Need Video Editing advice

[heat23]

Heres the story... my dad used to have all this professional SVHS equipment (2 vcrs, 2 tvs, editing controller, title generator, audio mixer, etc) and he did editing on those. But the VCRs broke and now he wants to do everything on the computer (even though he is not too computer literate).
The videos he has are on VHS and mini-DV formats and he wants to do editing, titling, scene transitions and maybe other special effects.
After doing this, he wants to put them back onto mini-DV, VHS, and possibly burn them onto DVDs. He does not want any loss in picture quality after editing and outputting the final movie.
I've been doing some research, but havent been able to get any concrete information, so I was hoping if you guys had any experience with this you can help me.

For instance, whats the difference between purchasing a video editing card (ex. Matrix RT.X100) and just using a Sony Media Convertor to put the video onto the computer?

What video editing card and bundled software is the most powerful, yet easy to learn?

What kind of system is needed to run the video editing setup? (esp. the storage component)

What are some good pre-built video editing setups that can be purchased?

Also, his mini-DV camcorder does not have a firewire port, only SVIDEO Out, so I am assuming he either needs to get a new camera with Firewire or get a mini-DV VCR.

Any information will be helpful

Thanks!

 

[LethalWolfe]

What is yer budget.

Are you sure his MiniDV camera doesn't have a firewire out. It will be a very small rectangular port about 1/8" long (it will be a 4-pin port, not the bigger 6-pin port).

If you dad has a lot of tapes (both S/VHS and MiniDV) you might want to pick up a MiniDV & S/VHS combo deck (you can get a good one for about $800).

My first choice for this setup would be a Mac (especially if computers aren't his thing) but if you insist<sp?> on a PC solution I can help w/that too.

Budget will be the most important factor.


Lethal

 

[heat23]

This Mini-DV camera is like 5 years old. Its some Panasonic 3-CCD camera too. doesnt have firewire..
Our budget is somewhat flexible. We want something that good that won't give us any problems. So maybe around $5000 for everything. Of course, lesser the better.

If MACs have a much bigger advantage, we can consider that. But it would probably be more expensive, right?
Can you give me some basic specs of all the things I need?


Thanks for the help!

heat

 

[LethalWolfe]

The advantage of a Mac over a PC in this case is that iMovie, iDVD, Final Cut Pro, and DVD Studio Pro are all great programs for their target audience (iMovie/iDVD for home users, FCP and DVDSP for more advanced users) and they are designed to play nice with each other. Plus the interfaces are very easy and inntuitive<sp?> After taking 15min or so to do the iDVD tutorial I made a multi-menu DVD w/custom icons (I used stills from the video) and a custom motion background in about 30 minutes then burned my first DVD. It's so easy I thought I was doing something wrong 'cause making an almost complete custom DVD menu shouldn't be that easy.


You can get the JVC HR-DVS3 MiniDV/SVHS deck for $779.95 or the JVC SR-VS30U for $824.95 from B&H. The difference between the decks is small. The SR can play DVCAM (a slightly more pro version of MiniDV) tapes and the HR cannot (that is the only difference). I would get a deck so that way it saves wear and tear on yer camera.

For what you want a PC won't be any cheaper than a Mac. Both platforms can edit a/v and produce a DVD, but it will probably be easier and more simple to do on a Mac.

A side from the base setup I'd suggest getting an IDE controller card and putting having at least an 80gig HDD be the only thing on that channel. 5 minutes of DV will eat up about 1gig space and the drive will start slowing down once it's around 75% full and that might cause you to start dropping frames and such.

As long as yer Dad xfers all the files via Firewire he won't loose any quality until he compresses it so it'll fit on a DVD (DV is about 4x bigger than DVD quality).


Lethal

EDIT: Feel free to PM me if you want.

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: LethalWolfe
For what you want a PC won't be any cheaper than a Mac. Both platforms can edit a/v and produce a DVD, but it will probably be easier and more simple to do on a Mac.

A side from the base setup I'd suggest getting an IDE controller card and putting having at least an 80gig HDD be the only thing on that channel. 5 minutes of DV will eat up about 1gig space and the drive will start slowing down once it's around 75% full and that might cause you to start dropping frames and such.

The Mac will be easier to use and set up. However, if you built a custom PC for the same amount of money, you could do a RAID 0 (or RAID 0+1, or even 5 if you want to spend some more) storage setup with plenty of space and speed. Of course, the PC will be harder to set up, and not as easy for him to use. It mainly depends on whether more speed is worth the little additional hardness-of-use factor.

Take this with a grain of salt, because my only video editing experiences have been on a PC, but those who use Macs say they are easier to use, and having seen some docs on the UI of Mac OS X, and having limited non-video editing experience with said OS leads me to believe that they're right about the ease of use. However, the benchmarks tend to tip in favor of the PC.

In the end, you pays your money, so you makes your choice.

 

[LethalWolfe]

RAID 0 is a non-issue w/MiniDV. 7200RPM, or some good 5400RPM, IDE HDDS are all that's needed to handle MiniDV footage. You don't gain any bennifits by having the speed increase RAID 0 can give you.

PCs definetly win when it comes to rendering speed, but bench marks don't tell you squat when it comes to how well something works. A corvette is faster than a pick-up truck but which one would make moving into a new apartment easier?

Lethal

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: LethalWolfe
RAID 0 is a non-issue w/MiniDV. 7200RPM, or some good 5400RPM, IDE HDDS are all that's needed to handle MiniDV footage. You don't gain any bennifits by having the speed increase RAID 0 can give you.

PCs definetly win when it comes to rendering speed, but bench marks don't tell you squat when it comes to how well something works. A corvette is faster than a pick-up truck but which one would make moving into a new apartment easier?

Lethal

Yea, I just thought the extra speed might help if he's rendering effects in Premiere without the help of a dedicated video editing board. Oh well, I guess I learn something new every day.

And that is the point about the Mac. If the guy's not real computer literate, he probably won't be able to tell a difference between a PowerMac G4 dual 1.25GHz with a 100GB 7200RPM IDE hard disk and an Intel dual Xeon 2.8GHz with a 4x 36GB 15000RPM SCSI RAID 5 array. So then, I guess the extra usability of the Mac would be better than the extra speed of a PC.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by: jliechty

Originally posted by: LethalWolfe
RAID 0 is a non-issue w/MiniDV. 7200RPM, or some good 5400RPM, IDE HDDS are all that's needed to handle MiniDV footage. You don't gain any bennifits by having the speed increase RAID 0 can give you.

PCs definetly win when it comes to rendering speed, but bench marks don't tell you squat when it comes to how well something works. A corvette is faster than a pick-up truck but which one would make moving into a new apartment easier?

Lethal

Yea, I just thought the extra speed might help if he's rendering effects in Premiere without the help of a dedicated video editing board. Oh well, I guess I learn something new every day.

And that is the point about the Mac. If the guy's not real computer literate, he probably won't be able to tell a difference between a PowerMac G4 dual 1.25GHz with a 100GB 7200RPM IDE hard disk and an Intel dual Xeon 2.8GHz with a 4x 36GB 15000RPM SCSI RAID 5 array. So then, I guess the extra usability of the Mac would be better than the extra speed of a PC.

Rendering is all about the proc basically.

If he's working w/DV he won't be be able to tell the difference 'cause the footage just needs to be played fast enough not to drop frames. Why use a 15k RPM SCSI drive when yer files don't move any faster than a 7200RPM IDE HDD?

If the apps I used were all cross platform I'd probably use a windows based x86 machine for 2 reasons. 1. Speed (there is enogh of a speed difference that I could probably ignore the glitches and conflicts that are inherent w/ IBM compatible PCs). 2. I'm geeky (and patient) enough that I can trouble shoot/fix most problems that I know I'd encounter using a Windows based x86 machine. But the speed gap between PCs and Macs is gonna have to get a heck of a lot bigger before I'm willing to give up my iApps, FCP, DVDSP, and the inherently more stable Mac platform.


Lethal