I have a Sony DV camcorder and want to do NLE with my pc. I know I can record the edited video back on the camcorder tape but would also like to put it on a CD. Is this what the VIDEO CD is?

I have not been able to find any literature on a relationship between DV and VIDEO CD, but it appears it is a matter of s/w to put the DV in the right format to record on a CD as VIDEO CD, assuming they are two differnt formats.

I believe a CD ROM R/W drive can record VIDEO CD and some DVD players can also p/b VIDEO CD. Can anybody educate me on this, and what s/w will do this. I am considering Pinnacle Studio DV firewire board with associated s/w. Is this a good choice?

Please enlighten me!!

-- Cliff Pisenti (cliffdar@jps.net), November 27, 2000

Answers

http://www.geocities.com/aussie01au/

contains a lot of information that is a guide for someone with DV source material.

-- Ross McL (rmclennan@esc.net.au), November 27, 2000.

You are lucky. I just did that last weekend with my Sony DV. OK, this is the sequence of things to do:

1) get a Firewire card (I got Pinnacle Studio DV card plus accompanying software). Connect your DV to the PC thru this card. Launch the Studio software. 2) capture the tape into the computer (video files have AVI extension) 3) edit your movie 4) make MPEG movie (select VCD option). This creates the MPEG movie file. Depending on the speed of your PC and the length or your movie, this can take overnight. ON my PC, it takes 12 times the length of the movie. I usually start this before going to bed. The job is done the next morning. 5) burn the MPEG file as VCD using either NERO or Adaptec Easy CD Creator Deluxe version.

Each one of the steps above are detailed by the appropriate manual. Your PC need to have a CD burner for this to work obviously. And your DVD player must also be able to play VCD. You can check to see if yours does at the site www.vcdhelp.com.

It is pretty simple. I was very frustrated when I am looking for instructions on how to do this in this forum. I hope my answer is much clearer for people with digital camcorder.

Things to watch out: 1) not all Firewire cards are shipped with software that create MPEG file, Studio DV does. 2) MPEG file creation may not give the best result. I made only two VCDs so far this way. I am still experimenting to get better picture quality on my VCD. (I am still learning here, will update later) 3) Pinnacle Studio DV may not be the best card out there, but it cost less than 100$. And it works great for me to create home videos. I know that I may have to upgrade in the future to a higher end capture card/software but this is a very good starting point. For 100$, I learn a great deal.

After going thru this, you will understand better lot of things that are posted in this forum. For example, why people use TMPEGenc, Xing encoder software, why AVI, why higher bit rate, etc... It's tough to explain, I learn it by doing it.

Good Luck my friend.

-- ktnwin (ktnwin@excite.com), February 06, 2001.