Movie on the timeline: Render—print—compress
Rendering
When you put a special effect filter
on a video, each frame of the video must be redrawn (rendered) for final
output. The same goes for graphics. In some programs you have to render as you
go in order to see the effect. Windows Movie Maker automatically renders when
you export the movie. Rendering takes heaps of RAM. If
you’re short on RAM (under 1G), make a series of small videos & render each
one as you go. Number them sequentially and export them as a movie. Then import
those rendered videos back into your project and lay them on the timeline in
their numbered order. You can do the same thing with photos you plan to use
several times.
Normalize & deinterlace
Before you print your finished video,
mixdown the audio if you have that option. This mixes all the audio into a
single stereo track. In some programs this is part of the Normalize process on output.
Deinterlace video that is
destined to be viewed on a computer monitor. This is particularly important if
your video has a lot of movement in it. Many video editing programs have a
deinterlace tool under filters. Windows Movie Maker does not. VirtualDub (free) will do
the job. Standard definition and 1080i HDTV
use interlacing technology. Each frame of video is actually two pictures (interlaced
left-to-right and right-to-left). LCD, DLP, and plasma displays use progressive
scan. Don’t deinterlace for these.
Print to . . .
At
last you’re ready to export and save your video for your family website on the internet, DV tape. Most editing programs have compression
options appropriate for your intended final format. Be sure there are no other
programs running on your computer. If you’re outputting to a DV tape on your
camcorder, use a firewire/iLink (iEEE1394) hookup and house current for camcorder
power.
Compression
Raw video files (those on the dv
tape) are very large. In order for video to be usable on the internet or fit on
a DVD or CD, it has to be compacted into a small file (compressed). Most video
editing programs do the compression as part of the final process. Check with
your web host, or DVD/CD authoring program for supported compression formats.
There are lots of options, but here are the most popular.
MPEG-1 (.mpg)—VCD
MPEG-2 (.mpg2)—DVD
MPEG-4 (.mpg4)—internet
QuickTime (.mov)—internet and authored CD
AVI Format (.avi)—internet
Windows Media
Video Format (.wmv)—internet
Real Media
Format (.rm)—internet
Flash Movie
Format (.swf )—internet
Archive master tape
Wait, you’re not done yet. Be sure to
make a master copy of the raw, uncompressed, edited video. Unless the video is
short, you will probably have to put it out on digital video tape. Wind the
tape all the way to the end. Lock and label it and put it in your family history archive along with all the raw
footage used to make the video.
Make a CD with the project’s Edit
Decision List (EDL) and all the graphics used in the video. Store that in your
family archive as well. An EDL is a file with all the instructions you put into
the video editing program to make your video.
You can now safely remove the
project and footage from your computer. If you later decide to add to or change
the video, import the EDL into the program and recapture the original footage (per the prompts generated by your editing program). You will probably have to
re-render.
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