taking files off a video camera

Forums › Digital Imaging › taking files off a video camera - best format?

OnceBitten

355 posts

Ultimate Geek

# 83138 11-May-2011 11:43

We are going to get a video of my band playing live in a couple of weeks and will be using a 'Sony Handycam' to take the footage.

We would like to upload some of the footage to you tube and to our band website

Last time we did this about 2 years ago, I transferred / uploaded the files from the camera to my PC, but the file sizes were HUGE! (about 1gig - 1.5 gig) I had a program where I could break the files up into the individual songs, but the files were still about 300mb each.
I used windows media? to condense the files so they were all under 10mb, but that drastically reduced the quality (audio and video) of the files

is there a way I can upload / transfer the files from the Handycam to the PC so they are not so huge?
or is there a way once downloaded I can make the file size a lot smaller (more managable) without reducing the quality?

any advise would be much appreciated!

garvani

1874 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

# 467885 11-May-2011 11:53

Is the handycam a tape based camera or a Harddrive, memory card based camera?

If it is tape based you need a piece of software to capture the video to the computer. If its hard drive based you can copy it directly from the camera to the pc

Either way you will need video editing software, there are numerous ones out there, windows movie maker will do it but its fairly useless and afaik it only deals with WMV output files which look horid as you have already encountered.
I do video editing as part of my job and use Pinnacle studio, it will capture the video and output into many different formats and will even directly upload to youtube in the best format possible. If you plan on doing a lot of this in the future i recommend the purchase, it will make life a lot easier!

Ultimately for youtube you want the output file to be in MP4 format following these guidelines http://www.youtube.com/handbook_popup_produce_upload?pcont=bestformats .
It sounds as if you were dealing with full dv video which is a few hundred mbs a minute, converting the video to MP4 will keep the same quality but drasticly reduce the file size. If you dont want to purchase pinnacle you could convert the full dv video to mp4, using something like AVS video converter.

OnceBitten

355 posts

Ultimate Geek

# 467892 11-May-2011 12:15

thanks - I'm pretty sure it's a hard drive based handycam, as there are no tapes in the camera.
I'll have a look at that pinacle software you mentioned.
I've got that AVS video converter, and used that last time - but my 'free' trial has probably run out

Failing that I might just get our singer to take the camera to someone in the video / audio industry and they can take the files off, edit them...etc...

cheers

Nick

Jaxson

6995 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

# 467898 11-May-2011 12:27

Windows movie maker will output an AVI file format.

Yeah basically the raw footage off the camera is not compressed much and holds a lot of data.

You want this though really. The aim is to edit the video as you want whilst keeping the quality high. When you've finished your editing (in windows movie maker or premiere or what have you) you can select the output type you want. At this stage you can produce lots of different quality/size level outut files off the one master.

Just remember that something has to give. If you want it really small to email then the files going to be pretty rough. Just follow the advice above when you produce your youtube output file etc. The game is about compressing the video to a manageable file size that still has a fairly good quality visual output.

garvani

1874 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

# 467899 11-May-2011 12:28

It will probably end up costing you $100+ for a video editor to do that.. Pinnacle studio is about $120 and can be bought from noel leemings etc, one of purchase and its quite easy to use. I would definetly go down that track personally, there might be a free trial available too.

timmmay

15556 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Subscriber

# 467900 11-May-2011 12:36

Adobe have a video editing program, I forget what it's called, but there's a one month free trial available. It might be called Adobe Premier.

Jaxson

6995 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

# 467908 11-May-2011 13:00

Adobe Premiere is the best in my experience.

It comes in two flavours, full and elements, much like photoshop.

The elements version should do all you require and more, and the interace is typically friendlier/less industrial.

garvani

1874 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

# 467910 11-May-2011 13:03

Yes there is adobe premier, but that costs about $750 to purchase..
Premier elements is substantially cheaper, but pinnacle beats it hands down (and pinnacle is still cheaper than elements).