Video
Cutting Captured Video
When constructing a movie using a timeline editor like Media Studio or Premiere, it makes life a lot easier if you have all your input clips well organised. After much trial and error, I found the technique I describe here to be the most effective. I describe the process in terms of Media Studio Pro (MSP), but the same method can be used in other editors such as Adobe Premiere, just the mechanics are a little different.
The Concept
What I aim for is to have each camera shot as a separate AVI file, cut to the exact frame. In other words, the file starts with the first frame in the shot, and ends with the last one, with no cut-off, or overlap to other shots. It's difficult to directly capture this accurately, hence the method I use here. It might seem overly fussy, but it really does make the management of the clips in the editor easier to handle, and has several other advantages, as we shall see.
Direct capture of shots
The obvious way to do this is to capture each shot directly to a separate file. However, this is somewhat tedious. You need to have the tape positioned before the shot, then setup the capture for the new file, start the tape and the capture at the right point, and stop it again the moment you get to the end of the shot. The tape has now overrun the start of the next shot, so you have to backup before you can do the next one.
If you are using a DV device with OHCI control and suitable software, you can preview scenes on the tape and set up a batch capture to do the same job. You still may not get it frame-accurate though, and finding scene changes directly on the tape is not always very easy.
Both these methods also involve a lot of tape motion. The tape mechanisms in most camcorders are a lot more delicate than a standard VCR, and the less they can be wound back and forward the better.
- See also add-on products.
One long capture
The way I do this is to identify a section of tape that I want to use, which could be 10 mins or more in length. I then capture the whole section in one go, and use MSP to "cut it up" into the exact shots. This is in fact very much like the way a film editor using celluloid works. The first thing he does with the processed reel of film is to take a pair of scissors to it and cut it into its separate shots.
You also need to consider where you will put the initial capture file, as well as the cut shots. If you use a single drive, it may be easiest to capture to a file in the root directory, but create a sub-directory (folder in Windows parlance) for the cuttings. This keeps all the shots, which are presumably related, conveniently together.
If you use multiple drives or partitions, you may have one which is
tuned for optimum performance for playing videos, the other(s) being used
for individual clips. In this case you can capture to the fastest partition,
minimizing the risk of dropped frames, and then save the cuttings to the
working partition(s). The diagram on the right illustrates this idea.
Once you've done the cutting you will delete the original captured file, leaving room for your new edited movie. This is in fact a good way to set up a digital video system.
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