1) Why are there lines on my video after editing?

The lines you're seeing are interlaced artifacts on a progressive scan monitor. What is interlacing? Interlacing was a solution to early technological constraints - the picture show on a TV is a series of dots, but early TV tubes couldn't draw the entire picture quickly enough, resulting in the top half fading before the whole picture was shown. So rather than display an uneven picture, the screen was divided into alternate lines, with each each half being drawn alternately. Technology has long since progressed and PC monitors work in "progressive scan", that is show all lines of resolution at the same time. When you display an interlaced picture on a progressive scan monitor, you're actually seeing two seperate frames together. Where there is high movement, "lines" will appear on your screen as alternate line are showing a different image. For a detailed explanation of interlacing and how to deal with this, visit http://www.100fps.com/

You only need to deinterlace if you're creating files for display on a PC (such as WMV and DivX encoded files). An exception to this is MPEG2 for DVD: software DVD players will have an inbuilt de-interlace filter for playback. When encoding DivX of WMV files, simply apply a de-interlace filter in your encoding application. This is sometimes refered to as "progressive scan" output".

There's quite a few sites out there offering free hosting - your Internet Service Providor may even offer free FTP space. Unfortunately most hosts reduce your broadband connection to dial-up levels and not everyone's at ease using FTP (FTwhat I hear you say?). I've downloaded files from a variety of hosts, but I've been consistantly impressed by the download speeds offered by putfile.com. More importantly you can upload video in just a few clicks.

3) What's the best camcorder?

Ask this question in the forums and invariably the answer you'll get is the posters own camera. There's a whole host of camcorders on the market, ranging from the ultra low budget to semi-professional. Rather than providing a specific model, it's easier to explain the different types of camcorders on the maket:

MiniDV camcorders: The camera of choice for the amatuer videographer, the miniDV camcorder is now a proven and mature product. The camcorder connects to a PC for capture via a Firewire (also known as ilink), which is a lossless process - what you see on your camcorder is exactly what's transferred. If you don't have a firewire socket, you can buy a PCI expansion card for about £10 from any PC retailer. Once connected, you'll be able to control the camcorder on your PC using editing software such as Pure Motion Edit Studio, and DV files are ideal for editing and supported by all editing software currently available.

MiniDV camcorders capture images using Charged Couple Devices (CCD). Look out for camcorders with 3-CCDs, which use each seperate CCD to capture a seperate colour to provide a clearer picture. Many MiniDV camcorders come with very high digital zooms, but ignore this and compare the optical zoom. DV camcorders use miniDV tapes for filming and it's recommended that you stick to the same brand of tape.

MiniDVD camcorders: Not to be confused with miniDV, these camcorders record to small DVD discs. Based on the same technology as miniDV camcorders, they produce equivalent quality pictures within the camera but you'll generally find that image quality per £ is less than miniDV. Although ideal for convieniance, recording straight to DVD is a pain for editing. DVD uses MPEG2 encoding, which is more compressed using intraframe compression technology. This means achieving precise cuts and edits is a hard task. DVD cameras use USB transfer.

DVD camcorders are not recommended by digital director for video editing.

MicroDV camcorders: Another sony invention that never gained popularity. Again these camcorders record to MPEG2, but this time the MPEG2 is in a proprietary form and even harder to edit. Great for convieniance, but almost useless for editing.

MPEG4 camcorders: Small handheld units designed for ease of use and those working to tight budgets. Again, they're not specifically designed for editing and video resolutions are often non-broadcast standard. The quality of video is obviously inferior to miniDV camcorders and video is stored on solid state media. Firmly positioned at the "fun" end of the video editing hierachy.

For indepth reviews, advice and user comments of camcorders, visit camcorderinfo.com

4) Is this PC any good for editing?

If you're buying a new PC, then the PC will be more than sufficient for DV editing. Modern computers easily cope with the stresses of editing, which involve the most CPU and RAM intensive operations you'll ever put your PC through. Obviously the better the system, the quicker your system will encode and all the other usual rules apply. For a comparison chart of how fast different processors can encode video, take a look at tomshardware's CPU comparison.

With hard drive speeds now pretty much uniformly 7,200RPM and cache sizes of 8MB or more becoming more common, there's now more emphasis on the way your drives are configured. For a quick overview of RAID in video editing, digital director have provided this article. 512MB of RAM is also considered the standard minimum for video editing, but again it's becoming more important in how the RAM is configured rather than how much physical RAM you have installed: make sure you're provided with the possibilty of expansion for example.

If your considering buying a Laptop, then you'll get less bang for your pound and you should be more concerned with what you're buying: laptop compenents are desgined with heat and size in mind, not necesarily performance. Be careful to chose a system with sufficient drive space and remember that upgrading a laptop is more difficult than a desktop PC.

5) What's the best video editing software?

Again, this is a very subjective question and you'll get a different answer depending on who you ask. Needless to say, there's a whole range of software to chose from and beginners often find themselves struggling with the free software bundled with their PC. This is typically not the best software available.

Digital Director recommends and actively supports the following software:

Pure Motion Edit Studio - digital director review - free trial
Ulead Video Studio - digital director review - free trial
Adobe Premiere Elements - digital director review - free trial
Adobe Premiere Pro - digital director review - free trial
Sony Vegas Video - digital director review - free trial
Ulead Media Studio Pro - digital director review - free trial

We're also keeping an eye on Tenomichi 3D Edit and for a comprehensive list of video editing software and trial links, visit the video editing software links page.

6) Why isn’t my DVD as good a quality as plugging in the camera (and why won't my DVD play)?

DVDs use MPEG2 compression technology which uses a higher compression rate than DV. However, with a good MPEG encoder at higher bitrates (between 5,000 to 8,000kbps) you shouldn't visibly notice a reduction in quality even in scenes of higher movements. When encoding, make sure you're using a high bitrate (but below the upper limit of 8,000kbps for DVD compliance) and 2-pass variable bitrate encoding. Always make sure you use the highest maximum video bitrate available by using a bitrate calculator.

Not all MPEG encoders are equal and if you're having difficulties producing compatible DVDs or the quality of your video is poor, chances are the MPEG encoder in your application isn't up to the job (power director is an example of a software producing sub-standard MPEG2 files).

For more information on MPEG encoding, visit the MPEG encoding overview.

7) How do I censor a part of video?

Each editing application is different and may even come with a specific plugin for this effect (such as Pure Motion Edit StuThis is a generic, quick and dirty way to create the effect:

1) First you need editing software with at least two video tracks (layers)

2) Export as still of your video to act as a guide

3) Draw around the area you want censored in black, leaving just the persons face, number plate etc showing

4) Import this back into your editing application. Place above the video in the layer above the track in your timeline.

5) Apply a luma matte to this still.

6) Expand the still to cover the length of video you want to censor.

7) Apply a blur or noise filter to the still.

8) Key frame movement and size as necesary.

8) I get dropped frames

Video capture requires a sustained high level of data transfer. If the disk can't keep up with the volume of data transfered, you'll end up with dropped frames (choppy playback). Always ensure your hard disk drives are performing to peak performance by regularly defragmenting and deleting and large unused files. Try not to fill up a hard drive too much as this also gives a performance reduction.

If you've got a miniDV camcorder, always ensure you capture using the firewire port on your PC. If you haven't got one, then I recommend you buy one as the USB connection on DV camcorders is not designed for high quality lossless DV transfer. Please note that this is applicable to miniDV camcorders.

9) Capture from analogue sources

Digital Director recommends iuvcr for analogue capture to ensure you're getting the most from your video capture card.

The type "capture card" you choose will depend almost entirely on the budget you have and what you intend to do with the captured video. For video editing enthusiasts, the most likely scenario would be converting and editing analogue video and for this purpose a dedicated analogue to DV convertor is recommended. The canopus range of DV convertors are amongst the best for both quality and video/audio synchronisation. Digital Director has reviewed the canopus ADVC100.

If you're intending to convert directly to DVD, I would recommend either a direct to MPEG2 capture card or alternatively invest in a stand alone DVD recorder. These have dropped in price signficantly and offer a hassle free alternative to archiving old VHS tapes to DVD.

For those working on a budget, an alternative to dedicated hardware is using either the video in of your graphics card (where supported) or the video in found on most TV tuner cards. Simply connect your analogue source via an S-Video connection and the audio via your PCs soundcard/TV card. This method requires a reasonably fast processor for higher resolution video.. Check you manual to see if your card has a video in connection.

You'll have two options in capturing: The first is to record uncompressed video using a codec such as huffy. Although uncompressed video doesn't burden the the computer with processor intensive encoding operations, the sheer volume of data input will put strain on all but the most competent of systems and hard drives. The second is to encode "on the fly" (for example to MPEG); this method may compromise quality and risk dropped frames leading to “jerky” video. If you're considering editing your video, a nice compromise is to capture using a DV codec.

10) Editng MPEG and other highly compressed video sources - you can download a video of this guide.

Unlike the DV AVI files transferred from a miniDV camcorder, MPEG files can prove a pain to edit. And with miniDVD and MPEG4 camcorders gaining in popularity, a commonly asked question is how to edit these files in Adobe Premiere or other editing software. The easy (and expensive) answer is to buy an MPEG plugin or native MPEG editor such as MPEG video wizard - a review of MPEG video wizard is found on digital-director.co.uk. But there is a free alternative.

So you've transferred your video from your DVD camcorder and you've got either a VOB or MPEG file to edit. Rather than trying to edit MPEG or VOB files, we can convert the compressed MPEG to DV for editing. To make the conversion from MPEG or VOB to DV, we need two tools: VirtualDubMod and the Panasonic DV codec.

1) Open and extract the download Panasonic DV codec download. Once unzipped, install the codec by right clicking on the includec .INF file and selecting install. (click OK on any security dialogue in Service Pack 2.

2) Unzip the contents of the VirtualDubMod zip file to your harddrive. VirtualDubMod doesn't come with an installer, so you might want to create a short cut on your start menu manually if you're going to use it a lot. I would also suggest unzipping the files to a directory under C:/Program Files/.

3) Open up VirtualDubMod by double clicking on the .exe file VirtualDubMod (or by using the short cut you created). Now click File > Open Video File from the top menu and browse to your MPEG or VOB. (If you're using the VOB files direct from the DVD created by your miniDVD camera, transfer the VOB files to your PC first).

4) Select Video > Compression once the MPEG is loaded and then select the Panasonic DV codec from the list and click OK

4a) If your video is not from a DVD camcorder, you may need to resize your video to enable conversion to DV. If you get an error when trying to convert, simply select Video > Filters, then click Add and select resize from the list. Click OK. In the next dialogue box, set the New Width as 720 and the New Height as 576 (or 480 for those of you from North America and Japan). Set the filter mode to bicubic and click OK. This should prevent any errors.

5) Select File > Save as and type in a file name. Click Save and your video will be converted to DV for editing.

Tip: If you want to convert WMV or ASF files, download virtualDub 1.4c. VirtualDubMod can also handle the VOB files from DVD camcoders.

Depsite the increased availabilty of high speed internet connections, most users will be reluctant to download videos greater than say 50MB. And certainly not if those 50MB+ represent just one or two minutes of video! To maximise viewing potential, you'll need to provide small downloads and perhaps make a quality/file size sacrifice. The best (only?) option for internet ready video is an MPEG4 codec. The most commonly known MPEG4 codecs are WMV, DivX and Xvid. It's a matter of individual preference which one you use - open source fans would suggest Xvid, mainstream windows uses would opt for WMV.

The main setting to keep file sizes low is the video bitrate. For an optimum file size to quality trade-off, opt for a bitrate of between 400-600kbits/sec and always use variable bitrate (VBR) to maximise quality and keep the frame rate the same as the original (adjusting the frame will often have a disproportinate effect on the file size compared to the reduction in quality). At this bitrate, it's best to keep the video frame size fairly low - perhaps half the size of PAL/NTSC resolution or "VCD" resolution. Reducing the frame size will not reduce the file size, but will provide a better image for any given bitrate (providing the end user does not expand the video to fill the desktop). This is why many internet video downloads are shown embedded - to force the video resolution used in encoding on the user.

12) Including a timer in your videos

Sometimes you'll find yourself wanting to add a timer to your video - perhaps to illustrate just how quick (or slowly!) something took. Suprisingly this feature isn't standard in a lot video editing software, but Alan Mills used his Matrox RT.X100 timecode plugin on a standard black video in Premier Pro 1.5 to create a 1 minute timer. Overlay the following clip in a video track above your main video, then apply an alpha filter.

http://www.videoforums.co.uk/files/counter_01.wmv

13) Where can I get that bleep sound used to censor words in bloopers etc?

You can download a bleep sound from here:

http://www.videoforums.co.uk/files/bleep.wav

14) Should I store my video on DVD or MiniDV?

If you're planning on ever editing the video, then storing on DV tapes is the way to go. If you've got hours upon hours of video which you never intend on editing (only viewing), then DVD is the most cost effective.

Which will last longer? The effective life of both will be dictated by the life of the both the storage medium itself and the technology used to play. It's likely that a DV tape will be more robust in terms of storage, but you're reliant on a DV camera being available in ten or so years - and if you've recorded in Long Play (LP), you may well need the exact same machine to playback. Chances are your DV camera will expure withn the next few years. On the other hand, your next Blu Ray or HD DVD player will be backward compatible.

My advice? Never record over your original DV tapes and create DVDs of your edited material. As soon as a new medium of storage comes along, transfer your DVDs to this medium.

15) How do I blue screen / green screen?

You can find an overviews of blue / green screening here:

http://www.videoforums.co.uk/reviews/features/p2_articleid/162