Good Movie Making Software ???

[Candyman]

Has anyone got any ideas on good software, for making decent videos out of short clips. I have recently bought a new Samsung VP-MX20 cam corder. The software that came with it is nothing but pure sh@t ! ..... I would be ashamed to put it in with a new product such as this little camera. It does not work period ! The software that came with it is called Cyberlink Mediashow, and is the worst excuse for software i have ever seen. I have given up in disgust with this one. I have since downloaded a few others, as well as having Windows Movie Maker on the computer, and despite having the latest version, it cannot read the format of the camera. The format is MP4. There are many programs that will PLAY it, such as realplayer, FLV, and VLC, but NONE of these can edit the clips, or splice the short clips into one longer movie.I am at a loss, on what to do, so any suggestions would be greatly appreaciated. Thankyou in advance.

[Markham]

Has anyone got any ideas on good software, for making decent videos out of short clips. I have recently bought a new Samsung VP-MX20 cam corder. The software that came with it is nothing but pure sh@t ! ..... I would be ashamed to put it in with a new product such as this little camera. It does not work period ! The software that came with it is called Cyberlink Mediashow, and is the worst excuse for software i have ever seen. I have given up in disgust with this one. I have since downloaded a few others, as well as having Windows Movie Maker on the computer, and despite having the latest version, it cannot read the format of the camera. The format is MP4. There are many programs that will PLAY it, such as realplayer, FLV, and VLC, but NONE of these can edit the clips, or splice the short clips into one longer movie.I am at a loss, on what to do, so any suggestions would be greatly appreaciated. Thankyou in advance.

Therein lies your problem, I'm afraid. MP4 (MPEG-4) is not designed to be an editable format as it is highly compressed with often several seconds between key-frames (a key-frame, or "I-Frame", contains full picture information; the other frame types "B" and "P" contain difference information only. A MP4 video stream starts with an "I-Frame" followed by sequences of "B" and "P" frames until the next "I").You can convert MPEG-4 files to MPEG-2 (the format used for DVDs) using something like "Auto-Gordian Knot" (freeware) but you will lose valuable video information and the resultant MPEG-2 might contain artifacts which will be most noticeable if you have solid blocks of colour in the picture or a rapidly moving scene - pans and zooms can appear jerky. However you can only do this successfully if your frame size is 704x576 (NTSC, 29.97 fps) or 720x576 (PAL, 25 fps). To see if your source material contains any artifacts, connect your camera to the largest TV you can find and examine the picture closely - if it does, it's not worth converting.If you can convert your camera's files to MPEG-2 then you can use a Non-Linear Editor (NLE) such as Mediachance's "EditStudio" to make the cuts and add effects. Finally you'll need a DVD authoring program to create DVD menus and mulitplex your video and audio streams thereby creating a DVD Volume.Sorry to be the bearer of bad news!Mark

[Jollygoodfellow]

Has anyone got any ideas on good software, for making decent videos out of short clips. I have recently bought a new Samsung VP-MX20 cam corder. The software that came with it is nothing but pure sh@t ! ..... I would be ashamed to put it in with a new product such as this little camera. It does not work period ! The software that came with it is called Cyberlink Mediashow, and is the worst excuse for software i have ever seen. I have given up in disgust with this one. I have since downloaded a few others, as well as having Windows Movie Maker on the computer, and despite having the latest version, it cannot read the format of the camera. The format is MP4. There are many programs that will PLAY it, such as realplayer, FLV, and VLC, but NONE of these can edit the clips, or splice the short clips into one longer movie.I am at a loss, on what to do, so any suggestions would be greatly appreaciated. Thankyou in advance.

Therein lies your problem, I'm afraid. MP4 (MPEG-4) is not designed to be an editable format as it is highly compressed with often several seconds between key-frames (a key-frame, or "I-Frame", contains full picture information; the other frame types "B" and "P" contain difference information only. A MP4 video stream starts with an "I-Frame" followed by sequences of "B" and "P" frames until the next "I").You can convert MPEG-4 files to MPEG-2 (the format used for DVDs) using something like "Auto-Gordian Knot" (freeware) but you will lose valuable video information and the resultant MPEG-2 might contain artifacts which will be most noticeable if you have solid blocks of colour in the picture or a rapidly moving scene - pans and zooms can appear jerky. However you can only do this successfully if your frame size is 704x576 (NTSC, 29.97 fps) or 720x576 (PAL, 25 fps). To see if your source material contains any artifacts, connect your camera to the largest TV you can find and examine the picture closely - if it does, it's not worth converting.If you can convert your camera's files to MPEG-2 then you can use a Non-Linear Editor (NLE) such as Mediachance's "EditStudio" to make the cuts and add effects. Finally you'll need a DVD authoring program to create DVD menus and mulitplex your video and audio streams thereby creating a DVD Volume.Sorry to be the bearer of bad news!Mark

StrewthCan you run that by me again :th_thholysheep:

[tom_shor]

Has anyone got any ideas on good software, for making decent videos out of short clips. I have recently bought a new Samsung VP-MX20 cam corder. The software that came with it is nothing but pure sh@t ! ..... I would be ashamed to put it in with a new product such as this little camera. It does not work period ! The software that came with it is called Cyberlink Mediashow, and is the worst excuse for software i have ever seen. I have given up in disgust with this one. I have since downloaded a few others, as well as having Windows Movie Maker on the computer, and despite having the latest version, it cannot read the format of the camera. The format is MP4. There are many programs that will PLAY it, such as realplayer, FLV, and VLC, but NONE of these can edit the clips, or splice the short clips into one longer movie.I am at a loss, on what to do, so any suggestions would be greatly appreaciated. Thankyou in advance.

Therein lies your problem, I'm afraid. MP4 (MPEG-4) is not designed to be an editable format as it is highly compressed with often several seconds between key-frames (a key-frame, or "I-Frame", contains full picture information; the other frame types "B" and "P" contain difference information only. A MP4 video stream starts with an "I-Frame" followed by sequences of "B" and "P" frames until the next "I").You can convert MPEG-4 files to MPEG-2 (the format used for DVDs) using something like "Auto-Gordian Knot" (freeware) but you will lose valuable video information and the resultant MPEG-2 might contain artifacts which will be most noticeable if you have solid blocks of colour in the picture or a rapidly moving scene - pans and zooms can appear jerky. However you can only do this successfully if your frame size is 704x576 (NTSC, 29.97 fps) or 720x576 (PAL, 25 fps). To see if your source material contains any artifacts, connect your camera to the largest TV you can find and examine the picture closely - if it does, it's not worth converting.If you can convert your camera's files to MPEG-2 then you can use a Non-Linear Editor (NLE) such as Mediachance's "EditStudio" to make the cuts and add effects. Finally you'll need a DVD authoring program to create DVD menus and mulitplex your video and audio streams thereby creating a DVD Volume.Sorry to be the bearer of bad news!Mark

StrewthCan you run that by me again :th_thholysheep:

He's fooked.

[Markham]

Has anyone got any ideas on good software, for making decent videos out of short clips. I have recently bought a new Samsung VP-MX20 cam corder. The software that came with it is nothing but pure sh@t ! ..... I would be ashamed to put it in with a new product such as this little camera. It does not work period ! The software that came with it is called Cyberlink Mediashow, and is the worst excuse for software i have ever seen. I have given up in disgust with this one. I have since downloaded a few others, as well as having Windows Movie Maker on the computer, and despite having the latest version, it cannot read the format of the camera. The format is MP4. There are many programs that will PLAY it, such as realplayer, FLV, and VLC, but NONE of these can edit the clips, or splice the short clips into one longer movie.I am at a loss, on what to do, so any suggestions would be greatly appreaciated. Thankyou in advance.

Therein lies your problem, I'm afraid. MP4 (MPEG-4) is not designed to be an editable format as it is highly compressed with often several seconds between key-frames (a key-frame, or "I-Frame", contains full picture information; the other frame types "B" and "P" contain difference information only. A MP4 video stream starts with an "I-Frame" followed by sequences of "B" and "P" frames until the next "I").You can convert MPEG-4 files to MPEG-2 (the format used for DVDs) using something like "Auto-Gordian Knot" (freeware) but you will lose valuable video information and the resultant MPEG-2 might contain artifacts which will be most noticeable if you have solid blocks of colour in the picture or a rapidly moving scene - pans and zooms can appear jerky. However you can only do this successfully if your frame size is 704x576 (NTSC, 29.97 fps) or 720x576 (PAL, 25 fps). To see if your source material contains any artifacts, connect your camera to the largest TV you can find and examine the picture closely - if it does, it's not worth converting.If you can convert your camera's files to MPEG-2 then you can use a Non-Linear Editor (NLE) such as Mediachance's "EditStudio" to make the cuts and add effects. Finally you'll need a DVD authoring program to create DVD menus and mulitplex your video and audio streams thereby creating a DVD Volume.Sorry to be the bearer of bad news!Mark

StrewthCan you run that by me again :th_thholysheep:

Sure - there are a number of inter-related concepts and I'll do my best to explain them in layman's language :)For the purposes of this discussion, I will only deal with Standard Definition (SD) video and your common-or-garden telly (High Definition video - such as 1080p - introduces a whole new set of problems for which there aren't too many good solutions, yet). All commercially-produced DVDs are in SD format.Picture SizeIf you live in the US or Japan (or certain other areas), your TV uses the NTSC standard which is 704 pixels wide and 576 pixels high but most everywhere else uses the PAL standard of 720 pixels wide by 576. This regardless of whether the image is displayed in Widescreen (16:9) or Normal (4:3) aspect ratio.Frame RateYour NTSC TV displays images at 29.97 frames per second whilst your PAL TV is slightly slower at 25 frames per second. (By contrast, a film is projected at 24 frames per second in a cinema).Many digi-cams can be switched between PAL and NTSC recording modes and you should, naturally, choose the mode applicable to the TV standard used in your country.Image StorageIf your camera is the type that stores to tape, then it will store a continuous stream of whole images and each image occupies 405,504 bytes (NTSC) or 414,720 bytes (PAL). This means that one second's worth of video requires 12,152,296 (NTSC) or 10,368,000 bytes (PAL) or roughly 12 and 10 megabytes respectively.As you can see, video requires a huge amount of storage but stored in this way, you lose absolutely no picture information. Each frame of video is a standalone. But this is not a very efficient way to store video and you certainly can't store a 90 minute movie on a DVD.There are 3 principle encoding technologies, all designed by the Motion Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) known as MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. MPEG-1 is not used much now, it is however the format used to encode VCDs. MPEG-2 began life as the format for SVCDs but was quickly adopted to be the standard encoding technology for DVDs. MPEG-4 is more commonly known as "DivX", being the name of the company that produces a well-known encoder/decoder of that name.All MPEG encoding works in a similar way. The picture stream is analysed and the encoder produces a given (or sometimes a user-defined) sequence of "Groups of Pictures" (GOPs). Each of these begins with a complete picture (a full image or "I Frame") followed by a sequence of "frames" that contain movement vector information only (known as "B Frame") and normally a "frame" that contains predictive information (known as a "P Frame"). In the case of MPEG-2 encodes, a GOP lasts fractionally less than half a second, so such a stream contains two complete picture frames every second. A second's worth of video typically occupies around 835 kilobyes of storage.Unline MPEG-2 and DVDs, there is no standard GOP length for MPEG-4 and the higher the compression, the longer the GOPs are - meaning fewer I Frames with a consequential loss of picture quality. A second's worth of video typically occupies a mere 132 kilobytes of storage.One of the problems will all encoded streams is that you can not safely cut the stream except on an I Frame - all sequences must begin with this frame type. Therefore the further the I Frames are apart, the less the granularity. It is for this reason that I said "MPEG-4 files were not designed to be edited", they are a finished product stream type.You can, however, with care convert MPEG-4 to MPEG-2 but it's quite a lengthy process and the results are not always as good as one might hope. A commercial program that will do this is VSO Software's "ConvertXtoDVD". Having converted the file, you can use a non-linear editor that supports working with MPEG-2 video files such as Mediachance's "EditStudio" to cut-out unwanted footage and add effects such as wipes and fades and so on.Hope this is clearer now!MarkPS: There are encoding technologies such as Flash Video, Real Media streaming but these are not germain to this discussion. Edited March 21, 2009 by Markham

[Candyman]

Thankyou Mark for your indepth and informative post. So in a nutshell it was a waste of time and money to buy this particular cam corder in the first place. I will try your suggestions though, and try to convert the files back to MPEG2 and see what happens. If worst comes to the worst, I can always store the original clips in their original format, until such time as technology catches up ! Hopefully, I will be able to work something out to make them at least viewable. Thankyou once again for your time and expertise.

[BobNChe]

Thankyou Mark for your indepth and informative post. So in a nutshell it was a waste of time and money to buy this particular cam corder in the first place. I will try your suggestions though, and try to convert the files back to MPEG2 and see what happens. If worst comes to the worst, I can always store the original clips in their original format, until such time as technology catches up ! Hopefully, I will be able to work something out to make them at least viewable. Thankyou once again for your time and expertise.

There are lots of programs and techniques to edit MPEG-4 video. Just Google MPEG-4 Editing, or MP4 editing. Edited March 21, 2009 by BobNChe

[Markham]

Thankyou Mark for your indepth and informative post. So in a nutshell it was a waste of time and money to buy this particular cam corder in the first place. I will try your suggestions though, and try to convert the files back to MPEG2 and see what happens. If worst comes to the worst, I can always store the original clips in their original format, until such time as technology catches up ! Hopefully, I will be able to work something out to make them at least viewable. Thankyou once again for your time and expertise.

There are lots of programs and techniques to edit MPEG-4 video. Just Google MPEG-4 Editing, or MP4 editing.

There are programs that will do basic cuts but not much more beyond that. The MPEG-4 format does not lend itself to editing.

[Markham]

Thankyou Mark for your indepth and informative post. So in a nutshell it was a waste of time and money to buy this particular cam corder in the first place. I will try your suggestions though, and try to convert the files back to MPEG2 and see what happens. If worst comes to the worst, I can always store the original clips in their original format, until such time as technology catches up ! Hopefully, I will be able to work something out to make them at least viewable. Thankyou once again for your time and expertise.

You're very welcome! If there's anything you don't understand or you have a problem, ask away!Incidentally, what's the image frame-size? If it's not either of the two standards for DVD, you will have to upscale - assuming you'd like to create DVDs. Google for "GSpot" which will give you this - and a myriad of other information about the stream.You can burn your MPEG-4 files directly to a CD and play them on any DVD Player that also accepts MPEG-4/DivX.Mark

[BobNChe]

Thankyou Mark for your indepth and informative post. So in a nutshell it was a waste of time and money to buy this particular cam corder in the first place. I will try your suggestions though, and try to convert the files back to MPEG2 and see what happens. If worst comes to the worst, I can always store the original clips in their original format, until such time as technology catches up ! Hopefully, I will be able to work something out to make them at least viewable. Thankyou once again for your time and expertise.

There are lots of programs and techniques to edit MPEG-4 video. Just Google MPEG-4 Editing, or MP4 editing.

There are programs that will do basic cuts but not much more beyond that. The MPEG-4 format does not lend itself to editing.

I understand, but that's all he said he wanted to do. The codec MP4 uses is not simple for sure.