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Good Video Editor?

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DaviDaVinci

Golden Member
What's a good Hardware based video editor? I want to convert my Camcorder VHS-C tapes to mpg's or avi's. I want something that won't take forever. I got 5 tapes to edit and convert to digital format. So far i've heard that Pinnacle is good. Any experienced people out there? Thanks.

Davi
 
Pinnacle DC10+ is good but I haven't seen support for W2K and XP yet.
So far only W98 but it works fine. Just remember that there is a file size limitation. My father uses this setup and he says it is only possible to capture 2Gb sequences (due to W98 ?) which means ~20min SVHS quality.
 
Pinnacle is good. I currently use the ATI TV-Wonder. The newer capture drivers from ATI makes it work great with XP or win2k. Don't know about the Pinnacle though. Either way, capture and encoding speed is almost entirely dependent on your CPU/HD/RAM. So if you don't want it to take long, get a more powerful system. Then use VirtualDub or some other dedicated capture program (don't use ATI's program, quality sucks) to capture in a lossless (also less CPU intensive) compression (like HuffYUV) and afterwards re-encode into DiVX or whatever (wouldn't suggest Mpeg unless you want to make VCD's you can watch on a DVD-Player, if so, Pinnacle StudioSE does a great job of making VCD/SVCD, etc.) I wouldn't expect to do all 5 VHS's in one day, in fact, with a relatively slow system (anything below a GHz), I'd expect it to take around 6-10 hours for a full 2 hours of video (not to mention take up a ton of HD space if you're capturing to a lossless format). I'd suggest capturing different sections, encoding them in a high compression format (like divx), then capturing another section. VirtualDub can then append the avi's together (no re-encoding required).
 
I actually want to do both divx (web) and mpeg (VCD) so the family can watch it on the DVD player. So let's see here, whats would be better quality, VCD or regualr VHS tapes?
I would VCR because it's proabably better quality then the VCD but once i make the VCD it's SO MUCH easier to copy to make mutiple copies. (and cheaper)

Any more suggestions.

BTW, I have a 850 thunderbird with 256 ram running win XP and about 50 gigs of free hard disk space.

Also, would it matter which video card i have?

One last thing, I also have Hauppauge WinTV theatre that has video input. Can i use that? Would it be same as using Ati or pinnacle to caputer the video?

Thanks
Davi

 
VCD and VHS are on part of each other. You get different types of distortions with each (macro blocks vs. "phasing"). Take a look at vcdhelp.com though, your player might be able to handle "XVcd's," which are essentially VCD's at twice the bitrate, which look MUCH better then VHS. Any dvd player made in the last year should be able to play XVcd.

-Chu
 
Oh yeah, I know I've said this in another thread, but you need a damn good reason not to go with a DC10+ at the $100 price point. XP drivers should be here within 2 weeks. The two most popular are "I don't want to shell out more money for a 3D accelerator when I can get one with Video in for $20 more" and "MJpeg sux0rs!," although I have issues with the latter . . .

-Chu
 
The DC10+ is a great buy, just don't know about W2K/XP drivers yet.
It doesn't need a super speedy rig either. A PIII@700 with lots of RAM and 30-40Gb 7200rpm IDE drive will do fine. Just make sure the HD is dedicated for only this purpose. Don't install anything on it. Especially an OS.
You can even edit DivX encoded files if the codec is installed. Don't let DivX assign its own file extension, leave it at '.avi'.

Good luck
 
You can choose Pinnacle DV200 Firewire [$240], Pinnacle DV500 Plus w Real-time effect [$489] or Matrox RT2500 PCI Non-linear DV Editor [$779] => all of them include Adobe Premiere 6.0 software
 
>What's a good Hardware based video editor?

Hardware ? If it's hardware your after Quetzalboat has the best you can get for cheap.... It's gona cost you easy between $500 and $3000 depending on the Quality and ease of use you want. Software is another issue.
 
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