Movie Making Questions

wcc · 10-10-2006, 10:11 AM

What is some good software for a weekend worrier to make movies. Any freeware/shareware programs out there that's good for this?

What I'd like to do is take some video clips and put them all together to make one movie. Or clip parts out of one movie and insert it in another maybe longer clip. Then maybe dub in some music. I'd also like to be able to compress the whole thing to something of a reasonable size.

legion · 10-10-2006, 10:31 AM

Weekend worrier?

I have a friend who uses his iMac for this. It seems easy enough. The corresponding Windows softwares seems clunkier and more expensive. (I think iMovie comes with the Mac.)

This from a Windows guy.

id10t · 10-10-2006, 10:36 AM

Windows XP has "movie maker" that comes with it, not sure if you can do all that you want to with it though... Premier comes to mind, but it is expensive. On the Linux side, Kino and Cinnerlara (sp?) can do it.

Moses · 10-10-2006, 10:40 AM

Check it out. BRILLIANT! iLfe alone is worth the price of a new Mac. And iLife is free with all new Mac's.

http://www.apple.com/ilife/quicktour/imovie/

gr8fl4porsche · gr8fl4porsche's Garage

Windows Movie Maker that comes with XP Pro is fine for beginners. I edited a small film with soundtrack in a few hours with it.

In case you don't know.

Start menu > All Programs> Accessories>Movie Maker

wcc · 10:54 AM

Cool! Well I just bought a new computer about 5 months ago. I'll see if it has it on there. Never thought to look.

Thanks guys!

Edit: All I want to do is make a small P-car video with a variety of video clips. Maybe dub in some music. Nothing too crazy.

Oh Haha · 10-10-2006, 11:29 AM

Do you need some bad 70's funk music to dub in?

Oh, wait, you said a PCar movie.

Sorry, thought you were doing something else.

wcc · 10-10-2006, 01:10 PM

That's funny cause I was wondering if this thread was going to go south. BTW Wayne you are the one that got the ball rolling on videos and that youtube email. Then I started coming up with questions. Too many puns in that last paragraph and none were intended.

But seriously:
I do have that movie maker on my computer and already modified a video of my son playing just to mess around with the software. I even added in some tunes I thought were kinda funny. It's pretty cool so now I can't wait to shoot some video of the P-car. Next year maybe we can get together for a day and get lots of clips and put together a movie. That would be cool!

slodave · slodave's Garage

Just went out this past Saturday and shot some p-car footage. Unfortunately, I deleted the three Premiere project files I was working with last night. I recut my footage last night and have to put it back together now.

Have fun! I plan on doing the next one in 16:9.

Dave

id10t · 10-10-2006, 03:16 PM

Hrm... maybe I should get the 356 running and do a movie iwht teh cam mounted on one of the windshield wiper arms...

HardDrive · 10-10-2006, 05:47 PM

You will NOT find a more ardent supporter of Microsoft. And I am pretty much a Mac hater. I work for a Microsoft partner here in Seattle. MCSE, MCT, MCDST, blah, blah, blah...

Get a Mac.

If you want your PC to do what a mac does out of the box, you will be a minimum of $200 in the hole. The movie making software that comes on all the macs is excellent. You can go from having nothing to a quality DVD in about an hour.

Drew001 · 10-10-2006, 07:45 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by HardDrive
Get a Mac.

+1
iMovie HD blows away Movie Maker - and it's free with every new Mac (plus iDVD for authoring/burning DVD's on Macs with a SuperDrive).
Also, with a new Intel Mac you can run XP or OS X which is the best of both worlds.

To me, OS X now is what Vista will be in a few years.

wcc · 10-11-2006, 01:00 PM

I have another question for you guys out there. I have a digital camera with a CF memory card. I can download the movie and do whatever I've wanted to so far. So I dug out the camcorder. Not real old (Canon ZR45) can take crappy digital pics and movies on those mini DV tapes. How do you get those movies from that mini DV Tape on the computer? Then when I do can I clip out scenes and modify them in "MovieMaker" like I could with the movies from the memory card?

Drew001 · 09:54 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by wcc
I have another question for you guys out there. I have a digital camera with a CF memory card. I can download the movie and do whatever I've wanted to so far. So I dug out the camcorder. Not real old (Canon ZR45) can take crappy digital pics and movies on those mini DV tapes. How do you get those movies from that mini DV Tape on the computer? Then when I do can I clip out scenes and modify them in "MovieMaker" like I could with the movies from the memory card?

I downloaded the ZR45 manual from Canon to check out that camcorder (I remember thinking about buying that model at one time) and found out a couple of things.

First, there is a USB cable that came with your camera that will allow you to download the pics/movies that you shot on your CF card to your computer.
Then you can play around with Movie Maker (you may need to download the Storage Driver at the above link if you don't have the original CD).

Secondly, for the video that you've shot to tape, you will need a FireWire cable in order to transfer it to your computer.
On the front of your camcorder, under the lens, there is a DV port.
You'll need a 4-pin to 6-pin FireWire cable to transfer the video (it looks like this).
Get the cable, connect 'em up and you're in business.

Keep in mind that you'll need lots of hard drive space for the video you transfer - DV takes 13GB per hour of footage.

Good luck!

wcc · 10-12-2006, 02:54 AM

Thanks Drew001! That's exactly the kind of info I was looking for. I looked around last night and couldn't find the manual, so thanks for the links. I'll pick up that cable and see if I can get a video on the computer. My videos are short, like 5-10min. Hopefully they'll fit on DVDs so I don't have to store them on the computer cause it sounds like they take lots of space.

id10t · 10-12-2006, 05:19 AM

wcc - you will also need a firewire card for your computer. $30 or so from newegg, tigerdirect, best buy, etc.

wcc · 10-12-2006, 05:42 AM

Ok, that was going to be the next step. When I pick up cable tongiht I was going to ask about that. But thanks for the heads up!

john70t · 06:43 AM

The firewire card(mac term) is also called a 1394 in pc.
Pc magazine has some reviews at http://www.pcmag.com/category2/0,1874,4835,00.asp.

I once tried MovieMaker long ago, and lost some great footage because the maximum save/transfer resolution was 480x?(while ago). Then I got Pinnacle's Studio v.7 and am pretty satisfied, but some of the format transfer(i.e. QT -> Divx) isn't available.

A word of caution- I just tried to burn some stuff(web pages, pics, videos) saved from the internet using MuVee's burning function, and a WHOLE lot of "failed to work, Digital Rights Mamagement infringment" warnings popped up on some really common, public stuff.
Really annoying.

Also save as .mpeg, so the movies can be played on "other than MS" players (their EULA alows them them to scan your computer for media files-scary)

wcc · 10-13-2006, 04:31 AM

Well I bought the card and the wire last night from Staples. Hooked it up and it's all set.

So now I'm left with the quality of the video. I messed with the camera settings and read the manual (I found it) and it's set up correctly. That brings me to my next question. Is there a different way or setting you guys use to import the video from the camera. Or is there a setting I need to set when I save it as a Movie.

If I use High Quality Small the movie doesn't look too bad, but anything else the video looks grainy.

Another question is, is there a way to compress the files so they aren't as large? I know they'll be large anyways, but if I could compress them that would help a little.

wcc · 10-13-2006, 04:37 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Oh Haha
Do you need some bad 70's funk music to dub in?

Oh, wait, you said a PCar movie.

Sorry, thought you were doing something else.

I didn't clarify what kind of P-car movie I was going to make

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