Originally Posted by StevenV Thanks Ziggy - I'm going to check out Super this weekend for my college-boy son; they're doing videos for their classes and young-adult worship as well. Does it take care of burning to DVD as well, or just create the VIDEO_TS etc. folders/files?

"Super" is a video player and transcoder. In order to create a DVD, you need:

1) Software "burner", which often includes its own transcoder engine.
2) Hardware "burner". (It's surprising how many people think DVD-Rom drives can burn DVDs.)
3) Compatible blank media. It might be DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW or DVD+RW. It must be compatible with both the burner drive and with the target player for presentation.

Typically you would also use a video editor to do basic trimming and corrections prior to burning.

If your computer came with a DVD burner drive, it probably also has burning software installed. I recommend you use that software if possible.

Other decent software comes from Roxio and Nero.

Assuming your burning software can input your video files, it will probably also convert the file format into what it uses for the DVD compilation. In that case, you don't need to run the file through Super first.

If the video files are not compatible with the burner software, then you might have to process the files through Super to get a compatible file format with the burner software.

You probably figured it can get fairly involved and way beyond the scope of this thread, so please look here for additional information:

http://www.bealecorner.com/trv900/DVD/authoring.html

Just an FYI, I typically record in DV, transfer into the computer using either Canopus or generic IEEE-488 "firewire", edit with Canopus, Premiere or Vegas Video, and then burn with the drive and software that came with the machine, in this case "muvee autoproducer" (yuck) or "MyDVD" (double-yuck). I also record back to DV and then transfer DV into a stand-alone DVD recorder, which works pretty well.

good summary; I'm familiar with most of it (I do this often on my Mac (using a combination of FinalCut, ffMpegx, DVD Studio Pro & Toast)), I was hoping need some pointers for my son who's using Windows.

Originally Posted by ziggy53 If your computer came with a DVD burner drive, it probably also has burning software installed. I recommend you use that software if possible.

There's the problem; his drive's been wiped and rebuilt so many times that he no longer has the software that came from the original vendor. Being a cash-poor college student he's hoping not to have to pay for Roxio (that'd been my first impulse as well).

thanks

ImgBurn works well for me and it's free.

http://www.imgburn.com/

ImgBurn is a lightweight CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application.

Originally Posted by Kenny304 ImgBurn works well for me and it's free. http://www.imgburn.com/ ImgBurn is a lightweight CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application.

Thanks Kenny and welcome to the Digital Grin.

Originally Posted by StevenV good summary; I'm familiar with most of it (I do this often on my Mac (using a combination of FinalCut, ffMpegx, DVD Studio Pro & Toast)), I was hoping need some pointers for my son who's using Windows. There's the problem; his drive's been wiped and rebuilt so many times that he no longer has the software that came from the original vendor. Being a cash-poor college student he's hoping not to have to pay for Roxio (that'd been my first impulse as well). thanks

If your son is using an older OS, try not to load more than one DVD burner software at a time. Starting with XP it does not seem to be as much a problem.

It may take some serious time to get the software and hardware installed for serious video production so if your son can get to a video lab on campus that is the primary recommendation. If he is shooting DV have him do simple editing between two camcorders to cut out most of the junk first.

Originally Posted by Kenny304 ImgBurn works well for me and it's free.

Very nice, thanks. Now I just need to find a good tool to transcode wmv files (from Windows Movie Maker (bletch! but it's what he's got.)).

Originally Posted by ziggy53 Thanks Kenny and welcome to the Digital Grin.

You're welcome.

Glad to be here, been lurking in the shadows for a week or so, thought it was time to come out and say Hi.

Originally Posted by StevenV Very nice, thanks. Now I just need to find a good tool to transcode wmv files (from Windows Movie Maker (bletch! but it's what he's got.)).

You're welcome, hope it's as usefull for your son as it has been for me.

Umm... what are you wanting to do with the .wmv files?

Originally Posted by Kenny304 Umm... what are you wanting to do with the .wmv files?

get 'em onto a DVD that can play in a consumer player. I found DVD Flick http://www.dvdflick.net/ which is a little rough around the edges perhaps (or perhaps I just need to actually read the documentation) did the trick.

I'm an offline editor. I'm working in FCP everyday, but it's DV offline, all the time. Occasionally I might have a 16:9 project, but mostly it's 4:3. So, obviously, all these codecs and conversions have me completely confused.

I did a small favor for a friend, cutting some talking head footage that was shot in widescreen HD. He wants a little bitty square video to play in flash on his web page. But whatever I output did not work for the web guys. I could NOT get a square output with the anamorphic settings right. He was either stretched or squished.

Anybody have an easy way for me to take the HD footage, just crop off the sides and have it end up being a nice, square flash file?

The site is here, you can see where the video is to go in the "coming soon" spot.

ffmpegx will do that, I think. http://ffmpegX.com



I haven't tried it though, so I can't tell if that "autosize" is a crop or stretch/squash.

hmm, well... maybe not. unless you dig into the settings more and figure out so to wrangle it into doing what you want. here's a (4x3 w/letterboxed widescreen) vid on which I used "autosize = 1:1" and set the height & width to 160: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0lRqz9PzFg

squished and pretty ugly.

original and tests are at http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=PirateT7

Originally Posted by DavidTO ... I did a small favor for a friend, cutting some talking head footage that was shot in widescreen HD. He wants a little bitty square video to play in flash on his web page. But whatever I output did not work for the web guys. I could NOT get a square output with the anamorphic settings right. He was either stretched or squished. Anybody have an easy way for me to take the HD footage, just crop off the sides and have it end up being a nice, square flash file? ...

David,

I found this:

http://www.geniusdv.com/news_and_tut...al-cut-pro.php

I suspect that will letterbox the 16:9 sequence but I would think you could apply a crop during the import?

Simple question really, once you have produced your masterpiece, which format do you prefer to export it to, windows video, quicktime, mpeg??

Any particular reason??

Tim

I'm still SD DV and if it's an important project I send the whole thing into a DV file on the computer first. Then I "print" that back to the camcorder to fix and finalize the changes.

From there I usually burn a DVD using a set-top/standalone burner.

If it's really important I will often also transcode the DV file into MPEG-2, and copy that onto a data DVD.

If I want to copy it to SmugMug I usually transcode the DV into H.264 to save time in the upload and so I can verify quality on my machine.

If it's something for YouTube i'll convert to FLV, 320x240, 25fps.

That about covers it.

Hm.. way back when (like back in 1999) I use to make wmv files for streaming stuff online...

now-a-days, I export everything to QuickTime or DV files. I haven't quite made the transition to HDCAM / XDCAM HD yet, but once I do, probably going to stick with Quicktime or AVI files.....

Originally Posted by DI-Joe Nice timing on the forum. I'm a bit of a video guru myself, specifically with codec/conversions and directshow filters. I do a lot of device compatability, so if you're wondering if x-type codec plays on x-type device, go ahead and ask me. :) I work with everything from cellphone video to 4K(if you have a year to render)

Hey DI-Joe,

Do you know the customization codes to make videos play automaticly(like on the Homepage) & how to hide the Smugmug Logo.
I appreciate your time.

Fish

Originally Posted by TAKE-N-IMAGES Hey DI-Joe, Do you know the customization codes to make videos play automaticly(like on the Homepage) & how to hide the Smugmug Logo. I appreciate your time. Fish

I'm not sure just yet, the default ones you might expect dont' work with the shiz player so that's out. I hear tell that smugmug will be documenting the variables. I thought about grabbing the SWF and extracting the variables myself, but I'm far too lazy. I'd rather they just tell me.

I'm new to video and man is this confusing. I bought a new Sony HDR-SR12. It's HD (1920x1080) and records in AVCHD to it's hard disk. I wrongly assumed when I bought it that Smugmug would support it's video format, but after several failed upload attempts, it has been confirmed that Smugmug doesn't support the video format that comes out of the camera. Bummer.


So, I've been struggling for over 24 hours now to find something that can convert it to something that Smugmug understands. The software that comes with the camera won't save to any other HD format. Per Tristan's advice in another thread, I first tried VirtualDub, but it couldn't open my videos at all.

Then, he suggested I try MPEG Streamclip. I downloaded that, but it needed QuickTime stuff that's beyond the free QuickTime from Apple which I didn't have. So, I followed it's suggestions and deinstalled QuickTime from Apple and installed QuickTime Alternative, but even after doing that, MPEG Streamclip still says it doesn't have all the QuickTime stuff it needs. So, I gave up on that option.

At this point, I had no other ideas for a free converter that would do the job. If anyone else has any good ideas, I'm all ears. At this point, I just want to do format conversion to a Smugmug-supported HD format and probably trimming. I'll save video editing for later.

So if I can't find a free program, I figured I'd have to buy something. I decided to try the free trial of Sony Vegas Move Studio Platinum. Since it's made by Sony, it ought to support my camera files. Sure enough, it does.

But, now I have to figure out what format to save it to for Smugmug. I've never seen such a daunting array of choices full of acronyms I have no idea what they mean. To save, I have a choice of 16 formats and each format has a choice of 5-20 video codes and audio codecs and each of those has 5-10 settings within them (compression levels, bit rates, etc...). I really have no idea what a good choice is for Smugmug upload that will preserve as much quality as possible from the original and not be any larger than it needs to be to preserve that quality.

My choice of save formats are:
AVC/AAC MP4
MPEG-1
MPEG-2
OGG
MOV
RM
SONY AVC/AAC MP4
AVI
WAV
WMA
WMV

Given that I'm starting in AVCHD, what should I convert to before uploading to Smugmug? And what video and audio codecs should I use? By my calculations there are several hundred permutations of choices here and I'm hoping for some guidance on what is best.

Also, my camera records in 5.1 sound, but I think that's not supported by Smugmug. Does that means I have to do something else to the sound?

Man, what a mess. I've never pissed away so much time in my life trying to figure this out. All I'm tryhing to do is get a 45 second HD video up on my site from my brand new Sony camera. I've gotten a low-res MPEG2 version up, but don't know what choices will get a full res 1920x1080 version up.

John,

Video codecs are truly horrendous. I work in video every day, but thankfully never have to worry about it, since I'm all offline, DV, and I have assistants to worry about things that aren't.

I have no help to offer, just that I hear ya, brother.