I just bought myself a Sony HandyCAM DVD201 which burns to DVD-RW. The format are Mpeg-2

I was wondering if Pinnacle was the best software to import Mpeg-2, edit them by adding effect, tracks and slow motion. Adobe Premiere Element is made for DV which will be a pain to convert all my movies to aVI to convert them.

Which software do you recomment to modify those Mpeg-2 and doing a decent job on adding effect and all? Anyone else is working on mpeg2 m like me that could perhaps help me into buying the right software to work on my movie editing?

Any comment, suggestion or recommandation will be appreciated

are these cameras cheaper than normal miniDV ones?

You cannot import Mpeg2 with Liquid Edition. I think you can from Liquid Chrome but then you spend many thousands for that.

In addition to that, editing Mpeg2 (compressed) footage will result in poorer results than editing AV DV format (largely uncompressed).

Sorry it's not what you probably want to hear.

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Lloyd

That's my opinion. If you don't like it I have others

System: Apple Macbook Pro 17, and an external Freecom 500GB eSATA drive.
Software: Final Cut Studio 2 (FCP 6, Motion 3, Soundtrack Pro 2, Color, DVD Studio Pro 4, Compressor 3), Sonicfire Pro 4.5
Favourite Resources: Findsounds.com, Free DVD menus, Ken Stone's FCP Page, Wikivid

"are these cameras cheaper than normal miniDV ones?"

They are not cheaper since the Mpeg2 can be directly moved to the PC for editing. It is faster to transfer as well. I bought mine 1000 $ CND but I also got Supernightshot and bigger optical zoom.

I love my handycam but I'm looking for a way to edit Mpeg2 without converting it to avi

well tmpgenc will cut up mpeg-2, if need be. Thing is, mpeg-2 ain't supposed to be edited, it's not designed for that. These cameras are for people who just wanna record, then watch. Anyone who wants to edit even a little is far better off with dv based cameras.

i'd imagine that any nle app that can actually use mpeg-2 files as a source would either run incredibly slowly, or decompress them to dv first, which is kinda pointless.

> Anyone who wants to edit even a little is far better off with dv based cameras.

Especially if your work is going to be used on TV you would be better off using DV. Most TV stations are using that format. Course you will pay approx. $4,000.00 for a DV recorder, unless you can figure out a way to wire your new camera to record back in from the computer Or you can pay $2,000.00 for a decent DV camera that will allow you to record back into it which is what I did

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Dave B

Well... I can convert my Mpeg-2 into AVI and edit them. Once edited, I can author them so I can make a DVD to watch it on my TV. This is fine but my original inquiry was that if perhaps there is any software outhere that can do the job with Mpeg-2. I heard Pinnacle Studio 9 plus does it but I only got confirmation from one..

DV camcorder was much too time consuming for transferring data and quality was not as nice... so I cannot use that option.

Not too sure what you mean with regards DV quality opposed to MPEG2 as MPEG2 has undergone lossy compression.

However, digging round a bit it would appear that LE 6 will support MPEG2 import. So you could perhaps opt for that. I don't know about Studio.

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Lloyd

That's my opinion. If you don't like it I have others

System: Apple Macbook Pro 17, and an external Freecom 500GB eSATA drive.
Software: Final Cut Studio 2 (FCP 6, Motion 3, Soundtrack Pro 2, Color, DVD Studio Pro 4, Compressor 3), Sonicfire Pro 4.5
Favourite Resources: Findsounds.com, Free DVD menus, Ken Stone's FCP Page, Wikivid

Indeed, DV is better quality than MPEG-2.

How much footage are you trying to convert? An hour? Y'see, that's how long it would have taken to transfer and start editing. Not the several days you're sitting at now. MPEG-2 camcorders are for convenience, not quality or functionality.

This is not to debate if I like better DV or MPEG-2 I choose my camera for personal reasons. For your information, it takes around 15 minutes to transfer 1 hour movie to my hard drive which is DVD quality compare to my previous DV camera who took much longuer to transfer and quality was good but not as good (using QLITY ASSESS to measure pixels)

The editing part is easy if I decompress to AVI but I am looking for something that will let me do the editing right on the mpeg2. Somebody mentioned LE 6... what is that?