Making video clips

JohnnyP

JohnnyP

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I want to make short clips and put them on my site or you tube, etc.

I went to Fry's to look for a small camcorder, and ended up with a still/video capable carmera not much bigger than a credit card.

I strapped it to my forehead to show pool from the shooter's perspective.

It works, but it takes forever (hours) to transfer files from the camera to my computer, then into my website. I made two clips about five minutes and 100MB each.

How to speed up the process?

Don't know if you can see these. It takes forever for the page to load on my computer:
http://www.jandssafeguard.com/Pool/Foreheadcam/pool1.mov
http://www.jandssafeguard.com/Pool/Foreheadcam/pool2.mov
 
JohnnyP said:
I want to make short clips and put them on my site or you tube, etc.

I went to Fry's to look for a small camcorder, and ended up with a still/video capable carmera not much bigger than a credit card.

I strapped it to my forehead to show pool from the shooter's perspective.

It works, but it takes forever (hours) to transfer files from the camera to my computer, then into my website. I made two clips about five minutes and 100MB each.

How to speed up the process?

Don't know if you can see these. It takes forever for the page to load on my computer:
http://www.jandssafeguard.com/Pool/Foreheadcam/pool1.mov
http://www.jandssafeguard.com/Pool/Foreheadcam/pool2.mov
Click to expand...

Hi

This is a great idea! Which camera did you buy?

I downloaded the movies and did a check on it :cool: :

Apple Motion JPEG A, 512 x 384, Millions, 29.97 fps
16-bit Integer (Big Endian), Mono, 44.100 kHz

You might want to try adjusting the video recording setting for web video:

1, have a lower frame rate (fps, aka frames per second). Set it to 15 fps or lower.
2, have a smaller screen resolution. Set it to 320x240 or smaller

Try these as a start before we go into software solutions...

You must be a tall guy above 6 ft? :rolleyes:
 
Wei:

I'm 6'1", plus I don't get down very far (old timer's stance?)

The camera is a Casio EX-Z75 still camera with video capability, Fry's had it for $189, then I added a $25 2GB memory card. This gives you 24 minutes in HQ mode, 45 minutes in normal mode, or nearly two hours in LP mode.

I recorded the clips in normal mode.

http://www.digitalcamera-hq.com/digital-cameras/casio-exilim-exz75_reviews.html

The mount is made from a length of black elastic cloth, with a black rubber band sewn into each end. The rubber band holds the camera, and the strap goes around the head.

A little tricky to put on. First set the buttons to start recording, then pause, then put on your head without hitting a button, then resume recording.
 
Your slow d/l speed might be a limitation of the camera. I use a dedicated card reader to transfer files and its very quick compared to your experience. I d/l a 100MB file off a SD card (slow media) in 10 minutes or so. In the CF days, I'd do it in less than 1/2 that time.

Here's an example of the USB card reader I use. It accomodates just any model card you can throw at it.

http://shopping.yahoo.com/p:SimpleT...y_adapter,mid:57,pid:1991584804,pdid:57,pos:9
 
It took a while to load like you said, but I found your videos to be interesting. I've never thought about mounting a camera on the player like you did and it would be great if you could come up with a wider angle lens view so the top of the shot wouldn't get cut off, but for your first attempt you did a pretty good job.
 
JohnnyP said:
I want to make short clips and put them on my site or you tube, etc.
How to speed up the process?
Click to expand...
Sounds like it could be one of a few issues for the transfer:
1) if you are using USB 1.0, it'll take forever to get 100 MB to your computer
2) if you use a card reader, make sure it's USB 2.0 compliant.
3) if you are using a program provided by the camera mfg to transfer between the camera and PC, it sounds like you may be transcoding the data on your camera from original format to .mov format.
4) Uploading 100MB is typically a long process on DSL and Cable due to throttle on the upload speed. That is, download is primary use, so it's fast. Upload gets the short straw. If you need faster upload speeds, most providers allow you to upgrade your ADSL to [Max] 384 or 768 up stream, and others go all the way to 1.5MB. In my experience, this is overkill for the price. I like 768kbps, which typically results in 400-500 kbps average thoroughput. For 100MB files, you should plan on getting a snack while you upload ;)


A few Q's to troubleshoot:
What type of camera is it?
What media is in your camera?
What format does your camera save in? Is it .mov?
What program are you using for capture/encoding?
What type of connection are you using to transfer data?

I have 3 different cameras:
DV camera - this one works best overall. It takes 1:1 time to capture, but I can edit directly. Overall time for a 5 minute clip: 5 minutes to capture, 10 minutes to edit, 15 minutes to encode - so about 30 minutes.
Still camera with video capability - This one transfers data from the card to the computer fast, but it requires an extra transcoding step to edit - which takes a while. Overall time for a 5 minute clip: 1 minute to tranfer, 30+ minutes to transcode, 10 minutes to edit, 15 minutes to encode - so about 55+ minutes.
Solid State Video Camera - this one transfers data from a card as well, but has better resolution and frame rate than my still camera's video mode. Again, this needs a transcoding step to MPEG-2 in order to edit. Overall time for a 5 minute clip: 1 minute to tranfer, 30+ minutes to transcode, 10 minutes to edit, 15 minutes to encode - so about 55+ minutes.

As Wei suggested, changing the size / capture rate / etc can affect the original file size, but it won't really take much time off the transcoding process. However, reducing the playback quality can reduce the encoding time (i.e., making it ready as a movie), but again, this won't really affect transcoding time.

-td
 
SSCues:

I made a thick "shim" from a hot glue stick, and stuck it to the top of the view screen on the back of the camera. This rests against the top of my forhead, and sets the viewing angle. Will experiment with thickness of shim before next outing.

td873:

The camara is Casio Exilim Z75, and I added a 2GB SanDisk memory card.

The output files are .avi.

I googled a converter and found MPEG Streamclip to convert the files.
http://www.squared5.com/

I used a Targus USB 2.0 card reader, not knowing the camera had USB output.

The video has three levels of quality. I used normal mode.

HQ is 640 x 480
Normal is 512 x 384
LP is 320 x 240
 
JohnnyP said:
The camara is Casio Exilim Z75, and I added a 2GB SanDisk memory card.
The output files are .avi.
I googled a converter and found MPEG Streamclip to convert the files.
http://www.squared5.com/
I used a Targus USB 2.0 card reader, not knowing the camera had USB output.
The video has three levels of quality. I used normal mode.
HQ is 640 x 480
Normal is 512 x 384
LP is 320 x 240
Click to expand...
Avi is a notoriously large storage type. A 5 minutes file can be up to 200MB or more. But, transferring 200+ MB using USB 2.0 should only take between 5-10 seconds, as the transfer rate is roughly 60MB/sec (give or take). With USB 1.1 that would take you just over 2 minutes (USB 1.0 would take around 20 minutes). So this isn't the problem.

It appears that you are suffering from a transcoding time problem. Although you are converting your .avi to .mov, based on your symptoms, it sounds like your program is more like a transcoder than an encoder. Basically, your program is converting the entire 200MB to some intermediate format, then encoding it to .mov. As you have experienced, this is a long process. You may also suffer some data loss in this type of conversion.

I would expect significant improvement in time with a program that does not do the itermediate step. You should give a few programs a try. Unfortunately, I don't think you can gain any time improvement with your current application without upgrading your computer.

Windows Vista has a free encoder. Also, did your camera come with software for encoding? I used Pinnacle Studio and Roxio (both pay prograoms). These work great and also allows conversion to smaller real media and windows media files - which play quite nicely on YouTube.

Cheers,

-td
 
td:

I use a 400MHz PowerPC iMac, running OSX 10.4. Only have a 12.7GB hard drive, with maybe 1GB free.

I used MPEG Streamclip to convert .avi to quicktime, or was it MPEG 4?

Streamclip lets you set the quality, so I set it to 25%.
 
JohnnyP said:
td:

I use a 400MHz PowerPC iMac, running OSX 10.4. Only have a 12.7GB hard drive, with maybe 1GB free.

I used MPEG Streamclip to convert .avi to quicktime, or was it MPEG 4?

Streamclip lets you set the quality, so I set it to 25%.
Click to expand...

The problem is the machine you're using, I'm not even sure it's USB2 capable which is dreadfully slow. I'd consider upgrading your machine if you have some spare cash, though Mac's are pricey. Another point I'd make is that you can buy card's that have faster read/write access, like the Ultra-III I have in mine.

Furthermore, the movies you're transferring appear to be pretty much uncompressed(great for quality, horrible for sharing). If you get a movie tool that will allow you to transcode these into more compressed MPEG's or AVI's then you'll also be able to share them faster. (Keep in mind that at 400Mhz any kind of video transcoding is going to be *PAINFULLY* slow)

Just my 2 cents.
 
JohnnyP said:
td:

I use a 400MHz PowerPC iMac, running OSX 10.4. Only have a 12.7GB hard drive, with maybe 1GB free.

I used MPEG Streamclip to convert .avi to quicktime, or was it MPEG 4?

Streamclip lets you set the quality, so I set it to 25%.
Click to expand...
I believe you may have 2 weak links:
1) Your processor is under powered for serious video work.
2) Your machine is spec'd out for USB 1.1 - so even if you use a 2.0 card reader, you can get only 1.1 speeds.

Neither of these is of any significance if you aren't doing a lot of video editing - as you can still get the job done, albeit, in a little more time.

But, if you intend to do a lot of video editing, you might consider an upgrade. Even two generation old Macs (G4's in the 1.X Mhz range) will be a tremendous leap - and getting a G5 will keep you for years.

Good luck!

-td
 
td: Ok, new Mac. Now all I have to do is get out there and SELL. arg.

So, I missed a few balls, but I can blame it on the camera on my head!

Ronnie, the guy that I stopped at the end of the second clip, is a BCA instructor. He looked at the first four shots in that clip, where I played the breakshot off the six ball, and said "A lot of head movement, there, but they're finding their way into the hole."

I was shooting hard, trying to open the rack. I don't think I moved, but you can see that my head was jolted by the shot.

Many of the other shots you can see the ferrule coming through my bridge at the end of my backstroke.

I made a few nice shots in the first clip, at the end of the rack. I was surprised how easy that ten ball was, just before the key ball. I usually struggle with those, and have trouble hitting dead center. Surprised when I saw the replay how smooth it looked. Didn't remember that I shot it without any practice strokes. Several other shots where I just one-stroked it. Shooting like I didn't care, I guess.
 
JohnnyP said:
t[...]
So, I missed a few balls, but I can blame it on the camera on my head!

[...]
Click to expand...

I could be wrong, but the hot glue gun you used in sticking the camera to your head might have played a role.
 
JohnnyP said:
I want to make short clips and put them on my site or you tube, etc.

[...]
Click to expand...

All right, now that we've got you technogeeks corralled into one corner of the newsgroup, I have similar questions. These may already have been answered, but some of you assume I know things I don't, so I may not have understood.

So, like Johnny, I'd like to make several-minute (say 2 to 10 minute) clips to post to youtube or put in a powerpoint presentation or put on a web site.

I have a cannon powershot sd800 camera that it appears can do

640 X 480 (30 or 15) fps
320 X 240 (30 or 15) fps
160 X 120 15 fps

The last one is called compact, and it says clips are limited to 3 minutes.

These generate .mov files

I have an older Mac loke Johhnies but also a Dell Latitude D810 running windows XP.

What is my best sequence of steps? Do I need anything else?
 
My bad. I tried the camera's built in USB last night, and it only took seven minutes to get the same data into the Mac.

The camera comes with an AV cable (White and Yellow RCA jacks), so I plugged it into our DVD player/recorder last night. It played right away. Cool.

td: I tried importing the AVI clips straight into iMovie, and it says like 190 minutes remaining for a 100MB of data.

What if I burn a CD, then let iMovie work on that file? Do you think iMovie would work that way?
 
JohnnyP said:
My bad. I tried the camera's built in USB last night, and it only took seven minutes to get the same data into the Mac.

The camera comes with an AV cable (White and Yellow RCA jacks), so I plugged it into our DVD player/recorder last night. It played right away. Cool.

td: I tried importing the AVI clips straight into iMovie, and it says like 190 minutes remaining for a 100MB of data.

What if I burn a CD, then let iMovie work on that file? Do you think iMovie would work that way?
Click to expand...
Johnny,
3 hours!! Ouch!

I have to admit, I'm not familiar with iMovie, as I only work on PC's. I'll ask my wife - as she's a full-blow Mac-head. My thought is that you might get some time back by first burning on your DVD recorder, then using the DVD files in iMovie. But I'm not sure if the DVD files (.vob) would have to be converted in iMovie.

A small experiment may be in order: buy/use a cheap DVD+RW disc and capture your movie on your DVD recorder. See if that gets you around one bottleneck.

One thing to remember - before shelling out money for a new computer - making videos takes time, no matter what kind of computer you have. I'm running 3.0 Ghz, 2Gb Ram, 1,000+ GB of HD space, and a pretty fast graphics card, and it still takes me about 1/2 hour to get a 10 minute video input, edited, and encoded.

Maybe we can come up with a good temp solution so you don't have to invest in a new computer. Let me put my thinking cap on tonight ;)

-td
 
Last edited:
mikepage said:
I have an older Mac loke Johhnies but also a Dell Latitude D810 running windows XP.

What is my best sequence of steps? Do I need anything else?
Click to expand...
Mike,

The D810 is a "desktop replacement" computer. Meaning it is a laptop, with more power than it's notebook siblings. This also equates into bigger size and a little more weight, but IMO, the extra power, screen size, and features are well worth it. WRT your computer, unless you upgraded, you should have a 2Ghz processor, 1GB of Ram, around 80GB of HD space, and a Radeon X300 video processor. At the time, these were almost "top of the line" for the Dell latitude series. (They did offer some over-the-top upgrades, but those were really for application specific, and not general use, computers.)

In short, your computer is pretty well equipped to do standard video work! This means importing, editing clips, adding comments to clips, adding credits, and encoding your movie into a usable web (or other) format.

Your Canon Camera is also fairly robust in features and ease of use. Recording at 30 frames per second is pretty good for a still camera with video capabilities. You should be pleased with video quality at 30fps when your movie is completed. I find that pool at 15fps is viewable. In fact, if you are not building DVD quality movies (e.g., YouTube) 15fps is virtually indistinguishable from 30fps.

Depending on your software, I think you should have no problems making short movies at this point. Dell should have provided you with some free video software - perhaps something by Roxio or Pinnacle. Roxio's program is called Easy [something] Creator, depending on what they gave you. Pinnacle has the "Studio" Lines.

If you have a second, let me know what software you have access to, and I should be able to get you moving in the right direction.

Cheers,

-td
 
If you are serious about video transfer, you need to use firewire port and a Firewire 800 card reader. These ports/cards are much faster than USB 2.0 for streaming data. I typically transfer about 200 5mb RAW images from CF cards to my computer using USB 2.0 and it takes are 6 minutes. Using my Firewire 800 card reader, it takes slightly less than 2 minutes.

Added:
Here is a link to all Firewire products at BHPhoto.com in NYC...the best place to purchase camera/video products.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/con...s=firewire&mnp=0.0&mxp=0.0&sb=ps&sq=desc&pn=2
 
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Wow. Thank you.

There's something called Windows Movie Maker. Is that suitable?


td873 said:
Mike,

The D810 is a "desktop replacement" computer. Meaning it is a laptop, with more power than it's notebook siblings. This also equates into bigger size and a little more weight, but IMO, the extra power, screen size, and features are well worth it. WRT your computer, unless you upgraded, you should have a 2Ghz processor, 1GB of Ram, around 80GB of HD space, and a Radeon X300 video processor. At the time, these were almost "top of the line" for the Dell latitude series. (They did offer some over-the-top upgrades, but those were really for application specific, and not general use, computers.)

In short, your computer is pretty well equipped to do standard video work! This means importing, editing clips, adding comments to clips, adding credits, and encoding your movie into a usable web (or other) format.

Your Canon Camera is also fairly robust in features and ease of use. Recording at 30 frames per second is pretty good for a still camera with video capabilities. You should be pleased with video quality at 30fps when your movie is completed. I find that pool at 15fps is viewable. In fact, if you are not building DVD quality movies (e.g., YouTube) 15fps is virtually indistinguishable from 30fps.

Depending on your software, I think you should have no problems making short movies at this point. Dell should have provided you with some free video software - perhaps something by Roxio or Pinnacle. Roxio's program is called Easy [something] Creator, depending on what they gave you. Pinnacle has the "Studio" Lines.

If you have a second, let me know what software you have access to, and I should be able to get you moving in the right direction.

Cheers,

-td
Click to expand...
 
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