Making Movies with NT

However, the paging file was insufficient when I was using the editing programs. When I put a 500MB paging file on my data drive, everything smoothed out, the performance increased, and reliability was no longer a problem.

I set the paging file to 88MB while I was capturing video, and added a 500MB paging file on another drive while I was editing. This setup works well, but this configuration is a hassle.

DV Format vs. Motion JPEG
Most of the capture cards that feed analog or digital video into the PC use Motion JPEG, which combines many .jpg files, one for each frame. You then edit these files and process them for output. The system then changes the format to .avi or QuickTime (.mov). This change makes editing a breeze, because you can deal with each frame independently of the others. Nonlinear editing uses this method. In fact, most nonlinear editing systems must translate any other format to Motion JPEG before editing can occur. The biggest challenge associated with hardware that turns video into Motion JPEG is that the same hardware cannot capture video for live broadcasting.

One system can accept a pure Digital Video (DV) signal and use it, without modification, for nonlinear editing. DV Master from FAST Multimedia lets you capture, transfer, and edit in DV format. Because DV is the product's native format, you can speed up the process, maybe even to the point of going live from a DV camera into the PC. I couldn't test this capability because it wasn't yet released for NT.

The Shoot
I finished the Windows NT Solutions Directory, and I scheduled a video shoot. Eight takes later, I completed the shooting and had the pieces I needed to put together a dynamite clip.

Editing
In every editing software product I worked with, only the clip on the highest numbered track is visible. In other words, you will see what is on track 1, as long as nothing is on track 2. If track 2 is nontransparent video, you will not see what is on track 1. If you want a title on the top of a video clip, you put the video clip on track 1 and the title on a transparent background on track 2. If you want to switch to a different clip, such as a picture of the computer screen, you can simply lay the screen shot on a higher track number. You don't need to delete the section of the first clip that was behind the new clip.

In MCXpress, with its limitations of two video tracks and up to four audio tracks, you set the video clips with precise edit points end-to-end on one track, and then put the effects and titles on the other track. With unlimited tracks for both audio and video in Speed Razor, you have more flexibility in how you layer your video and audio tracks, which is helpful. In Adobe Premiere, you get a compromise, with two standard video tracks, a transition track, and unlimited superimpose tracks (S tracks). The S tracks are for creating multiple layers with transparent backgrounds and titles.

I took the clips and captured them with the DPS Perception card and then the Targa board. Each card comes with proprietary software just to facilitate the capturing process. After I made the correct settings for the audio and video capturing, the editing was easier than using a VCR.

Next, I arranged and trimmed the clips, and added my titles and graphics. I added my captured screens from HyperCam, laid them over the video track, and left the audio track untouched.

Rendering and Exporting to AVI
The process of rendering takes a set of audio clips, video clips, graphics, and effects, and puts it all into one video that you can watch from one end to the other. You can click any place on the time line and see what your video will look like at this point. This function required more time than nearly any other process. This area is where NT and serious horsepower really kick in. Put a dual Pentium Pro or Dual Pentium II on the task, and you'll cut your time in half.

Usually, when you are going to export the final project to an .avi file, the system renders the video again, sets all the clips to the same size, sets all the audio to the same values (mono, stereo, KHz, etc.), compresses the whole video, and then writes it to your hard disk. Depending on the compression routines, this process can take hours. Obviously, if you are going to use videotape as your final product, you can skip the .avi file and just dump the project to tape.

Recommendations
No matter which way you decide to go, I have some recommendations for making video editing much easier. First, get heavy-duty hardware if you are going to do serious work. Don't use anything less than a 200MHz Pentium Pro with 64MB of RAM and at least five PCI slots, plus two or more ISA/EISA slots that the PCI boards will not cover up. Hard disk space is also a real necessity. A 9GB A/V drive is the minimum I recommend, plus your 2GB to 4GB system drive. Make sure your system has plenty of drive bays for internal drives, because they are far less expensive.

All three video editors performed well, once I got them fully configured. An advantage to the Avid MCXpress is that an editor who has used a Mac version will have almost no learning curve. However, even editors with extensive experience will have a minor learning curve with Speed Razor.

Keep in mind that if you are starting from scratch, all of these systems require a serious time commitment. Video editing is not word processing. You must practice to acquire the necessary technical skills and to master the programs' intricacies.

Which product will I use next time? The answer depends on the project. You can't go wrong with any of them. I like Speed Razor's unlimited layers of audio and video, which make pulling video from different sources and adding multiple effects unbelievably easy. However, the titling and onscreen graphics creation in MCXpress outshines Speed Razor's. Even so, I might use Adobe Premiere, which is the easiest to set up and learn and has all the power I need.