MIni DV Hints and Tips

I've bought a miniDV camcorder[1] to film soon to be Entwisi Jnr. Any
hints Tips etc that Would make quality of films better? Editing
hints/tips? Best tapes to use etc

TIA

[1] Canon MV750i £320 delivered from Pixmania, Seemed cheap as Jessops
won't go below £420.

 

I use Pinnacle Studio which has got much better over the 5 years I've
been using it. A lot of new PCs now come bundled with it. Good enough
for decent home movies especially with a DVD burner as writing back to
tape after editing used to be a pain.

http://www.pinnaclesys.com/

With HD space so cheap nowadays there's no need to capture in preview
quality. I just capture a whole tape, edit it down and then burn it to
DVD. You could also consider Nero. I've had a play around with that and
it seems. Perhaps less intuitive (IMHO) but it also seems to write
faster for some reason.

HTH

 

Practise. And lots of it. So by the time you get to Jnr Mk 3 you should be
fine

Oh, and keep *off* the bloody zoom button, or edit the zooms out
afterwards. Nothing more annoying.

Get a decent tripod, set camera up to film wide area and then go and join
in playing with Jnr & mum & soft toys, etc and forget about camera.

 

It's a good idea to record record nothing (leave the lens-cap on) for the
entire length of a new tape before you use it. This puts a time-code along
the whole tape which subsequent recording 'hooks' on to. The main advantage
of this is that you don't get nasty jumps between scene changes on play-back
but, as you're planning to do post-editing, this may be less of a problem.

I know you haven't specifically asked for shooting tips but here are some
anyway! :

As much as possible aim to edit in-camera (i.e. be judicious about what you
shoot and how long you shoot for). Keep shooting sequences short.[1] And
FFS hold the camera still (use a tripod [2])! And if you *must* use the
zoom then use it sparingly and for a reason - i.e. before pressing 'RECORD'
zoom into your subject - then, once recording, zoom out - but only if
there's something worth zooming out to- i.e. the rest of the family/a herd
of cows/toys gathered around your sprog. Ideally do all your zooming whilst
not recording. Only pan if it'll add some value to the footage. If you want
to pan then make sure you've already planned where you're panning from and
to.
The above tips could save you *hours* of post-editing on the computer too.

[1] I've got 40+ MiniDV tapes which I simply haven't had time to edit.
There's so much footage of our kids etc I'm not sure I'll ever get around to
editing any of it - the task is simply too daunting.
[2] Hardly any of the footage of our kids has me in the frame. Not a bad
thing, some might say, but my kids are bound to wonder if they ever even
*had* a Daddy when they review our home videos in years to come.

 

entwisi wrote

Get one of them "So you want to make videos" type series magazine
thingies from W H Smith and *practice*

If you are really serious then do your editing on paper.

The expensive ones.

I have A Man in Jessops.

 

I've got about 6 tapes worth captured on my PC currently being edited...
mind you it's been like that for about 3 months now .

Actually the DVDs I have done haven't been edited with any real skill,
just cutting out the boring bits and the SO's annoying habit of always
panning the camera around the room. Doing it like that you still get
something that kids like watching but it doesn't take forever to do.

I always forget to keep my mouth shut when holding the camera. It's
amazing how strong the accent comes across on tape

 

<tangent mode>

I finally got round to editing some of my camcorder footage and
transferring it to HDD/DVD but my camcorder decided to go tits up at
the time[1]. The problem is it's a Digital8 camcorder and while I
wouldn't mind buying a new camera I would want miniDV next time.

A new entry level Digital8 camcorder is about £200, 2nd hand market
seems to be non existant. Can anyone suggest a cheaper method of
getting my old footage from the tapes to the firewire port on my PC?

Household insurance has been considered but I suspect it would cost
more than that in increased premiums.

</tm>

What's the best preferred method to archive digital camera footage? I
was transferring to DVD for the folks to be able to watch it but would
also like to archive the video in something better than MPEG-2.


[1] Tape door refuses to close and always ejects with an error. It did
this once before and cost £250 to repair so new would be cheaper this
time.

 

"rb" <> came forth with the following in
uk.rec.motorcycles

Oddly enough - tape. Edit it and then write back to tape via dv port. No
compression loss as it writes in DV format which is what the original
footage is

Unless you edit it in chunks of 4.5Gb and write the avi to DVD. For an
hours tape you'll need 4 DVD's

--

Mark
ZX12R-B1 (Blue)
CG125 (hers)
Blata Ninja 3.4
BOTSWCAW#3

 

Cheers for that one, Tape running as I type

All knowledge is good knowledge )

So mental note to self, make sure you edit soon after shooting or it
probably will never get done.

Cheers, again noted.

 

Thats exactly why I bought one with DV IN.

 

Right, my dulcet tones will need keeping in check, makes note to get some
decent soundtracks for when I forget.

 

3!

No chance mate, 2 and its scissor time

Right.

 

Will be done under Linux so thanks for the recommendation but it won't be
used.

 

That too - but I suppose what I really meant was that if I had edited
in-camera (or as Auvache so wisely said, before even turning the camera on)
I wouldn't have 40+ hours of footage to edit - and the task would be
significantly less daunting.

np!

 

Been there, done that, 11 DVD's later containing 11 RAR files from 54.x Gb
down to 48Gb so I save my self a few Gb.

 

Is that one RAR file split across 11 discs? I don't fancy that much, it
must take forever to get the data back onto HDD to do anything with it.

I've decided that HDD prices are low enough to make them convenient
enough not to worry about writing back to tape/or DVD.

Now I just need to find a cheap Digital8 player with a DV output.