Remote Location Editing

markrad wrote on 5/17/2002, 2:47 AM
(I'm a new user, my VV3 is on order!)
My company wants me to edit video they are shooting at the home office. Now for the the challenge: #1-My company home office is in Washington state and I'm in Texas. #2-The original video will be shot on DV tape but I only have Digital8 cameras for playback/conversion so it won't do any good to send me the original tapes.

I'm thinking maybe the office can send me the footage on CD in MPEG1 format. What do you think? Is MPEG1 going to cut it and CAN I IMPORT AND EDIT MPEGS FILES IN VV3.0? Is there a better format to work in? I would think AVI files would be way too large to put on CD or to email for that matter.
What are your suggestions? Maybe I'm missing another alternative altogether. Standing by for your reply, Thanks in advance...........Mark

Comments

markrad wrote on 5/17/2002, 3:02 AM
I should have mentioned in my earlier post-
The final edited product will be a CD to be played back on laptops in the field and not videotape or DVD.
chewbonkay wrote on 5/17/2002, 6:46 AM
I have never worked with mpeg files for editing purposes but I think you'll find from other posts that it is not recommended. When the home office converts the DV to mpeg1 they are compressing the files and you are losing data. When you edit and re-render, I believe you will lose quality again and thus your final CD will be less than optimal.

Is there a way to have the home office record the DV to D8 for you? This would be the best solution as you could then work with avi's. Depending on the importance of this project I would HIGHLY recommend you find a way to work with avi's.

Just my 2 cents.
Chienworks wrote on 5/17/2002, 6:50 AM
MPEG can be opened by Vegas, but it is pretty bad as a souce formate. I've actually had better results using WMV encoded at 3Mbps. If the Washington office is willing and able, have them try both versions. If they can only send MPEG, have them use the highest bitrate possible, at least 3Mbps, preferably higher than that.

Having them copy the original DV tapes to VHS or Hi8 would probably be better than MPEG or WMV files, but then you'd have to capture it at your location somehow.

How long are the source clips? A CD will hold just about 3 minutes of DV .avi files. If the source material isn't very long then this would be a much better way to go.
SonyEPM wrote on 5/17/2002, 8:31 AM
Have them send you the DV tapes, and then rent/borrow a DV camera to capture. MPEG or WM files can be used as a source format, but you will have to render to another highly compressed format and the quality will degrade significantly.

The machines that will be used for CD playback are: PCs? Mac? Both?
Tyler.Durden wrote on 5/17/2002, 9:44 AM
IMHO, The company should buy a Sony DV camcorder for you to use.

Cheers, MPH
markrad wrote on 5/17/2002, 12:06 PM
Thanks for your replies. I wanted to followup on some questions you asked-
I am anticipating LONG source files being sent to me, maybe an hours worth at a time!
I figrue I can break that up once I get it on my end. I believe they are using Pinnacle Studio 6, I will ask if they can render to WMV for me to test that method. I will also see if they have access to a Hi8 videocamera to dub to. Sounds like even a VHS copy might be better source material than MPEG1. Finished product will be played back on PC Laptops.
I really LIKE the suggestion where my company BUYS me a DV camcorder......I'll have to work on that. I'll justify it by comparing it to the price of Dallas-Seattle AIRFARE!
BillyBoy wrote on 5/17/2002, 3:30 PM
Another way would be to have them render to AVI uncompressed on a portable drive or a drive in a removable caddie, then ship the drive to you. Assumes you both use the same file system, NTFS recommended. When you do your thing you would sent it back. For sure not the best solution, but at lease the file would be remain close to prestine condition and no need to do all the copying back and forth since you'd "share" the drive with them if you both can stand the time lag.
kkolbo wrote on 5/17/2002, 8:20 PM
We have been using a QPS 120gig firewire drive for this specifically. It works great. The drive is $350 and can be shipped easily. On top of that it is a useful piece of hardware for other uses. It even works well for transferring huge video files between Mac and PC.



K