Hey everybody on afterdawn, this isn't a pitiful plea for a hand-holding guide through the world of video editing, I just have a couple questions to ask. You see, I have to of the Sony Handycam mini DVD-RW's you get from their new camcorders, basically just a 1.4 Gig DVD with 30 minutes of footage. I need to rip the footage off these DVD's, perform some quick enhancements (I just need to increase the brightness and contrast) and then re-encode them and put the contents of both onto 1 DVD. Now, I have no problem with the burning part, I just need a good way to get the footage off, and edit it in premiere or soemthing, without loosing too much quality, but preferably without using up 40-50+ gigs of space on my HD with uncompressed video. So, if someone could point me in the direction of a guide or two that will tell me how to... a) Rip Video to and editable format without losing quality. b) Which program is the best to just do some minor editing with. That'd be great, thanks!
My sister had a handycam DVD once. It came with a cable and some software we used with a Capture card. did an OK job geting video off. It wasn't the easiest thing to do. For ripping A/V the easiest and best way I have found is using a Firewire Card or IEEE/1394 and a DV cable. I purchased both for around 10$ each. I use Vegas 5.0 to do all my ediing and ripping. If you know premier or something else use that to edit with seeing as how you already know it. Vegas comes with a program called Vegas Video Capture which I use to get all my A/V to my PC and with my DV cable the program controls my camera making it still easier to use. As far as HDD space goes. If you have some extra cash and some space in your PC get another drive. you can purchase good size drives for this cheaply. (around 100$ depending) if you are not that into it then use up the space you have now and when your done editing and rerendering it just delete all the extra video you don't need. As far as overall quality goes most programs will render it fairly well. the important step there is how you get if off the DVDS and onto the HDD. I used a capture card once upon a time but then switched to DV. it faster and better. MUCH BETTER QUALITY! I know this isnt a guide, but I hope it helps Bremen
