video editing

I realised that I've done rather a lot of video posts recently. When I started experimenting with video on rashbre central, I expected it to be quite difficult to get anything to load, but now I've simplified my setup to camera, firewire, computer, final cut pro and an external firewire drive for the content its all become relatively straightforward.

To be really honest, I've hidden a spare firewire half terabyte behind a sofa so that I can just plug it into a Mac laptop when I want to do some editing.

So I suppose this is something of a technical post describing my informal way of working. So typically:

- Capture the video by plugging a camera into the laptop using firewire and capture directly into Final Cut Pro or iMovie
- Edit as required, adding cuts, transitions, and adaptations to the sound
- Render the sequence
- Export as a .mov or use Quicktime to compress for the Internet.
- In extreme circumstances use Compressor to create a special format
- Use iDVD to integrate into a DVD with menus
- Or simply upload the compressed .mov for internet viewing

And to extract snippets from an existing DVD:

- use Mac the Ripper to convert the DVD back into constituent files
- use Cinematize to convert the DVD files (.VOBs etc) into .mov, .avi or whatever for editing
- import the extracted sections into Final Cut Pro or iMovie for editing

And iMovie and iDVD are included on all modern Macs and can do most of what most people want.

So thats a simple learner driver's guide to video.

And just because I like it, here's a little video clip which went through some of the above processes. Its of Michele Shocked playing acoustic guitar and singing about learning to drive in East Texas.

Tag: rashbre, Final Cut Pro, video, vlog, video editing, iMovie