I have ripped my digital video from my camcorder to my PC with no problem using Windows Movie Maker. I was hoping to put all of the video I had on one DVD but when I get done building the movie I have over a 117 GB file. So I now know I need to shrink the movie down quite a bit. My question is once I have the file in AVI format, what is the file size difference between AVI and MPEG? What I mean is if my file is 5 GB in AVI format will that change once I get it into MPEG? Thanks for the help.
Also another quick question. When I ripped the video from my camcorder to my PC the video was only maybe 2 hours long. When I get done with the video in Windows Movie Maker it shows it being over 9 hours long. Why is this and is this correct?
Ripping is not the right word here, that is used for getting a movie content of a DVD; it's called capturing of transferring.
Video files are big, but 117 GB is exceptional. If you're using miniDV and do a straight transfer you will end up with around 13GB/hour; so 117GB would be 9 hours adn there is no tape around that can hold that amount of film. Did you capture uncompressed? If you did, there is no good reason to do that.
There is no simple answer to the question what the difference in size is between AVI and MPEG. AVI is not a filetype, but a container that can hold video with all different types of codecs (DV, DivX, Indeo, Huffyuv etc..). MPEG is also around in differnet types: MPEG-1, 2 and 4. Most compression techniques also allow different levels of compression.
But anyway: for the most common situation being where you want to transfer video from miniDV tape (DV-AVI) to a DVD (MPEG-2) definitely MPEG is smaller. DV-AVI is around 13GB per hour, MPEG on a DVD anywhere between 2 and 4 GB per hour (depending on the compression used).
Your last question. 2 hours long coming from your camcorder? What type of camcorder are you using? In anyw way, if it turns out to ebe 9 hours after editing with WMM does not make any sense unless your pasting pieces togheter to form a 9 hour movie.
Sorry I know ripping was not the right word to use. Just was not thinking at the moment. When I captured the video it was from 2 different Digital 8MM tapes. I changed some things around and now have a file that is 40.3GB. The tapes that I captured the video from were only 60 minute tapes so the video could only be an hour at the most. I guess what it boils down to is if I am capturing video from a Digital 8 tape and using WMM what file type should I be saving the movie into if I want to eventually burn it to a DVD? I want to try and get the best quality of video that I can also. Sorry if I sound like a huge n00b but I really am new at all of this. Thanks for the help.
Boy can I help you out Vandiyan. I went through all the headaches learning how to put my minidv stuff on DVD. I also learned it all from this freaking cool site. OK, first, get WinAvi video converter, from this freaking cool site and read the manual on how to use it. the program itself is really self explanatory, but the manual helps a lot. the only thing I would differ on from the manual is that in the advanced options, I would not put the aspect ratio on auto, rather on 4X3. I used auto and it converted into a widescreen type mode that cutt off part of my image.
Secondly, get Nero to burn your newly burned DVD format (which is called MPEG-2). You can also get the trial Tsunami MPEG dvd author (also from this freaking cool site) to make all sorts of fancy menus to impress people with, it also has a burning tool. I burned with Nero and with Tsunami and I don´t know if I did it right or what, but Tsunami looked better. also when working with video, defrag a lot. good luck
The rule is simple: always capture to DV-AVI. When you use WMM just make sure to use the right settings. Here's an article that will explain: http://www.digitalvideoclub.com/tutorials/moviemakermistakes.php Anyway, as long as you transfer to DV-AVI it does not matter which program you use, it will also be the same quality because it is a bit for bit digital transfer. Stay in DV-AVI during all your editing and only encode to MPEG-2 after you have done all your editing.
You say that you wnat the best possible quality. Well, this is determined by the encoder that you use. Whatever you do, don't use one of those all-in-one porgrams like Nero VisionExpress or so, because they simply don't have the best quality encoders in them. Best is to use a stand alone encoder like TMPGEnc or Canopus Procoder. The only thing is that they have a lot of settings that can be a bit challenging, but once you figured it out, you will get the best quality. It also beats programs like WinAVI video converter by a mile...
Once you have the MPEG-2 you can use any DVD authoring program, but as long as it doesn't re-encode your video it will not influence the video quality. The only discriminator here is how fancy you want your menu's to be and the choice range from the very simple programs like Nero, quite versatile like TMPGEnc DVD author to top of the bill DVDlab.
Chekc out this page: http://www.digitalvideoclub.com/basics/tapetodvd.php and many of the other articles over there.
