Archiving movie clips off my still camera

[Sossity]

I am using a still camera, ( sony cybershots; DSC-W7 & DSC-H5) that can take movies at 640 x 480 at approximately 15-17 frames per second for standard mode; display on TV; & approximately 30 frames per second for fine mode, for high quality display on TV, ( according to the camera manuals). I usually use standard at about 15 -17 frames per second. when movie clips are anaylized in Gspot, it reads them as mpg 1 layer 2. Have used Roxio EMC 7.0-7.5 to make DVDs in the past, but now Roxio no longer can, something goes wrong during the encoding process & audio/video is out of sync. Now just the original clips burned to DVD with no editing are out of sync. the only thing that works most of the time now is original clips burned onto blank CD-Rs. & some times this does not always work. I want to back up my original movie clips onto blank discs of some kind, for off site storage,right now I have them only on an external hard drives. I e-mailed with someone who told me that gspot was not correct at identifying the movie clip format. I noticed in Roxio 7.5 it read the clips as mpg 1, but on my DVD player it read them as mp4.

Sossity

[admin]

MPEG Layer II is audio.
MPEG-1 is video
MPEG-2 is video

Still cameras that also shoot short video clips are usually an MPEG-4 variant, such as Windows Media Video (WMV), XVID or DIVX.

Can you check it in G-spot again? Re-verify.

Your DVD player sounds like it's reading the right information. Are you using the most current version of Gspot, version 2.52 or higher?

Roxio is a bad choice for video work. The company make it sound good on paper, but it never works well. Roxio bought a bunch of good products, such as Adaptec Easy CD Creator, put them together in packages called "Roxio 5" (up to 7 or 8 now), and made them worse. Nero is very similar. It makes (often incorrect) assumptions about your video input, and butchers it onto a DVD. The "one size fits none" scenario. So abandoning it is a good idea.

To clarify, what you want right this minute is a solution to burn the original videos (unprocessed, unconverted, directly from the camera untouched) onto data discs? That's an easy task there. Use ImgBurn in BUILD mode, and write a data disc.

ImgBurn is freeware and available at http://www.imgburn.com

Be sure to use good media. I suggest Verbatim discs.

As far as converting the video to a DVD to watch on screen, I'd want to see a file. Most likely, you would be able to open the file in VirtualDub (more freeware), and then save the video as an uncompressed AVI to the hard drive (no audio mode). Audio would be saved separately (full stream processing mode, save WAV). The separate audio and video would then be opened in MPEG encoding software (TMPGEnc Plus is very cheap, $39, and works well, has a trial). You would want to follow the encoding guide on this site. The encoded video would then be authored in DVD authoring software. Again, more choices, and both TMPGEnc DVD Author and SVCD2DVD are good choices for authoring. DVDAuthor is freeware, but not easy to use by any means.

This assumes VirtualDub will open the MPEG-4.

You should also install the freeware XVID MPEG-4 codec, which opens most all MPEG-4 files. It's available at http://www.xvid.org (the actual download page is on digital-digest, but follow the official XVID site links to get there).

I think that answered your question, and then some. But if not, just ask for clarification.

[Sossity]

Thank you for the tip to image burn, yes this minute I want to archive my original clips. has alot of settings like ISO systems; joilet, bride, UDF, & character limits for all these; does anyone know what all these are & what should I use for my movie clips? I want my data discs with the clips to be compatible with as many things as possible; PCs; Macs; TVs & DVD players. also in build mode, should I burn an image file or direct to disc? The movie clips off my still camera come with THM files, do I need these? should I burn these along with movie clips? are Taiyo Yuden discs good for this as well? DVD-R? or DVD+R? what burn speed would be best? I have an opened spindle of a 50 pack of Verbatium shiny silver Datalife plus DVD-R up to 8x, I opened it around this time last year, are these discs still good for archiving? if they are not burned right away, do discs blank discs go bad?

I checked Gspot, & it is version 2,5,2,1. or v2.52BO1.I did not know exactly what needs to be seen here for clarification, so I typed everything I saw. The window reads; This was for one of my movie clips recorded in the cameras "standard" mode.

in video box; codec; MPEG 1 payload; name; MPEG 1; stats; codecs installed.
in audio box; codec; MPEG 1 layer 2; CBR; Info; OxcO; 32000Hz; 64kb/s (1 chnl) stats; codecs installed
in container window; MPEG system stream; 1 audio; 1 video; 1 other. system bit rate; 2913kp/s

another window reads; for the clip; which is; 00.03.22 in length. pics/sec; 25000 frames/sec; 25000 kpbs;~2849 Qf; 0.371 frms: ~5,058

yet another window reads; frame; 640x480; FAR; 1.333 (4:3) PAR; 1000 DAR; 1.333 (4:3)

Some of my movie clips I recorded were at the 640 x 480 with the camera's "fine" mode at about 30 frames per second, according to sony cameras manual. I usually use the cameras "standard" mode at about 15 to 16 frames per second, noted in manual. I noticed when I play back my "fine" mode movie clips burned to CD-Rs, on my DVD players; the motion is staggred or like slow motion & so does the sound, sort of clips. cannot get these clips to play normally at all except on my PC. Problems I described so far were for my "standard" mode clips, at least these played Okay half the time, when audio video were not going out of sync. "standard" allows me to get much more on my 1 GB memory sticks, up to 45 minutes. I use "standard" more often for this reason.

I also e-mailed sony about the cameras movie clip format, & this is what they replied with;

Sossity Corby,

Thank you for contacting Sony Online Support.

The videos recorded in the Sony Cameras are in MPG format. Please
contact the software manufacturer of the DVD burning software for
information on how to burn the discs. Also, please contact the DVD Player's
manufacturer for how to adjust the sync between audio and video.

Thank you for the opportunity to be of assistance.

Your Sony Email Response Team.


Sossity

[admin]

ISO is an old burning mode. It only suggest 8.3 character names in ALL CAPS. Joilet lets it support long file names in mixed case. Files must be under 2GB in size each.

UDF is a newer file system, long file name support, and the UDF file size cutoff is larger than what a DVD (single-layer or dual-layer) can store.

UDF/ISO bridge is another mode.

For data, use ISO9660 + Joliet + UDF mode in ImgBurn. Put in BUILD MODE, and the OUTPUT can be DEVICE (DVD burner). Under LABELS, label each entry. You'll notice each supports more or less characters than the others, when labeling the disc name.

If for some reason, you get a failed burn in build mode, change the output to an IMAGE, and burn an image to the hard drive. Then burn the image to a DVD.

Use good media, I suggest Verbatim DVD-R or DVD+R, and then I would suggest 4x-8x speed, not any faster. Sometimes going too fast in build mode will crash the burn, make it fail (you'll get a fail warning if it does).

I'd like to see one of these clips. How big is the file size? I might get you to FTP me one of them.

What Sony wrote to you was worthless. "MPG" doesn't means anything. I'm not at all surprised, as most companies have very dullard-level tech support. MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 (with name of variant) would be the only acceptable answers.

Your high quality mode videos playing jerky on a tv set... were these converted in Roxio? It sounds like the video has been butchered, with frames lost in conversion. Very typical issue for cheap software.

On the other and, GSPOT is showing 25fps, a PAL framerate, and not 30fps. Converting fps in a sloppy manner (again, the fault of the software) could result in similar problems.

Blank DVDs had a shelf life of about 2-5 years minimum. This is the lifespan when the discs are unused. Once burned, discs should last decades. You'll see people online who get confused about this, thinking DVDs die in 2-5 years. That applies to UNUSED BLANK discs only. So your package from last year is fine. My best archival media was manufactured in 2003-2005, and I still have a supply of blanks that work fine.

Both Taiyo Yuden and Verbatim are choice media, excellent discs.

Data discs will inherently only work in devices that can see data, such as computers running Windows, MacOS or Linux/Unix. Burning in UDF+ISO+Joliet should guarantee Mac sees the discs, especially OS9 and OSX. A DVD player will only read the information if it can read DVD-ISO, and has the ability to play back the codec used in the video (look for DIVX-compatible players, because those play most of the MPEG-4 variants). My Philips 3575 DVD recorder is such a machine, and would likely play these kinds of discs. But this is not a typical feature.

To make it work in DVD players, it must be converted to compliant DVD-Video format, and authored as a normal DVD. That means conversion, which first means finding out what truly resides in that file.

I can make a video tutorial on how to use ImgBurn, but I'll need a few days to do it.

I don't know what a THM file is, so I'd go ahead and burn it with the other files, just in case. A quick Google search tells me that THM files are some sort of proprietary image format. "Thumbnail image of a video clip created when the video clip is saved; stores a small image from the first frame of the video clip it represents; used for visually scanning through multiple video clips." It's probably a tiny file, so go ahead and keep it.

Do you know how to take screen caps? If not, I'll tell you how, and you can screen cap the GSPOT screen for me.

Did you install the XVID codec yet? That might help, as GSPOT does partially rely on system codecs for proper identification of files. Are you watching these on the computer at all?

I would invest in another memory card, rather than compressing down to a lower quality mode. I own two 4GB cards for my DSLR, and I shoot both JPEG-High and RAW images, for the best quality possible.

[Sossity]

Thank you for the more thorough info, you are one of the few people who has taken some interest in my problem, who is knowledgeable about video making & offered some real solutions, I have gone all around asking, in electronics stores etc, & no one seems to know, I have been just passed onto the next person. My family has been so impressed with my movies I made in Roxio, that they are pressuring me to fix this problem so I can make more for them. I would like to keep this correspondence quiet, as if one of them sees me watching a video tutorial of how to burn discs, they will assume I can make DVDs again & pressure me some more, hence my preference for typed instructions & pictures if possible. I have spent many nights & into the wee hours trying to get Roxio to work under family pressure to the point that I cried one time. It would be great if you could give me step by step instructions ( with pictures) on how to take a screen cap of gspot & how to use image burn,it does not have to be a video. Which sould I use for my movie clips? DVD-R? or DVD+R? in image burn, what speed should I burn the clips to discs at?

The jerky playback I described was of one of my original movie clips unedited recorded in my cameras "fine" mode burned onto a CD-R played on my DVD player, it clipped; sound & video & seemed to go in slow motion. I can only get this disc to play properly on my PC.I have made movies in Roxio; ( not as many ) with my "fine" quality movie clips & have not had sync problems with those yet.The problem creeped up with my "standard" quality movie clips, & for awhile It was working, I have made about 5 or 6 DVD videos so far, with the "standard" movie clips in Roxio & maybe 2 DVD videos in Roxio with the "fine" clips.

The audio video sync problem was with my unedited & Roxio edited movie clips using my cameras "standard" mode.

I have some movie clips if you want to see if you give me a way/show me how to e-mail them to you, I use at&t yahoo mail, & my computer is a little slow.

They are;
1. in my cameras "standard" mode; 31.4 mb; & its THM file; 7.8 kb. of a drum circle.

2. in my cameras "fine" mode; 47.1 mb; & its THM file; 4.9 kb. it is from a ski trip.

Dont know if you would want to see the THM files as well, to see if they need to be archived as well. Also weather you want to see a movie clip in one each of the 2 quality modes. If you have some kind of anaylizer like gspot you could look at the movie clips I send you & see for your self.

I have also read that external hard drives don't last long & they will fail in about 5 or so years after buying one, I have 2 right now with my movie clips on them, I got them in 2004, 2005 & 2006. I work with my files on my hard drives, most if not all my work is on them, I plug them into the computer I described below because it is my mothers not mine so it is sort of a "host" where I plug my drives in & work with my files. If I do not turn on my external hard drive or use it much, will it last longer? or will its parts seize up or oxidize over time like old batteries? Is it safe to have a drive turned on & windows defragging it while online?

I am on a Dell dimension 2400 PC running windows XP service pack 2, home edition 2002, Pentium 4 processor, 2.20GHz, 768 MB of RAM, 2.19GHz. Yes I did install Xvid onto my computer.

So basically I have to abandon roxio & start all over with new software & rework my movies again? This will involve more time learning a new software with impatient family lurking. I have windows media MPEG-2 movies that I rendered in Roxio in videowave. The problem is occuring in DVD builder where I bring my edited rendered movies to make intro titles, menus, chapters, & then encode & burn as an ISO image file. from there I used disc copier to burn the whole ISO DVD movie to a disc. Could I bring my rendered MPEG-2 movies done in video wave into another program for making menus intro titles & encoding? The MPEG-2 rendered movies from video wave are not software specific, (can open them in windows media player) & would save me time if I could bring it into another program to make the intro title, menu etc & encoding.

I have come across a gadget by sony called DVD direct, dont know if anyone has heard of them, but they are basically external DVD burners that are supposed to be able to burn content off a camera hooked up to it directly in MPEG-2 onto a DVD disc without a computer & video software.They sound interesting to me as they would allow me to instantly get my camera movie clips onto discs so they can be watched on a TV & DVD player without time consuming process of a video editor. My family gets frustrated because my clips get filed away on my external hard drives & can only be watched on the computer. This is what got me started in Roxio, because the house/main room DVD/VCR combo unit would not play anything but DVD videos. We have an old cube analog TV set so it is hard to hook up newer devices to it. There is a newer TV set in another room with a DVD player that will play my movie clips burned onto CD-Rs most of the time; so family settled on that in desperation just to see the footage, but miss my polished DVD movies I made in Roxio, that can be watched in the comfort of the main room with the older TV set DVD/VCR unit. I know my posts are long winded but I am desperate for some expert help & some solutions.

Sossity