Thread: Does anyone edit from a DVD camcorder?

Hello,

I have just been given a Samsung VP-DC165 which is a DVD camcorder. Me and my brother edit in Sony Vegas 5, until now we could only edit videos in .avi from my small Canon digital camera (not camcorder).

My mum has given us this DVD camcorder and we have discovered it isn't the easiest to edit. Mini DV are supposed to be better.
If there is a way to edit in Sony Vegas 5 I would like to keep this camcorder instead of changing it to a Mini DV.

We have downloaded VirtualDub MPEG2 and like this we convert files to avi, in order to edit them with Sony Vegas 5. The sync between the audio and the video is bad, and gets worse as the video plays.

Does anyone use Sony Vegas to edit videos from a DVD camcorder? What do you do??

Any advice of any sort will be appreciated. We feel dissapointed as we have spent a lot of money and can't edit the videos!

Thanks

I have absolutely NO experience of these DVD camcorders. But, can it send an AV stream out either by firewire OR analogue - the stream one could view on a TV? Could you then not capture in V5 and save as an AVI?

I know I can capture a stream from my miniDV camcorder.

I havent edited from a dcd camcorder but I would have thought that all you need do is to copy the files to the hd after putting the finaised camera dvd into the computer drive.

Have you tried this ? What is the file extension of the video files? I would have thought vegas would edit the camera files - or maybe they need to be converted ?

I havent edited from a dvd camcorder very often but I would have thought that all you need do is to copy the files to the hd after putting the finaised camera dvd into the computer drive. I am aure I have done this with a sony camcorder that a firend had.

Have you tried this ? What is the file extension of the video files? I would have thought vegas would edit the camera files - or maybe they need to be converted ?

The files are VOB files, and at least Sony Vegas 5 can't recognise those files, and neither can Pinnacle 7 or 8 or Windows Movie Maker. :(

Please see section 10 of the Video Editing FAQ

Thats odd, I just dragged a .vob file direct onto my timeline in vegas 7, and I am sure I could do that in 6 and 5... I am sure vegas comes ready to edit and make mpeg2 video 'out of the box' and doesnt need any further codecs installed to edit vobs???

TBH I am stumped... anyone else got any ideas ? ?

Marc - regarding the faq - Vdub has unfortunately stopped supporting mpeg2 streams in it's latest incarnation. An older version is needed, 1.5 or 1.4 might do it.

I was able to edit very simply with Sony Vegas 7, unfortunately the audio still isn't in sync with the video, so unless someone offers a solution I will be exchanging the DVD camcorder for a Mini DV.

Mini DV is much better for editing and the quality of the format is slightly better too, much higher bit rate.