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Help me shop for Mrs. Fool

K

KiltedFool

Senior member
Long story short, with a recent addition to the family and us living far away from any other family, my baby?s grandparents don?t get to see her very often, so we want to make home movies to send out.

We own a Sony Camcorder , I can?t recall the model, but it?s Mini DV, with USB and Firewire connection capability.

My wife?s comp is an XP 2100 on an AN-35N- Ultra, with 512 MB of memory, though I may be able to flop a gig in there depending on how I shuffle my other boxes. OS is XP Pro, video is onboard.

My wife would like some user friendly software that isn?t ridiculously expensive to do some editing of home movies from the camcorder, then be able to burn them to DVD for her parents (who own a DVD player) and to CD for my parents (who don?t have DVD but do own a computer, so can watch on the comp).

So I?m asking what is likely impossible: A reasonably priced, user-friendly software suite for some very basic video editing, and a DVD burner of similar breeding to allow us to send out movies to the relatives.

And I realize I probably should get her a real video card, I just haven?t gotten my brain back into the current models much.


KF

edit: Whoops accidentally lied to you fine folks, her mobo is a Shuttle MN31N, which has onboard GF4 MX integrated graphics. Also has onboard firewire, I think we even got it connected right to the front panel port on the Sonata it lives in. Haven't tested it yet, since I don't do much firewire work.
 
The easy software is all under $130 and as low as $50, so you are in luck. DV is AVI on the hard drive. It works out to be 13GB/hour. Add 4GB for a DVD file and another 4+GB for DVD workspace. Add another 512MB for the rest of the files. So, a tape to DVD would be about 21GB. Make sure you have enough.

Do you know the what the PU's (parental units) DVD player is? Check on the matrix of players at Videohelp to see if you have some compatibility issues (it may not play +R or -R or any). You may even consider, in some cases, buying them a new DVD player (I did that for the grandparents.)

I prefer Pinnacle Studio 9. Some have issues with it. I do not. YMMV. Ulead has a similar suite, but Studio 9 is easy to use.
 
Yeah, I've got the hardware to get the un-edited movie onto the computer, and my wife should have enough room to fiddle with for a while, her drive is an 80 GB Seagate.

The question from there was good software to edit the raw movie footage, maybe insert a still digital shot or two, and make an edited movie.

Then the question was, what sort of DVD burner should I get her to be able to burn DVDs the PUs can watch?

And I don't have the brand on the one PUs player, it was a freebie we got last year with new tires which we gave them for Christmas.

And an indirect question I raised was how much would the onboard video and 512 MB of memory impact her efforts, I don't want her bouncing her mouse off the screen after spiking it on her desk in frustration (she's done that before, Irishwoman).

Thanks for the early feedback.

KF
 
Pinnacle Studio 9
NEC 3500A Burner
Use Firewire
I'd recommend putting in 1g of RAM - it'll be easier to edit (take it from someone who does this)
The video will take up about 13gb/hour - so plan accordingly with Hard Drive Space

I use Adobe Encore (1.5) to author the DVD. It's a worthy investment - even though it's probably a little over your budget.
 
Hmm, I'm running out of days, so I think I'll have to take the plunge without having the opportunity to set up the trial and let Mrs. Fool beat on it some to see if she likes it.

That said, are there any real benefits to getting the Plus version over the non-Plus version? (Aside from that I'm often nonplussed).

Also, on the DVD burner, I mostly see that burner listed as OEM on the Egg and ZZF. When I bought a DVD Rom I got an OEM and then had to go scrounge up DVD software, so I think I should be looking for retail on the burner so I have the software I want.

Suggestions?

KF
 
I bought plus solely for the still picture wizard sight unseen. It was a $20 upgrade as a user on an early bird special. It adds Picture in Picture, which can be useful. Chromakey is what you might know as Green Screen (Blue Screen). With a Chroma Green background and proper lighting, you can do your own special effects. I cannot tell you if those are worth the price difference.

As for software, Studio can create the Video DVDs, but nothing else. Nero can do much more and a copy of that is very useful. A copy of Nero may be worth the price difference. Some burners ship with limited copies of DV editing software.
 
Aye, the software bundle is part of the reason I think I need to make sure to get a true retail version of the burner. If I get a decent bundle with the burner you all have recommended, and add in Studio, it looks like Mrs. Fool can do what she wants to do with some combination of software.

I've got some OEM Nero floating around from the last 3 Lite-On CD burners I bought, though I don't know if that helps since most OEM Nero is flagged to only work on the brand name of the burner it's bundled with.


Doing some pricewatch scans, it's hard to get this burner with software by the look of it, let alone in the preferred black faceplate. most listings say OEM or white box or bulk without software.

It's all starting to come together a little, I'm clearer than I was a few days ago.
 
I've got a handle on burning software, so I'm likely to pull the trigger on the Egg for the black OEM today. I don't like that ZZF has issues with accurately representing In Stock status.

In reading up on the software, it looks like the main battle is between Pinnacle Studio and Adobe Elements, some reviews say Pinnacle has a lot of features it tries to get you to pay to activate and that it tends to hang a lot.

I'm within a whisker of buying Pinnacle Studio 9 Plus, but just vacillating slightly, if this software has frustrating tendencies like hanging, we might have a new most aggravating computer task, beating out trying to buy plane tickets online when the network is choppy so the sessions keep timing out and the good price disappears between refreshes.

And is MovieMaker, the program bundled in XP any good?

KF
 
MovieMaker is really basic. It is not tuned for publishing on DVD, but with a Video DVD application, you can change the export to DV AVI and usually import it on an app that has a MPEG encoder.

I do not know about the new Adobe Elements. NLEs are probably the hardest app on a system and I do not know of one that does not have some issues. But yes, Studio can be picky for some users.
 
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