OT? Editing Video

The response-return on almost all video editing newsgroups is very low,
and I'm not sure my question isn't apropos to the two groups to which
I'm cross-posting this question.

I have a ThinkPad R40 with a Pentium M, 256 RAM, 20 Gig HD. For a
court case, I needed to be able to do some video editing of
too-revelatory domestic footage (not sexual!) rather than go to an
editor I've relied on in the past. I purchased a sale WD 80 Gig
external HD and a Hewlett Packard "Movie Writer" on the godforsaken
Overstock.com (please, friends, flee this site like the plague if you
value your wallet, sanity, and dignity as a consumer).

The Movie Writer offers two forms of DVD-burning: one a "wizard" my
laptop used once successfully, then froze on on subsequent tries. The
other is a software program named ShowBiz, which also offers a
DVD-burning wizard as well as a frame-by-frame editing option.

For the court case, I really need to learn how to use the
frame-by-frame program, quite like Windows Movie Maker, which came with
my laptop. Simply, I can understand the instructions neither of
ShowBiz nor Movie Maker when it comes to transferring the captured
video to the editing process.

By training, I'm an English instructor. I perhaps pay too much
attention to instructional nuance--phrases and vague terms ("chapter?"
What the heck's a "chapter?"). On the other hand, there's a
possibility that the tech writers who attempt to dumb-down the
instructions dumb them down in ways not helpful to the truly dumb among
aspiring video editors.

So if anyone can either walk me through or point me to a site where one
is literally walked through video-editing (for beginners), I would
appreciate it extremely.

(And please, please, please, do not buy from Overstock.com, not if you
1) want to get the actual item you ordered; 2) want to exchange
merchandise that (frequently) is overpriced junk leftover from some
third-world warehouse; or 3) get nervous by smiling happy young Utahans
who insist their e-contempt is business-sense. I am going to contact
the Attorney General's office in both my state and Utah regarding this
"company," which seems run by spoiled brats from their parents'
basements.)

On 14 Feb 2005 02:06:29 -0800, wrote:

>By training, I'm an English instructor. I perhaps pay too much
>attention to instructional nuance--phrases and vague terms ("chapter?"
>What the heck's a "chapter?"). On the other hand, there's a
>possibility that the tech writers who attempt to dumb-down the
>instructions dumb them down in ways not helpful to the truly dumb among
>aspiring video editors.


Nuance wich a non-tech person takes it literally - Mistake.

There is no shortcut. If you haven't done this before, first u gotta
undertand the language, then maybe what u read/people tell u start to
make sense, otherwise it's like talking to understand polish in 24
hours.

I recommend, what else, "Microsoft Windows Movie Maker for Dummies"
book. That would be a good place to start.

Of course if movie is what you are interested in and don't want to
have a degree nor the time for it, a MAC is what u want (by the way a
MAC in this context is of course an Apple brand McIntosh
computer/notebook).

Before I say anything else, is this video attorney work product or is it
evidence? If it's evidence then you make _damn_ sure what you're doing is
acceptable before you mess with it if you want to keep your butt out of
jail.

That said, don't get hung up on the tools that come with your laptop and
your DVD drive. They're probably crap. If all you need is cut some
segments out and then burn to DVD then any number of programs will do that
for you--Nero 6.6 Ultra and Premiere Elements both come to mind--Premiere
Elements has a try before buy download but not sure what if anything is
disabled, Nero has a try before buy of the video editor on their site. Of
the two, Nero is far more limited as a video editor but what it does it
does fairly simply--find what you want to cut, click cut mode, click start,
play on, click end, and it's cut.

wrote:

> The response-return on almost all video editing newsgroups is very low,
> and I'm not sure my question isn't apropos to the two groups to which
> I'm cross-posting this question.
>
> I have a ThinkPad R40 with a Pentium M, 256 RAM, 20 Gig HD. For a
> court case, I needed to be able to do some video editing of
> too-revelatory domestic footage (not sexual!) rather than go to an
> editor I've relied on in the past. I purchased a sale WD 80 Gig
> external HD and a Hewlett Packard "Movie Writer" on the godforsaken
> Overstock.com (please, friends, flee this site like the plague if you
> value your wallet, sanity, and dignity as a consumer).
>
> The Movie Writer offers two forms of DVD-burning: one a "wizard" my
> laptop used once successfully, then froze on on subsequent tries. The
> other is a software program named ShowBiz, which also offers a
> DVD-burning wizard as well as a frame-by-frame editing option.
>
> For the court case, I really need to learn how to use the
> frame-by-frame program, quite like Windows Movie Maker, which came with
> my laptop. Simply, I can understand the instructions neither of
> ShowBiz nor Movie Maker when it comes to transferring the captured
> video to the editing process.
>
> By training, I'm an English instructor. I perhaps pay too much
> attention to instructional nuance--phrases and vague terms ("chapter?"
> What the heck's a "chapter?"). On the other hand, there's a
> possibility that the tech writers who attempt to dumb-down the
> instructions dumb them down in ways not helpful to the truly dumb among
> aspiring video editors.
>
> So if anyone can either walk me through or point me to a site where one
> is literally walked through video-editing (for beginners), I would
> appreciate it extremely.
>
> (And please, please, please, do not buy from Overstock.com, not if you
> 1) want to get the actual item you ordered; 2) want to exchange
> merchandise that (frequently) is overpriced junk leftover from some
> third-world warehouse; or 3) get nervous by smiling happy young Utahans
> who insist their e-contempt is business-sense. I am going to contact
> the Attorney General's office in both my state and Utah regarding this
> "company," which seems run by spoiled brats from their parents'
> basements.)

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

J. Clarke wrote:
>
> Now, on to the nitty-gritty. [snip]
>
> When you bring a file into WMM (and I'm assuming you've got the most
recent
> one--if not then you might want to find it on the Microsoft site and
> download it) it should appear in the upper center of the window as a
> "clip". To do anything with it you have to drag it into one of the
boxes
> in the "storyboard" below. Having done that, though, you can't do
much
> with it until you click the button just above the storyboard that
switches
> to "show timeline". Once you've done that you'll, if you put the
mouse
> somewhere in the resulting timeline and click, see a vertical line
with a
> little box at the top appear in the timeline and you should in the
preview
> window see the scene appear, and change as you drag that line around.
That
> line is called the "playback indicator". To the left of the timeline
you
> should see several buttons, including one with a "+" sign and one
with a
> "-" sign--those zoom the timeline. Zoom it out all the way with the
"-"
> button, then start at the beginning and drag the playback indicator
until
> it crosses your first cut point. Then keep zooming in and
repositioning
> until you've got the playback indicator where you want to make the
cut.
> Once you've done that, on the "clip" menu at the top of the window,
click
> "split". Granularity appears to be about .07 seconds on this so you
can
> position the split to within about two frames.
>
> Once you've made all the splits, then zoom out and one by one select
the
> pieces that you want to remove, and then delete them, then save the
movie
> (to local machine and I think the DV-AVI format would be the best bet
among
> those offered) and you're done with what WMM can do.

They don't call you J.C. for nothin'!!! Thank you--mille fois merci.
You cured my deaf and dumbness, and I am NOT being sacreligious by
saying this. The A-HA! moment was your defining the ENTIRETY of the
..wmm file as *A* clip. Notice that I use the indefinite article "a" to
describe what should be called "the" (definite article) clip.

The definite article would have cleared things up immediately for me
because I understood a clip to be exactly as you described in your
prologue about old-time movie making: a single frame of film. For
Movie Maker to regard the entirety of a file as "a" clip--this is just
so (as the kids say) cold. But following your instructions, I am
absolutely certain I'll be able to manipulate the imported or captured
video footage, because I've already fooled around with the storyboard
and timeline areas in making my slideshow with voice-overs.

I honestly wish you were the John Clarke from Bingington (!) so I could
drive up and buy you a box of half-price Valentine chocolates I'll
let you know what happens, and how my attorney reacts when he sees MY,
not our editor's, work.

wrote:

> J. Clarke wrote:
>>
>> Now, on to the nitty-gritty. [snip]
>>
>> When you bring a file into WMM (and I'm assuming you've got the most
> recent
>> one--if not then you might want to find it on the Microsoft site and
>> download it) it should appear in the upper center of the window as a
>> "clip". To do anything with it you have to drag it into one of the
> boxes
>> in the "storyboard" below. Having done that, though, you can't do
> much
>> with it until you click the button just above the storyboard that
> switches
>> to "show timeline". Once you've done that you'll, if you put the
> mouse
>> somewhere in the resulting timeline and click, see a vertical line
> with a
>> little box at the top appear in the timeline and you should in the
> preview
>> window see the scene appear, and change as you drag that line around.
> That
>> line is called the "playback indicator". To the left of the timeline
> you
>> should see several buttons, including one with a "+" sign and one
> with a
>> "-" sign--those zoom the timeline. Zoom it out all the way with the
> "-"
>> button, then start at the beginning and drag the playback indicator
> until
>> it crosses your first cut point. Then keep zooming in and
> repositioning
>> until you've got the playback indicator where you want to make the
> cut.
>> Once you've done that, on the "clip" menu at the top of the window,
> click
>> "split". Granularity appears to be about .07 seconds on this so you
> can
>> position the split to within about two frames.
>>
>> Once you've made all the splits, then zoom out and one by one select
> the
>> pieces that you want to remove, and then delete them, then save the
> movie
>> (to local machine and I think the DV-AVI format would be the best bet
> among
>> those offered) and you're done with what WMM can do.
>
> They don't call you J.C. for nothin'!!! Thank you--mille fois merci.
> You cured my deaf and dumbness, and I am NOT being sacreligious by
> saying this. The A-HA! moment was your defining the ENTIRETY of the
> .wmm file as *A* clip. Notice that I use the indefinite article "a" to
> describe what should be called "the" (definite article) clip.
>
> The definite article would have cleared things up immediately for me
> because I understood a clip to be exactly as you described in your
> prologue about old-time movie making: a single frame of film. For
> Movie Maker to regard the entirety of a file as "a" clip--this is just
> so (as the kids say) cold. But following your instructions, I am
> absolutely certain I'll be able to manipulate the imported or captured
> video footage, because I've already fooled around with the storyboard
> and timeline areas in making my slideshow with voice-overs.
>
> I honestly wish you were the John Clarke from Bingington (!) so I could
> drive up and buy you a box of half-price Valentine chocolates I'll
> let you know what happens, and how my attorney reacts when he sees MY,
> not our editor's, work.

Glad to be of assistance, and I hope your efforts are appreciated by the
attorney.

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)