and after a reference frame to determine intermediate
frames), and at a compression rate of 10-to-1 or higher.
In order to do any sophisticated editing, you'll either have to transcode
the mpeg2 to into something that is non-temporally compressed, e.g.
DV-codec encoded AVI, or rely on a very limited number of low-end, kludgy
software packages. There are some decent editing packages that can
accept mpeg2. However, none do so smoothly (or without requiring
expensive add-in plugins to do so smoothly), or do so without internally
transcoding to a non-temporally-compressed format.
Jan
|
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
PTravel
Guest
|
| Posted:
Tue Oct 11, 2005 3:36 am Post subject:
Re: How to edit MPEG-2? |
|
|
"Dave Martindale" <davem@cs.ubc.ca> wrote in message
news:diep3t$frg$1@mughi.cs.ubc.ca...
| Quote: | "PTravel" <ptravel88-usenet@yahoo.com> writes:
Mpeg2 is a delivery format, not an editing format. Your camera is not
using
a hard drive "instead" of tape -- tape-based digital consumer camcorders
use
miniDV or Digital8, both of which utilize the DV-25 standard.
I do wonder why the hard drive-based camcorders do *not* provide a mode
where the drive is literally used instead of tape. If the data was
recorded as an AVI file using a DV codec, it would be absolutely
indistinguisable from tape in image quality, editability, etc. You'd
only get a bit more than 2 hours of recording time from a 30 GB disk
instead of the 5-10 hours you'd get using MPEG2, but that's a tradeoff
I'd happily make when I'm planning to edit the video (i.e. almost
always).
|
I think you answered your own question. At 13.7 gigs an hour, I think the
target demographic for a camera like this would balk. If they took it on
vacation, they'd have to dump video every evening, and watch what they shot
during the day.
| Quote: |
It *can't* be difficult for the manufacturers to supply two different
codecs. The data rate of about 3.5 MB/sec for DV shouldn't be a
problem. So why don't they do it? Hard drive storage is a great idea
if you don't care about archiving tapes as backups; why hobble the hard
drive camcorders in comparison to tape by forcing MPEG?
|
Camera manufacturers have, unanimously, rejected video quality for their
consumer lines and, instead, focused on gimmicks and gadgets. Personally,
I think it shows contempt for consumers. However, whatever the reason,
quality video is simply unavailable in low-cost consumer products.
| Quote: |
Do the manufacturers of these camcorders allow mounting the internal
disk as removable storage, rather than just "playing back" the video.
Playback just lets you get the data into a computer at realtime speed,
while mounting the drive as a Firewire or USB2 disk should allow copying
data at near drive read speed, which ought to be a couple times faster
than realtime for AVI/DV data, and 2-4X faster again for MPEG-2 data.
Dave |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Netmask
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Oct 12, 2005 10:32 am Post subject:
Re: How to edit MPEG-2? |
|
|
You can edit MPEG 2 files in Womble, VideoRedo, Vegas 6, etc etc all PC
programs. There are even free programs available to do basic mpeg editing
like Cutterman etc..
As far as I can find out from the technical specs, you transfer via the USB
2 port to your computer. This should be around 480mbps.
The resulting file will be either a mpeg program file or a mpeg transport
file either of which can be easily edited in the programs I have listed
above. Womble is around US$100.
If you want to demux the file, that is separate out the sound and video for
independent editing and manipulation there is an excellent free demuxer
called ProjectX. (You need Java on your computer to use ProjectX - Java is a
free download) You can even do basic top and tailing in it.
A good starting point is this site that deals specifically with your camera
http://www.letsgodigital.org/en/news/articles/story_3502.html then go to
www.videohelp.com and enrol in the forum and go ask questions!!!
Whoever told you there is no editing possible or limited editing in a
Macintosh and none on PC is either very ignorant of the facts or simply is
lying to you for whatever reason...
"Jan Nademlejnsky" <jannade@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:woz2f.151347$tl2.58259@pd7tw3no...
[quote]I placed order for JVC GZ-MG50 video camera which is using 30 GB HD instead
of tape. I was finally able to download the camera manual and I was
surprised that there is no editing possibilities either in camera or on PC.
There is some limited editing possibilities on Macintosh, but nothing for
PC.
I am calling on all experts in this field to tell me if I should avoid
this format (MPEG-2) for now and wait until it develops further, or that
there is some reasonably priced ($200) software for frame to frame
editing.
Thanks for your help
Jan
[/quote] |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Dave Martindale
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Oct 12, 2005 4:02 pm Post subject:
Re: How to edit MPEG-2? |
|
|
"PTravel" <ptravel88-usenet@yahoo.com> writes:
[quote]I think you answered your own question. At 13.7 gigs an hour, I think the
target demographic for a camera like this would balk. If they took it on
vacation, they'd have to dump video every evening, and watch what they shot
during the day.
[/quote]
If I took such a camcorder on vacation, I'd take along a laptop to
handle dumping the video data. (I might have it along anyway, to do the
same for the digital still camera). Or I'd switch to MPEG recording to
get more time.
But most video shooting is *not* on vacation, and I can easily unload
the disk at the end of the day. So why not offer the option of DV-coded
video as well as MPEG?
[quote]Camera manufacturers have, unanimously, rejected video quality for their
consumer lines and, instead, focused on gimmicks and gadgets. Personally,
I think it shows contempt for consumers. However, whatever the reason,
quality video is simply unavailable in low-cost consumer products.
[/quote]
That's the most plausible explanation, unfortunately.
Dave |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Crunchy Doodle
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Oct 12, 2005 7:02 pm Post subject:
Re: How to edit MPEG-2? |
|
|
Check out www.womble.com for their two products. The one you will find
most interesting is Womble Video Wizard for MPEG-2 files. It does a
very credible job of the full work flow of non-linear editing with
frame accurate cuts and 2-D and 3-D transitions and effects. And it's
in your price range.
Bye. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Martin van derPoel
Guest
|
| Posted:
Mon Oct 17, 2005 2:01 pm Post subject:
Re: How to edit MPEG-2? |
|
|
Tryb a program called Womble multimedia producer.
You can do edits in it.
If you use the "Smart Render" option is does not process anuthing that is
DVD compliant.
It is only for simple editing, and a try out is available.
Regards,
Martin
"Jan Nademlejnsky" <jannade@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:woz2f.151347$tl2.58259@pd7tw3no...
| Quote: | I placed order for JVC GZ-MG50 video camera which is using 30 GB HD instead
of tape. I was finally able to download the camera manual and I was
surprised that there is no editing possibilities either in camera or on PC.
There is some limited editing possibilities on Macintosh, but nothing for
PC.
I am calling on all experts in this field to tell me if I should avoid
this format (MPEG-2) for now and wait until it develops further, or that
there is some reasonably priced ($200) software for frame to frame
editing.
Thanks for your help
Jan
|
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
FAQ
Memberlist
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in