Holy crap that program is easy to use. My last video project was done using Adobe Premiere Elements, using DV video because the HD was painfully slow to work with. This weekend I decided to produce a dvd from the video I shot at a cousin's wedding.
First, I couldn't get the video to import in as HD, only SD resolution, googled here, fiddled there for a little bit before I realized that I had forced my camera into a dv only mode so that it would work reliably for the last video project. Anyway, after I got the camera set right, I started the import. A prompt shows up saying that you're importing hd video and you can either use 1440x1080i or you can import at 950x540p, the 2nd saving a lot of space. I try it, it works, it looks great still. The scenes are all split automatically. All transitions are rendered on the fly so it's very easy to preview. In the timeline, when you move the cursor, it also skims the audio so you can easily figure out exactly where you need to cut (very neat feature). Video took almost no time to trim and place. Steve Jobs lives in the future where people don't produce DVD's anymore so he's removed the chaptering function from iDVD. iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD and GarageBand all work hand in hand with eachother and GarageBand supports chapters in video podcasts, so I loaded the video there and created the chapters, it's as easy as position the playhead, hit 'p' and name the chapter. Anyway, send the video back to iDVD, pick a cool theme (better themes I have not seen in any other package). Chapters are automatically video thumbnailed. Menu music was provided, but it was too slow, so I dragged a song from iTunes onto the menu and poof, it's replaced the old one. I figured I'd throw a slideshow on the dvd to so you click a button on the main dvd menu screen that say "add a slideshow" (how do they always know exactly what to name these :) ). Dragged a photo set from iPhoto onto iDVD, dragged a song from iTunes, chose what transition type I wanted for all photos and checked a box that made the photos last as long as the song. Done! All this time, I experienced not 1 crash (not more than 1 crash either) . I've never been able to get through a project on windows without a crash of some sort, usually losing whatever work I had been doing at the time. Is it perfect? Nope, the chaptering deal is kinda queer. It doesn't take but a few minutes to export 60 minutes of HD footage to GarageBand, but it's still odd you have to do it. Currently it's rendering 60 minutes of HD footage, 3 menus, and 1 slideshow to DVD and it's running around 2 hours total. That part seems to be shared by both windows and mac :) Will I ever want to use Adobe Premiere again? Not really. Adobe Prem. has more transistions, more audio tracks, multiple video tracks, etc., but those don't make me more productive at all. I'm not exactly sure how long it took me to do this dvd, but I did it in between fixing the hot tub, taking my twins to a birthday party, mowing the lawn, and rearranging my media room today, so it couldn't have been very much time. I can finally see me editing the backlog of videos in my desk drawer. 50 some odd tapes at last count! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| ColdFusion 8 - Build next generation apps today, with easy PDF and Ajax features - download now http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/coldfusion/cf8_beta_whatsnew_052907.pdf Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:242480 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
