Topic: Digital Video Editing

[Adept]

Are there any budding Spielbergs here?

I recently bought a digital video camera. Whilst I have no problems setting it up and creating S-VCDs from my home movies1, I have one big question to ask ...

Why do I have to download the tape in real-time?

I sort of assumed that the process of copying the movie off the tape onto the PC would be similar to copying jpg files off a compact flash card as with my digital still camera. Instead I have to set the software to record and hope that there are no dropped frames etc. and then wait for the duration of the tape while the DV or MPG file is recreated on my PC?

Surely I'm doing something wrong?

I have a Panasonic NV-GS4 connected via Firewire with Ulead Videostudio 7 software.




1. I'm saving up for a DVD writer!

[lobo]

@Adept
"movie off the tape onto the PC"

Not certain what we are talking here, does a digital video camcorder hold the image in memory or on tape?

If the data is on a tape how else gould you download it,if its held in memory then it should just transfer the data across by firewire

Brian

[daveeb]

Why do I have to download the tape in real-time?

hi adept, well i download my footage as dv, it can only download at the speed the tape will play at i.e. normal playback speed.  or have i missed the point of the question.

[Clive]

Remember that you won't get any sense out of Adept until he returns from basking in more sunny climes.  Another 12 days 14 hours and 42 minutes yet.  

[Sandra]

Remember that you won't get any sense out of Adept until he SOBERS UP

Oh Clive how could you say that about the boss man when hes not here to defend himself  

[The_Optikal_1]

working with video does use alot of time and resource.
I don't have a DV though I dump 8mm and it does just run in real time.

A way that works well for me is to only lay down what you want in smaller clips(the good scenes).
Then you can set the in and out points and work in transitions on 10 min. clips instead of one 2hour clip.
And you don't have to waste time laying down mins. you won't use.

[Adept]

Thanks for your replies. You all understood the problem perfectly.

I'm just annoyed really, that I have been sold into a new video format that doesn't acyually have many advantages over the older Hi8 format I was using before. My biggest problem with that format was that clips were tranferred to the PC in real-time and this problem doesn't seem to have been solved with DV

Do the people that make cameras actually ever do any editing? Surely it advantageous to get the raw data for your movie clip onto the PC as fast as possible, so that you can edit it?

I just don't understand why the tape cannot be made to stream the data out at the fastest speed that Firewire can accommodate (I suppose in a similar way to a DAT or other type of tape drive).

To me "Digital" means working at the speed that the bits can be transferred