I am planning a long ((one hour?) project that ultimately will be composed mainly of four types of media: (1) taped sd digital video 4:3, (2)AVCHD HD video 16:9, (3) personal photos and downloaded images, very few of which are larger than 1000x750* (4) a few very short videos downloaded from Youtube.
My final DVD is expected to be 16:9 digital.
From past experience, it seems the way to keep PE7 stable with larger projects is to make segmented mini-projects and then join them together later for the final project. So the question is: should each mini-project be created in a format closest to itself, or in a format closest to the final long project? For example, when I initially load the AVCHD clips into PE7, should I start off with a project settings for AVCHD, or should I use the setting that will be that of my final project (sd widescreen)? Another example: Should I use 4:3 settings for the sd tape initial mini-project, or should I use settings of the final joined project--which, as stated, is expected to be DVD widescreen? Same Q for photos and Youtube downloads vs final output.
. I am concerned both with avoiding program crashes and ultimate image distortion, aiming, of course, for the best image on DVD possible. Any specific suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
I currently have PE7 loaded onto a Win 7, 64 bit Sony laptop with an i7 processor and 8 GB RAM and I GB graphics card
*Most of the photos are sized at 855x640, as was suggested by Steve in a previous post.