Where (oh where!) To Begin?

[druhl]

I suspect I may best define myself using one word or less as a PROcrastinator - no mere amateur I assure you.

My wife is responsible to produce, copy and distribute an instructional DVD by July 1st (that would be this year of course). With no previous video experience I woul like to help her. My background is digital photography and I'm pretty comfortable with Elements 3. I've found the Elements forums extremely useful and suspect the Premier Elements forum is nothing less.

The good news: we already own a video camera (JVC GR-SXM740 which touts 'Digital Signal Processing' on the camera body), a computer with a DVD burner and the choreagraphy to be recorded is complete. All that remains is to record the routines, edit them into a DVD that can be used by other lodges in the organization to learn the routines, copy and distribute them. We hope for a reasonably professional presentation but a DVD others can watch and learn from is the most primary objective.

To the point (at last!) - What I need help with is getting the video from camera (analog) to digital to DVD. My wife suspects we already have software on the computer (purchased around December 2002 / January 2003) to do that. I'm sure it's not Premier Elements but I don't recognize what it is. I'm considering purchasing Premier Elements if it will be as useful for video as Elements is to digital photography. I'd prefer to do that at a more conveniet time (when I have more money ;)) if I can make it happen with what I've already got.

ANY and ALL advice is sought and greatly appreciated.

Donn

[Byron Gale]

Donn,

Premiere Elements is a great editor, as long as you "feed" it DV-AVI files via a Firewire port. These are produced by a MiniDV camcorder, or by a specialized analog-to-digital converter device.

Your camcorder is analog (VHS-C), so it does not produce the required file format. In order to use PrEl, you will need to acquire an A/D converter, and connect it between your camcorder and your computer... presuming your computer has a Firewire port. If it does not, that is another expense to upgrade, there. (You also don't mention the specifications of your PC, but suffice it to say that you'll benefit from a fast processer, lots of RAM, and MUST have loads of free hard-drive space.)

Do you plan that this is the only time you'll want to produce a DVD? If so, maybe it would cost less to take your analog tape to a professional service and pay them to make the DVD. If you want to get into the DVD hobby, then maybe you could purchase a new MiniDV camcorder which can also function as an A/D converter -that's what I did - you can bridge through it to capture your old stuff, and move forward with capturing new footage on modern, digital equipment.

These are just some thoughts, with no concrete advice, because I am a novice, myself.

The one bit of SURE advice I can give you is to visit the Adobe User-to-User forum for Premiere Elements, and post your query there. You will receive advice from true experts in very short order.

Here is a LINK (http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx/?14@924.HpxZgoJXrgW@.3bb574e6) to that forum.

One of the main contributors to that forum, Chuck Engles, also posts on this forum, as well, but there is a LOT more PrEl-specific traffic on the Adobe forum.

Good luck!!!

Byron

[ATR]

If you are thinking about using Elements 3.0 with Premiere Elements, you may want to check out:

http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/330734.html

This is a document at the Adobe web site entitled "Photoshop 3.0 integration with Adobe Premiere Elements".

You may already have software that came with your DVD/Writer that will do the job. So check out that possibility to avoid getting additional software. After you do an overview of your goals, what you have and have not, and needs, I can offer some step by step follow up.

ATR

[druhl]

Thank you Bryon and ATR for your help.

In the interim I did some additional investigating and discovered pretty much what you've explained.

We've found an analog to digital video converter that also has a TV tuner which will allow us to convert the immediate (as well as future analog) projects, existing VHS tapes as well as record television programming. It's a bit more than a converter alone but the extra features justify the cost (at least in our minds).

Sooner (if the conversion is less than satisfactory) or later (if the converter is sufficient for now) we'll purchase a DV camcorder.

Once I have the project digital I think I'll better realize what I have and what I need ATR.

Thanks again guys. It's reassuring to realize I'm at least on the right track.

Donn

[PaulH]

I use a couple different programs - but not Premiere.

Why - well, 2-3 years ago I had a trial copy and couldn't figure it out for nothing. So I gave up :) I'll also admit looking at Photoshop the 1st time scared the H*** out of me.

It might be easier knowing what i know now - but what I have (and I don't even know the names without looking) does all I need. Windows Movie Maker in XP is a good start actually.

Mini-Dv is a lot chaeaper now than a few years ago - firewire for desktops are cheap - on a laptop it's a little pricey.