|
Video & Home Movie articles by Paul Thurrott |
Copying Analog Video to the PC, the Hard Way (Part Two)
After experimenting with several tools, I finally came back to the
first utility I'd tried, DVD2AVI. As I noted last week, this
application created a soundless AVI file, so I'd originally
dismissed it. However, after failing miserably at converting the
video by using other tools (or, in some cases, achieving some
success with low-quality MPEG-2 rips), I returned to DVD2AVI (see
the first URL below). I'm glad I did.
Source: Connected Home Express, June 31, 2002.
Copying Analog Video to the PC, the Hard Way (Part One)
Thanks largely to research I've been doing for future Connected Home
EXPRESS columns, I've spent a lot of time during the past several
weeks working on a variety of digital media-related tasks. For
example, I've been connecting a component cassette player to the PC
through the sound card's line-in port and through various USB
devices, attempting to figure out which method results in the
best-sounding MP3 files. I hope to have the results ready soon, but
an even more time-consuming task has me almost completely flummoxed
this week. Source: Connected Home Express, June 30, 2002.
Lack of Storage
Limits Digital Video's Potential
Here's a common scenario: Joe Consumer, lured by Apple Computer's
digital-hub commercials, takes a Saturday afternoon drive over to
the local Apple retail store and is blown away by demonstrations of
iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, and iTunes. Excited about the possibilities,
Joe Consumer plunks down $1900 for a new flat-panel iMac, complete
with recordable DVD drive, a fast 60GB hard disk, and 256MB of RAM;
he has acquired an ample system for digital media. Joe Consumer has
a simple plan: Record some audio CDs to the hard disk, scan some
photos for a personal Web site, and start encoding home movies,
which he can edit in iMovie and copy to standard DVDs that anyone
with a DVD player can watch. Joe Consumer is on the road to digital
"nerdvana," right? Not exactly. Unfortunately, our fictitious Joe
Consumer is in for a surprise. The preceding paragraph conveniently
glosses over the details and cost of several other items Joe will
need to reach oneness with his digital self. And the most
problematic of these items is storage. Source: Connected Home Express, June 26, 2002.
Digital Strategies: Digital Video
Of all the digital media migrations you might make, switching from
analog to digital video is the most challenging. Digital video
requires a much steeper learning curve than digital music or photos.
Digital video also requires enormous amounts of time and hard disk
space. However, few people have large collections of legacy video
footage waiting for conversion to digital formats, which eases the
transition. If you have analog video that you want to archive and
edit on the PC, you have two basic options. For those with small
home-video collections�for example, a few home videos in a popular
format such as VHS, VHS-C, or 8mm�the cheapest and least
time-consuming option is to find a local video service to convert
the movies to a digital format, such as DVD video. Source: Connected
Home Express, June 5, 2002.
Pinnacle DV500 Plus Review Part One (and
Part Two)
The DV500 PLUS features an internal hardware card for your PC, as
well as an external Blue Box breakout box that connects to your PC
with a long, thick cable. The product provides analog video and
audio connections, both incoming and outgoing. The internal card
also features two FireWire/IEEE-1394 ports for digital-camera
compatibility. With this setup you get real-time video editing and
3-D special effects. Source: Connected Home Express, March 20 and
April 3, 2002.
ArcSoft ShowBiz
Review
In my opinion, the best
consumer-level movie-authoring software for the PC is a package
you've probably never heard of, and it comes from a company that's
equally anonymous. But don't be fooled by its mysterious origins: If
you've ever wanted a Windows program that works like Apple's
excellent iMovie software, you're in for a treat because ArcSoft
ShowBiz is all that and much, much more.
Source: Connected Home Express, March 6, 2002.
A .NET Service We Can All Rally Around
SnapStream offers a $50 software product that brings DVR
capabilities to the PC. This product lets you take advantage of that
whopping hard disk you probably already own, and the PC-based
solution is almost infinitely expandable (a new 100GB hard disk
costs far less than a hardware-based DVR unit, for example). Source: Dot NET UPDATE, February 7, 2002.
DVD Movie-Creation Software
At this nascent stage, DVD movie-creation software is as immature as
you'd expect, but I saw some exciting upcoming products at the
COMDEX Fall trade show and expect this market to heat up in the
coming months. In the meantime, I've looked at several titles that
are available today and have a few recommendations.
Source: Connected Home Express, December 5, 2001.
Making the Move to Recordable DVD, Part Three
In this final installment of our look at recordable DVD, you'll
learn how to record your own DVD movies. As we've previously
discussed, the world of recordable DVDs is somewhat fractured into
two groups�those that support DVD-RAM and DVD-R/W (DVD-R and DVD-RW)
and those that support a rival format called DVD+RW. Source:
Connected Home Express, December 5, 2001.
How to Record Digital Video Back to Tape (Part One)
You can use Apple's iMovie 2 or Microsoft's Windows Movie Maker
(WMM) to digitally input video into your computer, edit the video in
various ways, and create a final movie to share with others through
email or the Web. But these PC-based movies have limited usefulness
if your friends and family don't have computers or Internet access.
Because so many people own VCRs, it's more useful to record your
movies back to videotape. Here's how to convert your digital movies
to tape. Source: Connected Home Express, September 12, 2001.
Can't Afford DVD+RW? VCD It!
I recently came across an interesting technology called Video
Compact Disc (VCD) that's inexpensive and lets you record video onto
normal CD-R discs and CD-RWs. Source: Connected Home Express, August
17, 2001.
Taking Digital Movie Making to the Next Level
A look at the next-generation digital-movie tools that are available
out of the box with new Windows XP-based PCs and Apple's Macintoshes
(Macs). Source: Connected Home Express, August 3, 2001.
Break Through the Digital Video Entry Barrier
The problem with most digital media, frankly, is the barrier of
entry, and when we talk about digital video, it's exponentially more
complicated than anything in digital music or photography. Like many
of you, I'm just getting my feet wet, but I've "produced" a couple
of low-quality videos for my son's Web site recently, and I hope to
be able to archive my home videos on the computer soon. Here's what
I've learned. Source: Connected Home Express, June 14, 2001.
Making Movies
With the inclusion of Windows Movie Maker (WMM) in Windows XP and
Windows Me, Microsoft provides a very basic package aimed at
beginners. But WMM's low bar of entry makes it ideal for getting
your feet wet in the exciting�but confusing�world of digital video.
Source: Connected Home Express, June 14, 2001.
Paul Thurrott on Connected Home
An index of digital media articles I've written for Connected Home
Express and Connected Home Magazine.
Use a Digital Camcorder to Import Analog
Video
If you've made the move to digital video but have analog
video such as VHS or 8mm video tape that you'd like copy to the
computer, you can use your digital camcorder to obtain the legacy
video. Depending on the digital camcorder model you own, you will be
able to use the camcorder as a "pass-through" for an analog video
source and/or record analog video onto digital tape and then acquire
the video normally. The key is your camcorder's input port, which
should let you connect to other video sources using standard RCA and
S-video jacks. You can also use this capability to copy video in the
other direction; for example, you might wish to copy digital video
out to VHS tape so that family and friends who haven't made the leap
to digital video can enjoy your home movies.
With Video Editing, Keep it Simple
With the powerful set of capabilities found in today's
video editing packages such as iMovie 2, Microsoft Producer, and
others, it's tempting to use a wide selecting of fades, transitions,
and titles. But such additions are often distracting, especially in
home movies, which often feature less-than-professional video
quality to begin with. The rule of thumb is to keep it simple: Use
simple, non-distracting transitions such as the cross-fade wherever
possible, and keep animated titles to a minimum. Your
viewers--primarily friends and family--will thank you for your
restraint.
For Video Work, It's Compression vs.
Quality
If you're interested in recording your old home movies or
new digital camcorder movies onto the PC, you're going to
immediately run into a disk space problem. At so-called
DVD-quality--720 x 480 full frame rate--video takes up a lot of
space. Your options are few: You could purchase hard drives in bulk,
an expensive proposition at best--or look into compressed video
formats that sacrifice a little video quality in order to save
copious amounts of disk space. Windows users should look into
Windows Media Video (WMV) version 8, which offers excellent quality
video with high compression. But you should experiment a bit before
committing your video library to the hard drive. Your wallet will
thank you for it.
Make a Photo Montage
Windows XP users have everything they need to turn their digital
photo collections into cool photo montages, complete with background
music or voiceovers. Just launch Windows Movie Maker (WMM) and start
a new Collection. Then, drag the digital photos you'd like to add
into the Collection, and then down to the timeline, in the order you
want. To add a smooth transition between each photo, drag them one
at a time to the left, 2-3 seconds, as denoted by the marks on the
timeline. Then, copy an MP3 or WMA file in for background music, or
record a voiceover using WMM's built-in voiceover tool. Save the
movie into a Web- or email-friendly format, and you can share it
with your friends and family.
Use Producer Add-on for Windows Media
Movies
If you've got Office XP, you qualify for a free PowerPoint
add-on called Producer that dramatically increases your ability to
work with digital audio and video. Producer is like Movie Maker on
steroids, and it can be used to capture, synchronize, and publish
audio, video, slides, and images. By default, Producer creates
Web-based presentations that can be viewed in Internet Explorer 5 or
later, but you can extract the edited Windows Media Video file and
use it in just about any Windows version. Producer is a great tool,
and you can't beat the price. Check it out on the
Microsoft Web site.
Can't Afford a
TiVo? SnapStream It!
The ever-emerging Digital Video Recorder (DVR) market hasn't taken
off yet, largely because companies like TiVo and Replay aren't doing
a good job of explaining to consumers why such a device would be
useful. The other problem is price: hardware DVRs cost $500 or more,
and that's a lot to ask for a fancy VCR. But if you're already a PC
user, why not take advantage of that whopping hard drive you
probably already have? Using DVR software such as the excellent
SnapStream PVS, and a low-cost TV capture card, you can record TV
shows and movies to your PC, and it's much cheaper than a hardware
DVR solution. I'll be reviewing the latest version of this exciting
product soon, but in the meantime, you can find out more about
SnapStream on the company's
Web site.
Get the Most from Windows Movie Maker
Windows XP ships with a bare bones movie editing package called
Windows Movie Maker (WMM, an earlier version also shipped in Windows
Me), but there are a couple of free add-ons available from Microsoft
that really make a difference. The first is the WMM 1.2 upgrade,
available from Windows Update, which features a new, near
DVD-quality movie resolution with excellent compression and support
for the Windows Media Video 8 (WMV 8) format. Also available is the
Windows Media Bonus Pack for Windows XP which, among other things,
includes the Windows Movie Maker Creativity Kit. This kit includes
professional title slides, music files, and sound files, which can
be used, royalty-free, in your own movies. The Windows Media Bonus
Pack is available now from the
Microsoft Web site.
Backup, Backup, Backup
Not that I needed the recent failure of my 30 GB data drive to
remind me, but when you begin storing all of your digital photos,
music, and videos on the PC, it's more important than ever to backup
regularly. I recommend a strict schedule, and if you use some sort
of calendaring program such as Outlook, MSN Calendar, or Act, then
be sure to set reminders so that you are prompted to make backups
every week or so. While it's possible to use the built-in backup in
Windows, it might be better to back up to removable media such as CD
or DVD. And make two copies, bringing one off-site if possible.
Remember: You can never backup too much.
Repurpose That Old PC as a Media Server
In the old days, people would often toss out an old PC when the
new one arrived, because PC technology moved along so fast that the
old one was often useless. Today, that's often no longer the case,
and any PC that's less than five years old can often be repurposed
as a spare PC for the kids, a gift to a local school or charity, or
you can use it as a dedicated media server to store your audio,
movie, and photo files. If you do choose to go the media server
route, be sure to purchase a new, high-capacity hard drive first,
and back up often. Then, put it on your home network, and map drive
letters to it from your other PCs. I use a home media server for
this purpose, and it works fine on the wired Ethernet, home phone
line, and wireless networks we employ.
Take Movies on the Road ... Without a DVD Drive
My favorite laptop for business trips is a tiny unit from Dell, the
Latitude L400, which sports a full-sized keyboard but weighs only
3.5 pounds. The problem, however, is that the Dell didn't come with
a DVD drive, leaving me movie-less when I'm on the road. But with a
little foresight and time, even this obstacle can be overcome. Using
Windows Movie Maker (available in Windows Me and Windows XP) and a
USB dongle from Belkin called the VideoBus II (any audio and video
in would work fine), I record the movies I want to watch ahead of
time using my desktop PC, and then transfer the files to the laptop
for the trip. Then I can watch them on a train or plane and drag
them to the Trashcan when I'm done. File sizes depend on the
quality: At the highest quality rate USB allows, for example, a 2
hour movie takes up about 450 MB of space. But you can fit a decent
quality 2 hour movie in as little as 150 MB, making it possible to
bring numerous films. I tend to stick to lower budget offerings for
this type of viewing, such as TV shows or movies formatted in that
TV-style 4:3.htmlect ratio.
|
|
|
Buy the book!
Introduction
Why I wrote the book
Table of Contents Home
Site Contents Photo & Imaging
Music & Audio
Video & Home Movie
Internet & Sharing
Microsoft's XP Video & Home Movie articles
Getting Started with Windows Movie Maker
Courtesy of Microsoft: Before you can start using Windows Movie
Maker to work with video on your computer, you must make sure that
your computer and your video camera work well together. The wide
range of hardware configurations�for both video equipment and home
computers�has created an equally wide range of hardware
compatibility scenarios.
Transfer Video to Your Computer
Courtesy of Microsoft: With Windows Movie Maker, it�s easy to
transfer your video footage to your hard disk so you can begin
working with it.
Edit Movies
In Windows Movie Maker, the workspace for editing runs along the
bottom of your screen, below the collections area and the monitor.
This is where you create and edit your project, which can later be
saved as a movie. |
