Newbie needs guidance

[FrankF]

Although I have some experience in editing photos, have never edited video - yet. Would appreciate recommendations in HD video editing software. I realize I will have a long and probably steep learning curve but I'm looking for something that performs the basic things well. I have HD and DV minitapes and want to create family movies, not hollywood productions. My system is older but was high powered when I got it in 2004: Dell XPS Gen 3, 2.54G RAM, +230G available on hard drive, 3.2 G Intel Pentium 4 and a RADEON X800 XT. I'm not knowledgeable enough to know if this is enough information or if I should be considering other items as well. Apparently Windows Movie Maker cannot process HD Video, from what I've read so far. Online reviews have indicated that PE7 and other suites crash a lot. Thanks for any advice or guidance.

FrankF

[Bobby]

Hi Frank, and welcome to Muvipix!

Please don't be afraid to ask questions here - we are going to help you.

The predominant editing software used here is Adobe Premiere Elements - current version 7. Almost all of us are very pleased with it, but no complex program these days is perfect. We can help you navigate around problems.

I have used Premiere Elements for years now and it is very stable and usable, especially compared to what I used before - Pinnacle Studio. I am very comfortable with it.

You PC may be marginal for video work, but it is enough to begin using PRE and when you are ready you can increased your PC horsepower.

EDIT: Oh, what is your camera? If it takes HD video in the AVCHD format, you will almost certainly need a more powerful PC - that format taxes almost anything available these days.

[FrankF]

Bob, thanks for the helpful response. My camera is Canon Vixia HV40 - HDV, not AVCHD. What do you think is the weakest item of my current system, the video card?

[Bobby]

Great! We all like the HV20,30,40 here - I have a '30.

Your system should be OK in that case, but let's face it - it is 5 years old. The biggest issue is the lack of a multi-core processor - dual or quad. PRE does take advantage well of multiple processors and that will cut your rendering times way down.

Once you have assembled your project on the timeline, you have to render it to convert the format to whatever your output is (DVD, YouTube, whatever). This can actually take a lot of time; sometimes an hour DVD will take 2 hours or more to render on an old system.

So your system will work OK, but you will get tired of waiting. I would start with what you have and then when you get "into" this hobby more you might want to upgrade.

BTW, I am Bobby, not Bob - he is somebody else

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

Hello Frank and welcome to Muvipix.

As Bobby says, your system will edit HD but is probably going to be stretched doing so. But a lot of folk here record in HD and then downconvert to SD for editing. This is primarily because the much vaunted HD delivery technology (Blu-Ray) has yet to become market dominant. And at present price levels for BD players, PC BD disc writers, blank BD discs etc. there is some healthy scepticism here about the future of BluRay.

Unless you are also looking to acquire a new PC now, your best approach will be to record in HD, then downconvert to SD and then edit that SD on the PC that you mentioned. When (cheaper) HD delivery becomes available you can always re-edit the HD material that you have recorded.

If you really want to go straight to HD editing then there are lots of 'muvipixers' here who can chip in with advice on everything from suggested PC specs to delivery systems. Any questions - fire away. Someone here will have the answer for you.

[Bobby]

I agree with Twosheds. Just to embellish his point a bit, he said that you could downconvert in-camera and that means the files on your system would be DV-AVI - standard definition files - the same as you would get if you downloaded from a standard definition camcorder.

When he says you can go back later and re-edit, he means you could re-capture the files from the tape as MPEG files (high definition) but in order to do this you need to keep all of the tapes. Some people do, some re-record over them.

If you capture the files as MPEG, you can downconvert in PRE to create standard definition output, like a standard DVD. But it does take more PC horsepower to do that. I would experiment with both formats and see what works for you, but the advantage of capturing HD is that you would not need the original tapes to re-edit to an HD project.

Play around with it and do some experimentation with a "throw-away" project - don't wait for your first real project to experiment.

[FrankF]

Thanks Bobby and Twosheds for your advice and suggestions! The first thing I think I will do is to begin editing some of my SD minitapes using Windows Movie Maker to gain at least some experience with video editing proccesses. Second, I will contact either Dell or my local computer shop to find out whether or not my system could be upgraded to a dual or quad precessor configuration or if I need a completely new platform. I hope it is not the latter since I'm not looking for professional video productions with a lot of spectacular effects - just good family/home "movies". If a different processor configuration just save me time, I may be able to work through it. On the other hand, if extended time leads to crashes, I may need to upgrade the system.

I really appreciate your thoughts and guidance. Will keep you informed.

Frank