video editing

[Wolf-man]

Hey I have a question for all you tech guys. I am trying to edit my own movies. However, I have a problem with keeping good quality. I will rip a DVD or use a video file and cut scenes but when I save the finished product the quality is not as good as the original file. What program is the best to use for this and how can I keep the original quality? Thanks in advanced!

[Bobtheduck]

Hey I have a question for all you tech guys. I am trying to edit my own movies. However, I have a problem with keeping good quality. I will rip a DVD or use a video file and cut scenes but when I save the finished product the quality is not as good as the original file. What program is the best to use for this and how can I keep the original quality? Thanks in advanced!

MPEG-2 (the video format DVD uses) is notoriously difficult to edit. In order to edit efficiently, you'd have to convert it to something else ahead of time, and in ANY conversion, you'll lose something. There's just no way around this without access to higher quality masters.

This is why I want to burn the consumer Camcorder industry alive for switching to compressed video on Harddrives instead of uncompressed tapes.

[Alcuinus]

Hey I have a question for all you tech guys. I am trying to edit my own movies. However, I have a problem with keeping good quality. I will rip a DVD or use a video file and cut scenes but when I save the finished product the quality is not as good as the original file. What program is the best to use for this and how can I keep the original quality? Thanks in advanced!

As far as encoding applications go, hands down, ffmpeg is a superb piece of open source software with innumerable features and support for all kinds of codecs. I think it was primarily built for Linux based OSs but there are Windows and Mac builds... and it's command line based.

I believe my dad had issues with deinterlacing videos recorded on a digital camcorder... but i can't remember how he resolved it without converting to AVI >.<

[Mithrandir]

If you are editing "your own movies" meaning you have the raw footage, edit using that. Don't rip from a DVD - that's already compressed. It's pretty much impossible to compress something twice with lossy encoding and get even close to the same quality you started with.

[Wolf-man]

If you are editing "your own movies" meaning you have the raw footage, edit using that. Don't rip from a DVD - that's already compressed. It's pretty much impossible to compress something twice with lossy encoding and get even close to the same quality you started with.

I'm not editing my own movies. I'm talking about ripping movies from DVDs (that I own) and editing out content through my computer. Like Cleanflicks used to do.

[Atria35]

I'm not editing my own movies. I'm talking about ripping movies from DVDs (that I own) and editing out content through my computer. Like Cleanflicks used to do.

The reason Cleanflicks was shut down was because they didn't get the legal permission to do that- the work is copyrighted.

It's really very illegal to do that. You might want to write to some of the distributors or film studios to see whether they'll be willing to grant permission for personal use. (Or whoever you write to about stuff like that- you might have to do some Googling).

[Wolf-man]

No the reason Cleanflicks got shut was because they were selling and making money off the copies and not getting permission to do so by the creators. I own the movies therefore I have the legal right to make as many copies as I want so long as I do not distribute them nor sell them. There is no law against editing movies for private use. Actually there is no law against editing movies period so long as you do not sell/give them away nor take credit as your own work. So what I am doing is perfectly in my legal rights to do so.

[Bobtheduck]

No the reason Cleanflicks got shut was because they were selling and making money off the copies and not getting permission to do so by the creators. I own the movies therefore I have the legal right to make as many copies as I want so long as I do not distribute them nor sell them. There is no law against editing movies for private use. Actually there is no law against editing movies period so long as you do not sell/give them away nor take credit as your own work. So what I am doing is perfectly in my legal rights to do so.

Yes. Ripping your own movies for personal use is legal. Same as music, and even Games, technically. There are just all sorts of things that complicate that. I plan on making some "parent friendly" versions of some of my favorite movies (and some movies THEY would love themselves, such as Bruce Almighty and Shawshank Redemption) Editing MPEG-2 is nasty business, though. Thankfully my parents aren't videophiles. They grew up with 7 inch, Black and White family TVs. They don't care if there's a bit of artifacting and low quality.

If you are editing "your own movies" meaning you have the raw footage, edit using that. Don't rip from a DVD - that's already compressed.

Problem is you can't FIND "raw footage" at the consumer level anymore. Consumer Mini-DV is dead, in favor of compressed (and impossible to do REAL editing other than simple cutting) video on harddrives, and worse, DVD and Bluray cameras...

I bet in 10 years, the Camera industry will decide to take image stabilization away from consumer cameras because everyone loves those shaky digi-cam vids, or maybe they'll make sure all camcorders are the size of iPod shuffles. Yeah, THAT'LL be progress.

[Mithrandir]

No the reason Cleanflicks got shut was because they were selling and making money off the copies and not getting permission to do so by the creators. I own the movies therefore I have the legal right to make as many copies as I want so long as I do not distribute them nor sell them. There is no law against editing movies for private use. Actually there is no law against editing movies period so long as you do not sell/give them away nor take credit as your own work. So what I am doing is perfectly in my legal rights to do so.

I would do a lot more homework before making blanket statements like this. I'm not saying you haven't, but the DMCA is indeed a law that makes this illegal in most cases. For example, ripping most modern DVDs involves removing the region encoding and copy-protection code. This is a blatant violation of the DMCA. Please see the EFF article on unintended consequences of the DMCA for a more in-depth discussion:
http://www.eff.org/wp/unintended-consequences-under-dmca

And before everyone cries "fair use" at me, please be aware that fair use is NOT a law. It's a LEGAL DEFENSE and the DMCA explicitly forbids it's use in many cases.

Problem is you can't FIND "raw footage" at the consumer level anymore. Consumer Mini-DV is dead, in favor of compressed (and impossible to do REAL editing other than simple cutting) video on harddrives, and worse, DVD and Bluray cameras...

I was unaware of this. We must have pretty high-level cameras where I work then, because we routinely capture data in RAW formats.

[Bobtheduck]

I was unaware of this. We must have pretty high-level cameras where I work then, because we routinely capture data in RAW formats.

What kind of equipment do you use? If you do TV work, they may not even use camcorders, but if they do they're almost certainly high end. Digital Beta or professional Mini-DV or something. It was rather recently they were dropped from the market, though, so you MAY just be using old equipment (I mean, I still have my Mini-DV cam, even though it's on its way out and has a fair few problems)

If you are CAPTURING from devices other than cameras, well, you're probably using a DV bridge of some sort... which means you're not working with raw footage on the Computer end. You're working with a conversion. A higher quality conversion than MPEG-2 would be, but still a conversion. I don't mean to sound arrogant or anything. I really don't know what you work with, and I DO know how hard I've looked for new consumer level camcorders, and all they sell in the sub 1200 range are hard drive, DVD, and Bluray camcorders. They compress the video into MPEG-2 or other similar lossy, uneditable formats. I only found one around the 1200 range, with most of the mini-dv cams in the 3000 dollar range. We're talking studio quality.