Hey Guys,

We've just purchased a new MiniDV camera that we used to capture our wedding and honeymoon and now I'm trying to create a DVD to give out to our relatives but I'm having difficulties trying to do so.

I have a Canon ZR200 and purchased the firewire (DV) cable. Everything connected fine and Microsoft's Movie Maker opened up and that's when everything went bad. at around the 40 minute point, my computer craps out and it tells me that Microsoft has just encountered a critical error and the program will be closed .

So... I went out and purchased the full version of Nero and it does the same exact thing. For some strange reason, my computer kills the application at around the 50 minute mark.

Has anyone tried Pinnacle? What do all of you DIY'ers use? I'll be re-building my machine this weekend and want to keep only 1 video authoring application on the machine.

Oh yeah, I also have a trial issue of Canopus too, but since I have yet to successfully download a complete clip, I havent been able to use it.

Am I doing something wrong?? I did have some Quicktime issues on my machine months back, but thought to have resolved everything since.

What's the easiest and cleanest all-in-one video authoring application available?

Thanks in advance!

 

It is possible your hard drive is full? Raw DV files are freaking huge and I only play with a couple of minutes at a time (auto-x or drag race vids)! I'm thinking > 100MB per minute?

I use Adobe Premiere but the learning curve is really steep. Firewire I/O through my sound card works fine. Used to use a Pinnacle DV I/O board until I got the new sound card.

 

[QUOTE=Penforhire,Apr 28 2005, 03:49 PM] It is possible your hard drive is full?

 

What OS are you using? Win9x has a 4GB limit on file size.

 

Thanks for the replies!

Here are the specifications of my machine:
Maingear "Widescreen" Laptop
P4 2.4ghz w/ 512mb ram
Windows XP SP2 w/ 1394 patch removed - Was messing up my iPod
40gb free on onboard HD, brand new external 250gb HD (connected via USB2)
Canon ZR200 connected via Firewire

I've been considering purchasing a Mac Mini to configure as my HTPC, what sort of benefits are there when editing video on a Mac?

 

Mac is definitely better equipped to handle graphical inputs such as video, but this is mainly due to the way Apple is structured in its operating system and the fact that there are few "aftermarket" parts for Apples so you're stuck with their stuff that is perfect for their system. PC's are arguably better if you know what you're doing and how to configure them because there are infinite variations due to the amount of "aftermarket" (can that word even be used with PC's ) parts available.

I am getting away from the situation at hand with a very broad generalization of the computer world. If hard drive space is not the case in this situation it could be that your laptop's resources were eaten up around that 40/50 minute mark. I wouldn't totally blame the software, but it makes sense that the Microsoft stuff would be the first one to eat it all up

Sounds to me like we have the same laptop and I would never think to put video on mine. My P4 2.4ghz runs on a higher bus speed than my RAM does - typically laptops are sold on their processing speeds and the RAM is neglected; which is why laptops have a poor (undeserved) reputation for being better than a full desktop system. I bought my laptop knowing this and use the laptop for what it was meant for: mobility in doing typical day to day operations. The biggest program my laptop sees (rarely) is Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. I can tell the resources are running a marathon when I use those programs. If I'm ever cold I can open a full Adobe product, put the laptop on my lap, and be hot in a matter of minutes

Anyway - here's my advice:

Don't buy a Mac Mini - still not enough resources, unless you are only going to use it for video editing. If you're like me you'll start with something on a basic level and get better with it wanting the ability to upgrade or do more. If you want a Mac that will allow you to grow for at least a few years then look at an iMac with at least 1 GB of RAM. Personally I would put the money into a desktop with at least 800 Mhz Front Side Bus capabilities on the motherboard and probably an AMD processor (I would go for a 64 bit chip - not FX) with the appropriate RAM for that processor at 1 GB (I think it is a higher grade DDR). If you already have a desktop with at least 2 fans in it you can probably spend about $400 to $700 and just upgrade it. You'll be amazed at how fast the machine will fly

As for video editing software, a good start is Adobe Premiere Elements. You can download a free 30 day trial at www.adobe.com. This is where the AMD processor beats Intel. AMD is a better graphic processor where Intel better for handling straight up document stuff (such as Microsoft Office things). AMD will handle things just fine in the document area (the normal consumer could never tell the difference), but you will see graphics and videos move faster on your machine.

And another thing - most video editing softwares support Firewire better than USB2 ......eventually this will change.

 

Maybe I should put in my little disclaimer.

Oh yeah - smart move on pulling Windows XP SP2. I can't tell you how many times that stupid "fix" caused me problems

 

It's funny - your situation keeps popping in my mind......maybe because I wasn't happy with the resources my system had and just recently upgraded it all.

Another plus for going AMD 64 over Intel is combining the AMD chip with an ASUS motherboard because ASUS has the capability of fooling your system into thinking it has more resources than it does. It is a feature that comes with the software for their Ai series motherboard. When you have over extended your resources the motherboard software "fools" Windows XP into thinking you are still operating at a normal level thus halting your system from crashing. Not to say that you will never crash, but it buys you time to get whatever you are doing done.

As an example:

I have been browsing the Internet with about 8 different tabs open in Firefox, chatting in AIM, had one window in Internet Explorer open, had iTunes playing music, shifting between Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, while building a site in Dreamweaver and taking a tutorial in Flash MX, while converting an 8 GB raw video into a .wma file in Adobe Premiere Elements. The system wasn't lagged at all ........doing all this at one time really helps if you have multiple monitors

These are the kinds of things you can't do with a Mac Mini or a stressed laptop.