Best conversion option « Videomaker Community Forums

Arjun_M
Member

I'm thinking of using Jahshaka's editing module for making a music video. The feed I have is still on my MiniDV tape, and when I load the feed raw (DV-AVI) in Jahshaka (Windows Vista effect? that's my OS), it crashes, all the time. I need to change the compression mode, especially MPEG, but I don't know which compression mode to choose. I don't wish to lose too much, and make a video that's TV-worthy when I'm finished with editing. I'd love to do some basic compositing with a free, open-source utility, but it should work.

Posted 4 years ago #
Arjun_M
Member

Now I'm having a lot of trouble with Prism. This program converts to MPEG, fine, but adds an annoying letterbox border on the sides all the time! Worse, when I try to convert an AVI file in 16:9, it renders it as a 4:3!

What can I do now?

Posted 4 years ago #
Arjun_M
Member
It's now getting to be nightmarish-
1. Moviemaker is a pain.
2. Roxio is a pain, though a little less
3. Jahshaka crashes each time I open DV-AVI.
4. I downloaded Prism, and it converts to MPEG-2, but there's an annoying letterbox effect on left and right. Not to mention, some 16:9 videos are rendered as 4:3.
5. I downloaded Avidemux, but that cannot open DV-AVI files.
6. I'm trying to get the hang of using Blender's VSE for now.
Posted 4 years ago #
Arjun_M
Member

I now downloaded VirtualDubMod, and then it can't read DV-AVI. What now?

I want to convert those huge DV-AVI files into MPEG-2 videos, or even capture them in that format.

Posted 4 years ago #
On a Roll
Member

Out of curiousity, did your PC come with Vista, or did you upgrade?

From what I've heard, the current version of Vista is very unfriendly towards video editing tasks, and a brand new machine running it has the proclivity towards fatal crashes when some video work is being done.

If there's a way to downgrade your OS to XP, it's very likely that this will solve at least the crashes you're experiencing. If not, I've heard that adding RAM helps, as Vista is a memory hog.

Sorry if that's not what you're looking for, but it's a first step.

Posted 4 years ago #
Arjun_M
Member

The desktop has a Core2Due Processor 1.8GHz and 1GB ram. If that's not enough for Vista, I don't know what is. I advised my folks against getting any PC with Vista, given how slow it's supposed to be (I knew of this since late 2005), but they said that the Vista Movie Maker is more functional than the XP version. Vista's slow, takes a long time to recover from some bugs and is incompatible with most programs.

Posted 4 years ago #
On a Roll
Member

Honestly, that 1GB of RAM might be your problem. From what I understand, just Vista alone can suck up that much. 2GB of RAM is better, and I would seriously consider upgrading to 4GB or more.

And honestly, I would rather have bought a cheaper, older, more reliable version of Windows, and then bought a nicer editing program for your video work. I know one guy who still uses Widows 2000, and he's happy with it. His hardware is state-of-the-art, and the smaller software runs super-fast. Personally, I like XP just fine.

Vista is cool, I'll give you that, but I can almost guarantee that running Vista is the cause of your problems. Vista is a resource hog, and while your PC is about the minimum specs that Windows recommends for Vista, and the word on the street is that Microsoft's minimums are too minimal.

Posted 4 years ago #
Arjun_M
Member

The HP nx6120 laptop I've got uses Windows XP, but I'm not sure it's a good idea to use that, given its relatively limited specifications in comparison with the Vista-afflicted desktop. I tried to open a DV-AVI file on VirtualDubMod and it didn't open at all, saying some codec was required and it cannot read DV-AVI- in fact, two error messages.

I'm looking at something that will capture my camcorder footage in MPEG-2 or will convert the massive DV-AVI stuff into MPEG-2. I'm avoiding VirtualDub as it doesn't support any MPEG, and I'm not clear about how it works.

Posted 4 years ago #
Arjun_M
Member

There's MEncoder or FFMPEG, but I can't find them easily, and I find something called MPlayer instead. This MEncoder, they say, will convert any format into any other, including FLV. Does anyone know how to get this? And use it in conversion? I'm still looking at open-source utilities, which I can use to convert these files to use in Jahshaka, which crashes each time a DV-AVI is loaded.

Posted 4 years ago #