Digital video help?

[kp216]

I recently bought a Sharp Viewcam Z mini DV. I want to do some movies of the kids (and boats naturally:D ) and set some stuff to music.
Can anyone recommend a software package that will let me do the editing on my computer?
Also... how can I convert a WMV file, like Windows Movie Maker, into an mpeg?
Thanks in advance for any help.

[Havasu Hangin']

I use Pinnacle Studio 8. Works good for me.
Pinnacle (http://www.pinnaclesys.com)

[Craig]

I was just talking to a freind yesterday about this. He's been doing his own little side business with fishing and hunting videos. He realy likes Media Studio Pro by Ulead.com The whole deal is about 300 bucks. They have some that aren't as expensive if you just want the basics.

[PlayTime]

Ulead is definatly really nice and it imports the file from the camcorder to the software so you can start converting. You can burn it out of Ulead so you dont need to play with converting things.
Pinacle usually requires a special video card that they package with there software I think.
Good luck with that

[Havasu Hangin']

Originally posted by PlayTime
Pinacle usually requires a special video card that they package with there software I think.
Not if you have a firewire port already....

[Tom Brown]

Originally posted by Havasu Hangin'
I use Pinnacle Studio 8. Works good for me.
It doesn't work for me. I've only ever got it to do one full render without crashing. That render is about 20 seconds of video. There have been several patches but none have allowed me to render video.
I abandoned Studio 8 at patch level 8.10.4 which was released about a week before they announced Studio 9. It pissed me off that they were releasing a new product when the old one wasn't working. They have since released another patch which I haven't tried because I've moved on.
The VideoMaker.com forums have tons of people reporting the same problem with Studio 8. It seems to depend on the output from your camera. I'm sure it works OK with some video because some people seem to like the program.
It's too bad because Studio is a fantastic looking application. It looks way better than Ulead, IMO. I wish it would work for me. :(
-- Tom

[Havasu Hangin']

Originally posted by Tom Brown
It doesn't work for me.
Must be the Canadian curse.

[Tom Brown]

I guess the VideoMaker forums are overrun by Canatards too. :D
I wonder if Kim has been banned from the VideoMaker forums? :confused:

[Cheap Thrills]

I have several different video /DVD authoring programs.
Each one has features I find useful.
I havent found one program that does it all the way I want to do it.
I like the video capture interface of Pinnacle Studio.
the Editing ability (ie music /SAP. mixer) of ArcSoft Show Biz.
and the burner interface of Sonic MyDVD.
If I had to chose just one out of the three it would be the ArcSoft Show Biz. it's the easiest to get to know and can do it all.
http://www.arcsoft.com/en/products/showbiz/
C.T. :wink:

[Tom Brown]

CT, have you used Cinelerra?

[Cheap Thrills]

No Tom , I havent Tried that one yet. should I look into it ?
C.T. :wink:

[Tom Brown]

Not necessarily. I was just curious to hear what you think of it.
It's not finished. It's an open source project that shows worlds of promise. It's got functionality on Primier's level but is far easier to use. I like it a lot but it doesn't do some extremely basic things and only supports a couple of types of source types.
Anyway, it works well enough to be useful for some things. I wish it could work with MJPEG files natively but they need to be converted first.
Here's a link to the manual. I'm pretty sure someone has ported it to Windows but it was developed on Linux.
http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra/cinelerra.html

[Cheap Thrills]

Yes Sir Just returned from gettin the skinny on it.
cant beat open source Linux . I even have a linux machine I could put it on :D speaking of pinguines http://www.***boat.com/image_center/data/500/1127TUX8demoCropped.gif have you looked at any of the mandrake packages ? pretty cool stuff I just updated to the 10.0 public release . cinerella may even be one of the packages in the bundle .
They have also released "Mandrake Move" wich is a basic Mandrake OS that runs from the CD ! Just throw it in most any computer that'll boot from the CD , and Viola :p
http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/
CIO
C.T. :wink: