Video Editing On A Budget

More HDMI Cable Bargains

2011-12-05T20:45:00.000-05:00

Perhaps you read my earlier post about HDMI cables - that quality isn't always determined by price. The $9 HDMI cable from Big Lots is just as good as the $60 cable you'll find at a big box retailer.

Here's another good deal - a 10' HDMI cable just $6.99 from www.CompUSA.com:

That's an amazing $33 savings!

But maybe you're looking for an inexpensive HDMI cable in a brighter color - check out the myriad of colors available at www.monoprice.com for the low price of just $3.50:

Thats just their selection of 6' cables; check the Monoprice website and you'll find low-price cables of all lengths.

Amazing prices all around - discount stores locally if you need it right away, and online retailers if you can wait for it to ship.

Shop around... there are deals to be found!

SDHC Card Super Deal!

2011-12-01T22:06:00.001-05:00

Wow! This past weekend (after Black Friday) I was shopping for a reasonably priced 16GB Class 10 SDHC card to give as a gift at Christmas. After checking all the sales flyers and retail websites I settled on a deal at CompUSA. They were offering the Patriot PSF16GSDHC10F LX Series SDHC Card for $17.99 after a $10 rebate.

That in itself (to me) is a great deal. Well imagine my surprise when I arrived at the store and picked up a sales flyer at the entrance. There in print was the same card - but the stated price was $13.99 after a $10 rebate. Even better!

But hold onto your hats - I went to the aisle containing all the SD Cards and USB flash drives, found the Patriot 16GB card and was surprised even further! The placard posted next to the cards showed the $23.99 - $10 rebate = $13.99 price... but under that in red print it said $3.99.

What what what???? A customer standing nearby noticed me staring at the placard and came over. He too could not understand what the $3.99 meant. It just seemed too good to be true. We summoned a sales associate over and he went on to explain the cards are $13.99 after rebate, then pointed at the $3.99 and said "I don't know how they figure that math."

No problem - $13.99 is still a really good deal, so I picked up the card and headed to the register expecting to pay $23.99.

But sure enough it rang up as $13.99! I was genuinely excited - somebody must have priced it wrong! So now I've filed for the $10 rebate and in the end that card will cost only $3.99!

Legoland Florida YouTube Video

2011-11-15T13:33:00.000-05:00

I took the footage I shot at Legoland Florida recently - all 65 minutes of it, and scaled it down to a 7 minute video. All of the shots were limited to roughly 2-5 seconds each. Included one shot at the very end of the merry go-round left in place from the days of Cypress Gardens.

Added a basic title screen and used Pinnacle Studio 11 for the editing. Also used the ScoreFitter music generator to create a background track for the video. As much as I like the sound of real artist-composed music I'll always try to stay away from using copyrighted music if possible.

Here it is on YouTube:

Legoland Florida in HD Widescreen

Legoland Florida

2011-11-07T22:56:00.000-05:00

Through a deal offered to Lego VIP Club members we were able to visit the new Legoland Florida recently (one free ticket, two discounted tickets). Very nice theme park for kids and anyone who is a fan of Lego blocks!

Many different rides for all age groups. One of the neatest things there was a Lego city complete with streets, lego pedestrians, and little Lego cars just the right size for children to drive. Not on a track either, nope - they get to drive all over the city. When the driving experience is over they can then get their very own Legoland drivers license!

Another neat experience was the boat ride. You and a passenger get to pilot a Lego boat through a river course. Just like the Lego cars - the boats are not on a track. Very very cool.

So many other things to see there - the miniature Lego cities that were represented must have taken a long time to build.

I brought my video cam along and tried to film as much as I could for a compilation video I'll post on YouTube. Unlike my Universal Studios Simpson's Ride video, I'll try to use original music this time.
I'm trying to move away from using copyrighted music for videos that end up on YouTube.
I should be able to start work on it tomorrow.

The Harry Potter Pinata Fail Video

2011-10-28T21:15:00.001-04:00

I just threw a quick video together, only 9 seconds in length and uploaded it to YouTube. It's a clip from my sons birthday party when one of the kids swings a bat to hit a Harry Potter horcrux pinata and ends up hitting the girl sitting behind him.

Fail videos seem pretty popular on YouTube. Let's see how this one does.

PTA Reflections - version 2 and 3

2011-10-21T22:45:00.000-04:00

I'm surprised. I posted a short 1:40 promo for PTA Reflections on YouTube and have now had a couple requests to customize it for different schools!

Not a major change really - just to the "Due by" date that appears at the end of the video. Simple to do when you have the source files saved on your computer.

One of the requests from a PTA member in New York had her 8 y.o. daughter screen the video. The daughter pointed out that some of the screens passed by too quickly to read, so the mom asked me if there was a way to slow it down.

I ended up with version 2 and 3 because of her and another request, and really the video plays much better. By snipping out some of the still photos and then prolonging the time the info screens stay displayed it flows much better.

See it here:

PTA Reflections - Diversity Means - Version 2

After making these few changes for the various schools, I uploaded them to my free box.net account where the requester was able to download the video from. Box.net makes it real easy to share files. I have a feeling I'll be using it more often!

Facebook Wedding Intro and StageTools MovingPicture

2011-10-09T15:41:00.000-04:00

When I filmed the wedding of our friends Allison and Dave, I wanted to open it with something personal to them.

Facebook had been and still is something they are constantly using. Seems they are posting on it most hours of the waking day. As I started to look through their wall posts I noticed that they were always posting sweet nothings to each other. That seemed like a good starting point.

I used a free program I found via Google that lets you download any friends wall history into text form. After I had their entire history I loaded it into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, sorted it by date and then removed most of the irrelivant (non-mushy) posts. Change the font style to match that of Facebook, added a profile picture to each post and then exported it to a graphic format, finally converting it into a JPEG.

So now with 8 or 10 JPEG of their Facebook posts on chronological order it was time to animate the opening.

For that I used StageTools MovingPicture - a plugin included with Pinnacle Studio 11. MovingPicture allows you to zoom in and out, rotate, and pan around still pictures in way that lets you bring it to life so to speak.

The StageTools MovingPicture interface

By placing keyframes throughout the sequence you can set the zooms and pans to however you like.

It is a very simple plug-in to use and brings your photos to life!

Check out the first part of Allison and Dave's wedding video where I use their Facebook history to tell the story leading up to their wedding day.

Allison and Dave's Wedding Video - Part 1

HDMI Cables

2011-10-05T22:58:00.000-04:00

HDMI stands for High-Definition Multimedia Interface. It's the type of cable used to connect for example a Blu-Ray player to an HDTV. It is one of the best connections available for transferring video and audio to the TV.

When the cables first came out it was common to find them priced as high as $80 for a 6-foot cable! CRAZY!

But when we purchased our Blu-Ray player a few months ago I checked around and found one at our local Big-Lots for just $9.99! I was a little skeptical at first - the brand was TriQuest, one I had never heard of before. But for ten dollars I took a gamble and purchased it.

That $9.99 cable works perfectly - HD movies look like HD movies. And the price - you just can't beat it!

YouTube Cleanup

2011-10-02T22:20:00.000-04:00

I thought today I'd go through all of the videos I had uploaded to YouTube ever since I opened my account delete the videos that didn't accumulate too many views. Anything with less than 100 views I figured wasn't worth keeping.

I got rid of the gem "Trolley passing on River Street" and a few videos shot at Monster Jam years ago, both shot with a Canon Powershot A550 camera.

Many of the videos I have on YouTube are just scenes I shot while out of state of such simple things as a cargo ship passing down the river in Savannah, Georgia, and surprisingly something like that has more than 1,400 views. I would never consider it a great video (another one shot with a digital camera), but there are enough people interested in watching it I felt it made no sense to remove.

I'll check my YouTube account in another month or so and see if there's anything else I feel like deleting.

The Simpsons Ride

2011-09-24T20:20:00.000-04:00

The Simpsons Ride

When the Simpsons Ride at Universal Studios Orlando was about to open, we were lucky enough to receive an invitation to preview the ride prior to it being open to the general public. I brought my Canon Powershot A550 along just for general snapshots, but while there I had the idea to film the outer area of the attraction for posting on YouTube. Filming the ride itself from inside is forbidden so the outside was the only thing I could shoot.

Now the camera itself shoots in the very low resolution of 640x480 so this isn't stunning footage by any means, but the video I ended up posting on YouTube gathered alot of views in a very short time. As of today it has over 600,000 views.

My only regret is that I used copyrighted music ("S Wonderful" by Ray Conniff) for the soundtrack - something that prevents you from earning any profit from Google AdSense. Oh well.

Still, even though it's not original music and not filmed in HD video - I'm most happy with this one because of the large audience it has attracted over time.

PTA Reflections 2011-2012 "Diversity Means..."

2011-09-22T20:38:00.000-04:00

PTA Reflections "Diversity Means..."

Here is the video I created for the PTA at my sons elementary school. They wanted something put together that would get the students excited in the program.

Just to recap from my earlier posts about this:

I watched a few PTA Reflections videos on YouTube for ideas - and saw some really good ones. But the ones I felt as good had actual video footage in them - something I lacked for this project. All I had to go on was still photos.

My first rendition resembled a Power Point presentation - too boring.

Then I Googled "songs about diversity" and one of the results was an Avril Lavigne song titled "Keep Holding On". That second version of the video is primarily what you see here but without all the 3D transitions. The Holding On version used simpler wipes and fades. Still very slow moving - not too exciting.

I then remembered the current Kia Soul commercial that features the LMFAO song "Party Rock Anthem". That song gets people moving! And at the recent school dance when the DJ played that song - all the kids were on the dance floor!

So I added Party Rock Anthem to the sound track and changed all the transitions to 3D effects included with Pinnacle Studio 11. Added pans and zooms to the pictures and came up with this.

On Monday they will air it for the first time at school during the morning news, and then replay it twice a week leading up to the October 21st deadline for entries into the competition.

I keep thinking that when the song comes on the kids are going to jump out of their seats and start dancing in the classrooms!

Current Project - Update

2011-09-18T22:14:00.000-04:00

Well, I finished two different videos for the PTA for their PTA Reflections kick-off. The theme this year is "Diversity Means...". My wife told me the video had to be something that would be exciting and hold the childrens interest.

After watching some PTA Reflections videos on YouTube for ideas, I Googled "songs about diversity". We narrowed the resulting list down to the Avril Lavigne song "Keep Holding On".
The video I made is a collection of pictures that convey "diversity" with varying wipes for transition between photos. I guess you could say I have a "diverse" set of transitions in the video - ha ha.

But after reveiwing the finished product it seemed to me to be a bit on the slow side. I wanted something that would be more exciting. So the thing that seems to be hot right now is the Kia Soul commercial featuring the dancing hamsters, HALO characters and the LMFAO song "Party Rock Anthem". A quick review of the lyrics shows some words that would be objectionable in grades K-5. So the simple solution for this is to edit the song to be primarily instrumental - just as Kia did in the commercial.

After the song edit I took the same pictures used in the first rendition, applied visual effects and used 'fancier' 3D transition effects to make it pop.

I don't have a way to create CG hamsters dancing but I still wanted those dancing hamsters tied to this video somehow. I grabbed a few Google Images of the Kia hamsters and used Photoshop to paste them into a picture of the front of the school holding a banner. I also have one of the hamsters pop-up at the very end of the video while the entry deadline date is displayed - it got a giggle out of my wife.

Tomorrow both of these videos will go for review by the PTA president, and then on to those in charge at the school. Hopefully one of the finished versions is suitable. (But I really want the hamsters to be chosen!)

Once things are finalized I'll post the videos on YouTube and link it here.

The Current Project

2011-09-17T22:29:00.000-04:00

Well up to now the only videos I've made that would be seen by an audience I wasn't acquainted with were the ones that I've posted on YouTube.

This new project is for the PTA at my sons elementary school to highlight and draw interest in one of the activities they have coming up.

I'll be using Pinnacle Studio 11 for this. It has to run during the morning news one day and be limited to about one minutes in length. I have two ideas in mind and need to get it done by Monday. Let's see what develops...

SD Card Selection

2011-09-14T22:01:00.001-04:00

Planning on filming in High Definition? If your videocam stores video on SD Cards then choose your card wisely. This is one place where I wouldn't try to save a few dollars. Think about it really - if you're shooting video of your kids as they blow out the birthday candles on their cake or taking short snippets of video during your vacation, well realistically these are memories you'll want to keep forever.

And \nothing could be worse than reviewing the video you just shot just to find that artifacts are showing up on screen, the audio isn't synched to video, or any other number of things that can go wrong.

So in this area choose the best card you can! Look at the graphic above - two PNY cards both of them 16GB in capacity. But one of these you would not want to use for hi-def video. Which one? The one on the left - the Class 4 card is the one to avoid. The price will be much lower than the Class 10 card but it is not capable of capturing the throughput of information that a Class 10 card can.

Here's a basic comparison of the different Classes:
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital )

Class 2 = 2MB/s
Class 4 = 4MB/s
Class 6 = 6MB/s
Class 10 = 10MB/s

Depending on the quality of your video, the amount captured will vary anywhere (using the Canon Vixia HF M301 as an example) anywhere from 5Mbps (lowest quality) to 24Mbps (highest quality).

Now buying a high capacity high speed card can cost - and buying several of them costs even more. But from personal experience I can tell you that if you shop around for the best price then you will find there are deals to be had!

Example - a few months ago we were planning our summer vacation. I knew that I'd be shooting lots of video and wanted to have at least three cards. At that time the PNY Professional 16GB Class 10 SD Card was retailing for more than $45 each! What to do? I fired up my browser and started comparing prices online from different retailers. I found Best Buy had this particular card on sale online for $27! But vacation was a short time away and I couldn't wait for shipping. So what I did was I printed out the page showing the product and pricing and brought it into my local Best Buy. They price-matched the online price and I made three separate purchases (couldn't buy all three at the same time) - saved myself just about $60.

Of course that was months ago and prices have come down since then but for sure remember to compare prices, shop around, and buy the best card you can find!

JVC GR-D750U

2011-09-11T21:31:00.000-04:00

This videocam is the one I've been using for the past several years. There are a several reasons I chose this one as an upgrade from my old 8mm.

One was the DV tape format. At the time of purchase there were HDD models available but the cost was out of range for what I was willing to pay. That and the limit to how much time could be recorded on the HDD built into the camera. Also having worked on computers for years I know that hard drives can fail - I'd hate to be half way through whatever it is I'm recording and then lose whatever was recorded.

Another feature was the widescreen capability of this model. Not HD of course, but still 16:9 widescreen. Definitely more visually appealing than the old 3:4 ratio that's been around forever.

The IEEE1394 Firewire input. A direct connection to the computer with all information being transferred digitally. A nice step up from RCA video and audio cables being plugged into a capture card.

I've used this camcorder to film family vacations, award ceremonies, sport events, parties, and two weddings. It's never let me down and the addition of a high-capacity battery provided hours of recording time.

Widescreen recording

Built-in stereo microphone and internal light for low-light filming.

IEEE1394 (Firewire) port for direct connection to computer and Data button for the Data Battery - know exactly how much time is left on the battery!

The JVC GR-D750U - all together it's a great DV camcorder!

More about green screens - a cheaper green screen

2011-09-08T21:56:00.000-04:00

This blog is about video editing on a budget. In an earlier post I mentioned creating the opening X-wing fighter scene for a Star Wars themed wedding video using a green screen. The green screen I used in that production was included with my Pinnacle Studio 11 software package - and it performed the job adequately.

But what if you need more than one or need a green screen that's larger than 5' x 6' ? You can always purchase one online, just do a search and you'll have no trouble finding them in prices ranging from $30(US) and up. For me though I'm on a budget and am not willing to fork out that much!
There are less costly alternatives available. I found mine in the form of a flat bed sheet. Yes - a bed sheet. And just a side note here... the one that was included with Pinnacle to me resembles maybe a tablecloth that you might find in a finer restaurant.

Anyway, at Wal-mart last year around Christmastime there were twin size bed sheet sets on sale. One of them was green and caught my eye as the color resembled my existing green screen. All for the low cost of $10. So out of this purchase came an extra sets of sheets for my son's bed and I kept the flat sheet which is 5'6" x 7'9". Check out the picture and you'll see that the coloring is the same - the one on the left is the green screen from Pinnacle, the one on the right is the flat bed sheet.

The only difference between my real green screen and the flat sheet is the material. The green screen is made out of nylon and so if you bunch it up for an extended period of time it doesn't really wrinkle. The flat sheet on the other hand is made of polyester and if you bunch that up for a length of time you'll get some noticeable wrinkles in the fabric - not really a good thing for green screen because then once you have your lighting in place it could cause shadowing and then you don't have a nice even surface in the back which could ruin your effect. So if that's the case just throw it in the dryer on wrinkle release and you're in business again - no problem.

And where a much smaller size is needed another option is posterboard. Fabric is typically better because paper tends to glare the light, but if you go to your local dollar store and pick up a green sheet for $1(US) just flip it over to the flat side. That can work too.

Green Screen (Chromakey)

2011-09-06T23:01:00.000-04:00

In my previous entry I mentioned filming my friends wedding. It wasn't my first wedding video, but was my first one in which I performed all editing on the computer. All of it edited with the same video software I use today - Avid Pinnacle Studio Version 11 Ultimate (hope I put all that in the correct order).

Pinnacle Studio 11 Ultimate included a very nice bonus - a green screen, or in "industry" terms - chromakey.

I used it when I put together the wedding video. Not in some sort way that had the bride and groom vanishing from the altar - nothing like that. I used it to customize the video to their interests. Well, actually it was more the grooms interest than the bride. You see - he is a Star Wars fanatic. He had stormtroopers and Star Wars memorabilia lining just about every part of his apartment (now their apartment).

So with that in mind I created an introduction to the video that would suit their tastes.

I created a brief story to summarize how they met (in Star Wars way of storytelling of course) and had the text scroll towards a center point on the star-lit screen. Then in that same fashion as the movie, the camera pans down towards Earths horizon. An X-wing fighter zips across the screen from one side to the other. Then the camera shows the Lowe's parking lot (the groom worked there). The same X-wing fighter flies from the sky across towards town. Then a shot of the park where they got married. The X-wing drops from the sky and lands on the street (where presumably the groom emerges from). I didn't have a way to get the groom crawling out of the X-wing - that would have taken more work and would have spoilted the surprise if I had included him. Oh - top it off with the Star Wars theme music and sound effects - that was the cherry on top.

But after all is said and done - the scene wasn't so difficult to create. The green screen and editing software made it all possible.

For the part where the X-wing flighs from one side to the other - that was nothing more than taking a still photo of my sons X-wing toy in front of the green screen. Using Pinnacle Studio I just set the software to pan and zoom the still image across from off of the right side of the screen to off of the left side.

Same goes for the shot where the X-wing flies above the Lowe's parking lot - pan and zoom the still image from off the screen on the left to off the screen on the right.

The trickier part was the X-wing landing on the street. For that I had to video tape the X-wing in front of the green screen. The only movement was that I had the front of the X-wing slightly tilted up (using fishing line) and tried to gently lower the front end down onto the greenscreen covered phonebook that it sat on.

The reason for filming it this way is because the scene is the X-wing descending from up above in front of the camera. And if that is the case then we would be looking at the underside of it. As the X-wing comes into eye-level with the camera we would see the front of it, then finally it is resting on the street in the distance.

Watch my video and you'll be able to see what I came up with. Again - all thanks to green screen.

Star Wars Wedding Video intro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7uXuemr7Sk

Getting Started

2011-09-05T22:15:00.000-04:00

I got my start in video editing back in the 1980's. My parents bought a RCA VHS Camcorder and from that point forward I was hooked. Without a personal computer video editing back then consisted of a Camcorder connected to a VCR and a tape recorder. Good thing there was a Radio Shack nearby so I could find all the audio and video connectors necessary to make things happen.

After VHS came the Sony 8mm video camera - and a personal computer in the form of a powerhouse Intel Pentium Processor. Using a video capture card and Microsoft Movie Maker (included with Windows XP) I was able to edit my first video using modern techniques! I took some video shot on VHS and editing it with some whiz-bang special effects I created using Windows Paint.

Then came Digital Video Tape and a JVC camcorder - shot my friends wedding using that. Edited it on the computer using Pinnacle Studio 11 and burned to DVD - WOW! Now we're playing with fire!