Ok, so I shot some video on Saturday with my Drift HD 170 camera. I transferred the 2.6gb file to my computer. It is a .mov file. Windows media player plays it OK, but when I try and load it up with Windows Movie Maker, it doesn't seem to recognize the format. So, I managed to get it converted to a .wmv format and all seems good except that now there seems to be a huge black border around my video even when I view full screen which is annoying. So.. I trimmed up my video eliminating the boring parts, added an audio track, and everything is as I want it when I play back in WMM. I then publish the movie and the only option is to write as a .wmv file. Now I have a video ready for posting to youtube, but frankly the quality is crap now. Seems like everytime I write out to .wmv format a bit of the quality goes out the window (twice now).
I know that there are many guys on this board that have posted stunning videos and just wondering if there is any advice out there for producing better videos. Frankly I'm embarassed to post my result and want to give it another go (yes I still have my original .mov footage). Any experienced video editors out there want to share your secrets with us pilots who want to share some stunning videos too. I suspect that the solution is to use a better program than WMM but don't know what the best for producing quality flying videos.
OK, here's the link
Thanks,

Andy

I've found the GoPro editing software to be pretty easy to work with, I believe it will work with videos taken from other cameras.

Thanks Headoutdaplane,
Looked promising. It loaded up my 47min file no problem. The conversion process however seems to have only left me with the first 4 minutes of the video. The process completed saying success, and seems to think the converted file should be :47, but when I go into 'Edit' mode, the available clip is only 4 minutes. If I view the resultant .avi with other programs, it is indeed only the first 4 minutes. Guess I'll have to browse around to find out what that's about and possibly try something different.

BTW, love your Beaver landing video and the professional one done by one of your clients. Really living the dream up there in AK.

Cheers.

I used Windows movie maker for several years with both my Drift and my GoPro. You just have to get your conversion settings correct. Also make sure your capture settings are correct as well. I use iMovie now so I can't tell you what settings I used with Windows. The are several good freeware converters out there that will convert from mov to just about any format you want. I have worked with Wondershare Video Converter Ultimate with some success. I occasionally use the GoPro editor but I find it a bit complicated. It is great if you want to convert to one of several preset masks.

Thanks S-12Flyer,
I had some better success with Windows Live Movie Maker on my laptop. It was able to load the .mov file directly so there was only one loss of quality going to the .wmv output. Still not as good as the original footage, but way better than my first attempt. Here's the new video.
Zane, was thinking this might be a good topic for one of your artcles. You have some contributing members that have produced some stunning work and perhaps one of them would be willing to share some secrets of the methods they've used. I'd certainly be interested in reading an article that deals with everything from the best cameras to use, the best editing and conversion software, music copyright issues, etc, the whole gamut.
In any case, I'll keep playing and hopefully some of my future videos will come closer to matching the stunning quality we sometimes see here.

Cheers,

Yeah, good idea. I admit to being somewhat ignorant of the challenges of transcoding raw footage on Windows using free methods. I have the luxury of using a hotrod Mac Pro with the Adobe suite.

There's definitely some procedures though that are concept-oriented and independent of software. Preservation of resolution and frame size are paramount. Bit rate should be preserved at all costs until the final export for web. Like significant digits or accuracy, once source quality is lost or sacrificed, you can't add it back.

Thanks for the response Z. Free isn't necessarily the objective. If a commercial package is required to produce stunning then so be it. You mention Adobe Suite. What do other folks out there like?

Cheers,

AndyH wrote:Thanks for the response Z. Free isn't necessarily the objective. If a commercial package is required to produce stunning then so be it. You mention Adobe Suite. What do other folks out there like?

Cheers,

Mac and Final Cut Pro here. You won't go wrong with Adobe either though. Both are gonna be far more capable than any of us are likely to demand.

I'm a windows guy and I used CyberLink's Power Director 11, although the software is up to version 12 now. It lets you choose the format (AVI, MOV, MPEG4, WMV, etc.) and the resolution for your output. I never use the highest settings for my output because the files get so stinking large - and my videos aren't good enough to benefit from the higher resolution. The software provides easy editing of sound and video, easy inclusion of titles, transitions and a host of other effects that all of the good editing programs offer. Most of the good editing programs have more capability than any of us amateurs will ever need or use. I don't think any of these programs are intuitive, but most of them have tutorials on YouTube as well as the instructions they come with. It is a journey, so put on your hiking boots and keep working at it! The challenge for Zane trying to post a "how to" article is that each software package is unique with maybe some similar features across the Apple and across the Windows platforms. I think it would be really challenging to assemble a good and generic how to guide. There may be some generic tips on filming and use of filters that would not be software specific that would help all of us newbies though.

Here is an effort on my Corel Video Studio Pro. A bit long but did not speed it up for brevity. Will try that on next editing try.



Can't tell you how cool that canyon and the others are to fly in.

TD

Flyhound wrote:I'm a windows guy and I used CyberLink's Power Director 11, although the software is up to version 12 now. It lets you choose the format (AVI, MOV, MPEG4, WMV, etc.) and the resolution for your output. I never use the highest settings for my output because the files get so stinking large - and my videos aren't good enough to benefit from the higher resolution. The software provides easy editing of sound and video, easy inclusion of titles, transitions and a host of other effects that all of the good editing programs offer. Most of the good editing programs have more capability than any of us amateurs will ever need or use. I don't think any of these programs are intuitive, but most of them have tutorials on YouTube as well as the instructions they come with. It is a journey, so put on your hiking boots and keep working at it! The challenge for Zane trying to post a "how to" article is that each software package is unique with maybe some similar features across the Apple and across the Windows platforms. I think it would be really challenging to assemble a good and generic how to guide. There may be some generic tips on filming and use of filters that would not be software specific that would help all of us newbies though.

I found Powerdirector to be one of the most easiest and intuitive editing programs out there. I have no patients for reading volumes of instructional text. Cyberlink, at least the older version I had, was so simple I figured a chimp could use it. Well this chimp figured it out pretty fast . I wish more software was interfaced that way.

I use Adobe Premiere 12, and by no means have I scratched the surface of what I could do with it, but here are a few of my better examples of what I've made:









I think its a great program and worth the $100 if you want to make videos, its super easy to use IMO and there are great help forums to ask questions on. I was having a problem importing video one time, and a complete stranger spent the day trouble shooting my problem and had me importing the video the next day. You can directly upload your video to YouTube from Adobe, and you can save videos in lots of different sizes and formats. I've mostly just messed with speed and fading video transitions and stuff, but like I said that is just the tip of the iceberg as far as what you can do with Premiere.

I have been trying to work with the Microsoft software, and have come to the conclusion it's a waste of time.

The audio-video matching in the workspace compared to the finished product are totally out of sync, sometimes video effect options just disappear for no apparent reason, there is very little *useful* help available online only people asking for more information then telling you to reinstall the programme...
Basic issues like this keep thwarting my efforts. Next product please.

I use Adobe Premiere, but I wouldn't exactly call it "easy" to use. It has a learning curve but once you get the fundamentals down it's VERY powerful. It's also $799 retail.

There's a lightweight version called Premiere Elements which is $49 I believe.

What I recommend though is signing up for Adobe Creative Cloud. They rent you the app for $20/month or the entire software suite for like $50/mo. You always have the latest version. Or just download the trial and give it a whirl.

It runs on both Mac and Windows.

As for video editing techniques, that is an entirely different question.

With the caveat that the only video editing I currently do is for my business, it might be worth looking at Camtasia.
http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html

AndyH wrote:Thanks Headoutdaplane,


BTW, love your Beaver landing video and the professional one done by one of your clients. Really living the dream up there in AK.

Cheers.

If you don't mind, where can I view these Beaver landings ? Thanks.

TomD wrote:Can't tell you how cool that canyon and the others are to fly in.

TD

Tom, is that the one by Green River in Utah, or somewhere else?

Zzz wrote:Yeah, good idea. I admit to being somewhat ignorant of the challenges of transcoding raw footage on Windows using free methods. I have the luxury of using a hotrod Mac Pro with the Adobe suite.

There's definitely some procedures though that are concept-oriented and independent of software. Preservation of resolution and frame size are paramount. Bit rate should be preserved at all costs until the final export for web. Like significant digits or accuracy, once source quality is lost or sacrificed, you can't add it back.

I also have the Adobe CC suite for now, though I am finding it hard to swallow $600/year for as much as I use it. For whatever reason Final Cut just meshed with me a little better, or maybe it's just what I ended up spending time in. But I qualify for the education discount package on it, so get FCPX, Logic Pro, and a few other useful apps for $199 one time. I will stick with that for a while I think. I can emulate P-shop and Illustrator in other applications that are free or inexpensive. Adobe makes cool stuff, but it ain't cheap!

But from an instructional series thing, I think there is definitely an opportunity here. Not so much on the mechanics of an individual tool, but concepts that translate across the board. Stuff like preserving quality (as you noted), thoughts on how to arrange shots and clips and transition between them in an appealing way, even things like making the video compelling in the first place. I also imagine this has a benefit to site traffic since more of us making nice videos brings people here. There are a few people in particular here who are known for amazing shots and videos, and I along with others would love to learn from that.

One thing I wish more videos would do is give better location information. As much as I pine for using Google all the time, I really like the places that pop up a little map or even just an airport identifier we can load into a planning app.