editing mini dv

[rbt2000]

hi im new here i am hoping you guys can help me, im looking for an editing system to use with my panasonic nvds11b mini dv camcorder and ive seen the following system for sale,

1st id like to know if its any good

2ndly is this compatable with all dv camcorders and if i get it what else will i need to edit high quality dv shorts

Video Master Series with DV500 Plus
NEW, AMD Athlon specification
Midi Tower ATX Case, ASUS A7A266 Athlon Motherboard, 5 PCI, AGP, 6 USB etc, AMD Athlon 1000 Mhz Processor (266 FSB), 256 Mb DDR266 PC2100 Memory, 20 Gb UDMA-100 7200 rpm boot Hard Drive, 40 Gb UDMA-100 Video Hard Drive 7200 rpm, 52 X CD ROM Drive, ATI Rage Fury 32 Mb AGP Graphics Card, Soundblaster 128 soundcard, 80W Stereo Speakers, Windows 95 Keyboard - 3 button Mouse, Microsoft Windows 98 ME, with CD and manual, 3 Year Premier Warranty (1 year parts + 2 years labour)


Pinnacle DV500 plus video editing card, with Adobe Premier 6 software

Price: ?1,375.00 ?1,615.63 Including VAT at 17.5%


thanks for all your help

cheers

[wageslave]

yes thats shit hot.
Dont know about whether its compatible with your camera though.

[rbt2000]

so you think its worth the money???????

does any one have any experience of editing with the dv500 is it good or are there any problems i should know about

cheers guys

[Xendar]

Hi rbt2000,

Sounds okay but that particular motherboard isn't on Pinnacle's compatability list, although it should work okay. Your camera isn't on the compatability list either but most Panasonic cameras work fine with the DV500 so I don't see any problems there either.

One thing to look at though, I wouldn't go for Windows ME as it it's a bit flakey at best. I would look at going for Windows 2000. Also, with Windows ME you will have 4Gb capture limit (about 17 mins). Whereas with Windows 2000 you don't have a capture limit.




------------------
Mark Smith
Neon Films - Low budget films in West Yorkshire
www.neonfilms.co.uk

[wageslave]

Yes I think it is.
Depends on how old it is, (sounds like its 6 months or so old) but you'd be pushed to get a 1000 MHz 256Meg 20 gig PC for under a 1000 pounds.
All the extras are attractive.
40 Gig of hard drive space is a far amount, and the pinnacle card and Premier are quite expensive on their own.
For your info I edit on a 400 Mhz PC with 194 Meg Ram and about 100 Gig hard drive space with a pinnacle dc30 card and premier.
This is quite sufficient, although the capture quality is low. That might be my processor speed.

If you get the chance go for SCSI hard drives.

With video editing I think the important specifications are:

SCSI hard drives
Fast Processor
compatible and high quality/fast video card and capture card. If you can get a capture card with firewire. I dont know about the DV500 - look it up at http://www.pinnacle.com

plenty (over 150 MEG) RAM.

My machine is a bit slow....

The rest

[Xendar]

Wageslave,

Going for SCSI drives for use with the DV500 is a waste. A good IDE 7200RPM hard drive is plenty fast enough for capturing DV footage.

BTW your low quality footage will have nothing to do with your processor speed. It is more likley the footage you are capturing from is poor, or you are capturing at a high compression rate therefore giving less quality.



------------------
Mark Smith
Neon Films - Low budget films in West Yorkshire
www.neonfilms.co.uk

[sdchown]

I purchased a brand spanking new 7200rpm HD which I formatted and left blank just for mini-DV editing. I captured and edited my footage, but when I try to send the edited video back to the camera, it stutters and is basically crap. The PC has 128mb of memory, its a PII 400, which exceeds the software spec.

What would be wrong here?

Later
Stephen

[Xendar]

Hi Stephen,

What capture card have you got? List the complete specs of your system and software & I'll see if I can help. There can be many reasons why it isn't outputting properly.



------------------
Mark Smith
Neon Films - Low budget films in West Yorkshire
www.neonfilms.co.uk

[wageslave]

hello mark

Thanks. I am actually capturing at a very low data rate I think. Any higher and it drops frames. I also output at a low data rate - for the same reason. These two factors combined reduce the picture quality.

sdchown, that is the problem I had. the only solution I found was to reduce the data rate, and try every trick suggested on the adobe (I use Premier) website. (download extra drivers, tweak this and that...) You are basically writing more data per second, from hard drive to video, than your hard drive can manage.
Perhaps your captured clips jump?

<Id rather be a film maker than a computer technician...I really ought to get a life >

Good luck

[rbt2000]

wow, thanks for the response, one more question when im editing with the above system will i be able to paste single or a few frames in to another scene

thanks again for all your help