Digital video on a PC
Tomas Lewis looks at the options
Setting up to do video editing on the PC is slightly different than it is on the Mac, mainly because PCs are put together by many different companies. This means that an individual PC may not have all the components required for DV editing. The good news is that these components can be added to the computer. The bad news is that it may be necessary to open up the case and fiddle with the insides, which requires some basic knowledge. Alternatively, there are specialised companies that deal in 'turnkey' PC workstations, or a local computer vendor will be able to install the necessary components into an existing PC for a small fee.
Basic
hardware requirements
To edit miniDV video on a PC (or Mac) you need an IEEE1394 connection,
often known by its proprietary name of Firewire. (Sony's version, which
uses 4-pin rather than 6-pin connections, is called i.Link). This links
the camcorder to the computer, enabling the transfer of digital video
between the tape in the camera and the hard drive. The computer must have
sufficient RAM to edit (128Mb or more, depending on the programme) and
a large and fast hard drive (10-20 Gb or more, the larger the better)
on which to store the captured video.
Upgrading
an older PC
Many modern PCs are built with these three components in place and will
edit video given an appropriate software package. Older PCs may lack one
or more of these features and will need to be modified. A basic Firewire
card costs from £20 to £30 and slots into the comptuer's motherboard,
the socket appearing at the back of the computer with the rest of the
plugs. Cards bundled with software are a little more expensive, but make
the software cheaper to buy than it is separately. Additional RAM is also
plugged directly into sockets on the motherboard. Additional hard drives
are fitted in special drive bays within the computers case, and are connected
to the motherboard using 'IDE' cables (you can avoid opening up your computer
by connecting an external hard drive to the Firewire or USB2 ports).
Once you have sorted out the hardware you will need to select a program to capture and edit your video footage. Editing software can be roughly grouped into 'free', 'lower-end' (< £100), and 'higher-end' (> £250). The cheaper programs tend to be simpler to learn but offer fewer features, and much less control over how you work, where your video is stored on the computer and how it can be output. Control over additional audio tracks, for example, can be very poor or non-existent. Such features will almost certainly become important to you once you have grasped the basics of video editing.
Higher-end programs will also give you advanced features such as control over the transparency of overlay tracks (additional video tracks above the main video track), special effects such as 'picture in picture' (smaller video running in a 'box' over the main video) and chromakeying (making transparent the parts of a video in one particular colour, usually green or blue, used to put weather forecasters in front of their maps on TV or to enable Superman to fly). You may see these as gimmicky add-ons or as vital features, depending on how and what you edit. Some companies offer special prices for upgrading from their basic editor to their more advanced packages. This can be a good route for those not sure how deeply they will be delving into this world.
Free
programmes
All Apple computers come with iMovie, their basic editing program, preinstalled.
With Windows XP, Microsoft have followed suit, bundling Windows MovieMaker
2. Both programs offer a low-frills but functional introduction to editing
video. Though they differ in some details, both programs stress ease of
use and offer simple interfaces with video viewable as thumbnails in a
storyboard layout or on a timeline. They each feature a single track of
video with its associated audio, plus one (MovieMaker) or two (iMovie)
additional audio tracks. Compression is said to be better in Movie Maker,
but preview to an external video monitor or TV via the camcorder is only
available in iMovie.
Microsoft Movie Maker
Pinnacle
Studio 8
At the budget end of the paying options for PC, the market leader is the
Pinnacle Studio range of software - now up to version 8 (the Studio DV
package comes complete with a firewire card, and the Studio Deluxe offers
analog video capture aswell as DV import). This software is feature packed
and easy to use.
Sonic
Foundry VideoFactory
Alternative packages worth considering include Sonic Foundry VideoFactory
and Ulead Video Studio. Sonic Foundry's VideoFactory has a more sophisticated
interface than the Pinnacle product, with all activities occuring within
the same workspace. Audio tools are again excellent, and it is a stable
and reliable product with a cheap ugrade path to the more fully featured
Vegas Video.
The standard high-end package for many years was Adobe Premiere. Some of the lustre has been knocked off this product by more recent entries into the market, in particular Vegas Video by Sonic Foundry, and Edition DV from Pinnacle which incorporated from their inception many of the cutting edge features (in particular software realtime preview of transitions, effects, etc) than have appeared in the rather staid Adobe offering. Premiere, however, by virtue of being bundled with many of the more sophisticated capture cards, remains the market leader and de facto standard. Premiere Pro, which will offer many new professional features and only runs Windows XP, is due for launch in August 2003.
Capturing video
With hardware and software in place and working, editing on a PC is (more or less) the same as editing on a Mac. Footage is captured to the hard drive, imported into an editing program, arranged into a logical order and output back to tape or compressed for CD, DVD or web.Capture
Once the hardware and software are installed, the basics of video editing are remarkably simple. Particularly with the cheaper software, much of the process is automated. Once a DV camcorder is plugged into the Firewire port, it can be controlled from within the software, which will check the camera is switched on. Pressing a capture button will begin the camera playing and start copying the tape onto the computer. The captured video will automatically appear in the 'bin' or 'shelf' divided into the individual shots you took.
One disadvantage with Premiere compared to Studio and other lower-end programs is in capturing footage. With Premiere, one is more or less obliged to go through the tape noting down which portions to capture via their timecode, typing this information into the program as a batch capture list then allowing it to to go back through the tape to actually capture the footage. There is a workaround for this in the form of a small stand-alone program called Scenalyzer that will split the footage on capture (into separate files) that can then be imported into Premiere - it costs £22 as a download from http://www.scenalyzer.com/main.html.
EditingDragging and dropping these individual clips into the 'timeline' will add them to your film. You can order them, change their lengths by adjusting their 'in' and 'out' points (and/or by changing the speed at which the video plays), and insert transitions between individual clips. Special effects can be added to individual clips - they, along with the transiitions will need to render before they can be viewed at full quality. It is very useful if you can connect up a TV or video monitor so as to be able to view your work in its 'native' format (video never truly plays smoothly on a computer monitor due to differences in the way the images are processed for video and computer).
Additional sound tracks can be added from CD or other sound files on your computer, or a voiceover commentary can be recorded and superimposed over the 'dialogue track'. In most programs the levels of these different audio components can be varied to stress one element or another as the program progresses. Some programs will also allow a degree of 'audio sweetening' via their audio effects (vary the bass or treble, add reverb or chorus, etc.).
Output
The completed film can be 'exported' to tape on your camcorder. This gives
you the highest quality video. Alternatively you can save your production
as a file on your hard drive, either at full resolution or at reduced
resolution if you want to put the production on CD, DVD or on the internet
as streaming video. All the programs mentioned have a variety of presets
for the most common formats and settings.
© 2003 Media Education Wales