What's your clip collection method?

DriftRoot · Post by **DriftRoot** » Mon Dec 12, 2005 11:58 am

Just curious about this subject, seeing as there are many different ways of gathering the clips you think you'll use in the finished AMV. In particular I'm wondering about Premiere users - do you import clips made in VDM or the whole AVS file (as recommended in the AMV guide)? I'm currently doing the latter and placing my clips in various sequences for sorting purposes, but somehow this just doesn't seem like the best way. It's also causing extremely long load times and, down the road, probably program crashing on a colossal scale. I vaguely remember actually making clips in the source monitor and putting these into project bins with an older version of Premiere (I currently use Pro), but this could be old age befuddling my memory.

Zarxrax · Post by **Zarxrax** » Mon Dec 12, 2005 12:35 pm

It depends what I'm doing. If I am doing a video with lots of various sources that I'm not really familiar with, I search through for clips I might need, and save them out of virtualdub. If I am working with a really long series that has a lot of episodes, I will do the same thing.

If I am working with a shorter series, or a movie or something, I will usually just put the whole episode into premiere and pick out the parts as i need them.

mikestrife · Post by **mikestrife** » Mon Dec 12, 2005 1:46 pm

I usually pull all the source footage I want into Premiere via AVS files, and find the scenes I need. If they are really short(like if I'm using alot of sources and only need a couple seconds from one) then I'll just export that clip as huffyuv and erase the vobs, otherwise I keep going with all my clips on the timeline.

Ojamajo_LimePie · Post by **Ojamajo_LimePie** » Mon Dec 12, 2005 2:16 pm

I make VOBs for each DVD chapter I'm going to use, clean them up in VirtualDubMod, then export them as AVIs. Next, I load the chapter AVIs into WMM and make shorter clips of the scenes I want. Those clips get saved as AVIs, and the large chapter files get deleted. Finally, I load the shorter clips into Premiere and edit away.

Qyot27 · Post by **Qyot27** » Mon Dec 12, 2005 2:37 pm

Normally, I open the VOBs through VDub with AVISynth, export out the clips I need, and then use those in Premiere.

On my last project though, I made LQ MJPG files from the VOB scripts I put into VDub, moved the d2v files and VOB scripts to a different folder, deleted the VOBs, and made up new, simple load scripts [AVISource("...")] for the MJPGs, and then made more AVS scripts using Import() and Trim() commands to pare down clips to load into Premiere. It worked fine for a while, but all of a sudden I had to insert ConvertToRGB24() despite having other clip scripts referencing the same file (it happened at the 37 or 38 file mark). I also had memory problems once I put the VOBs back on to do the bait-and-switch so I had to just take the individual clip scripts, export to AVI with VDub, edit the Premiere .ppj file to change all the instances of .avs to .avi, increase my virtual memory to some 3GB, and then finally export.

In summary, to avoid the most amount of trouble, stick to AVI clips or load the entire episodes with AVS scripts.

Kariudo · Post by **Kariudo** » Mon Dec 12, 2005 3:28 pm

after ripping and that whole post-processing bit I go through the whole episode/disk in vdubmod then take clips that I think I'll use, save them as avi files, and import them into premiere.

The import times are fast, and I don't lose video quality.

DriftRoot · Post by **DriftRoot** » Mon Dec 12, 2005 4:40 pm

Maaaann....apparently I'm doing it the bad way.

*weighs the pros and cons of redoing three hours of clip collection<---and this is only for the first disc*

Now wait a minute, regarding making AVI files in VDM and importing those in Premiere (not for bait and switch), didn't the AMV guide warn that this has quality-control issues and fills up one's hard drive? This is the way I used to do things because I was only working with movies, not 50+ episodes of a particular series.

*weighs pros and cons of using AVS files (which have already been deleted to save space)* I really, really, really do not want my system to hiccup when I pull a fast one on Premiere.

Also, is creating various segments of an AMV in different projects, exporting them as AVIs and then importing them into the "master" AMV project something to try? I did this with about 10 seconds of footage I had laying around and it just didn't look right when imported into my master project...the quality seemed to really degrade (yes, I was using the proper codecs). This method might save space, if you knew that 16 GB of clips were done with and could be deleted after the AMV section that used them was completed. Though, then you were stuck with what you had...unless you burned it all to DVD. Hmm.

I'm just paranoid about my computer (only 60 GB) filling up and/or having a fit when I switch my AVI files to AVS. Question: If I save my project as an alternate project file, delete all the clips I did not use in the master timeline, save it again, close it, move my AVI files, open the project and swap the AVI files for the AVS ones, will this work out? If I don't need to swap 75% of the clips I initially collected, wouldn't paring the project file down to ONLY those used in the AMV be a better way to go?

Qyot27 · Post by **Qyot27** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 12:59 am

DriftRoot wrote:Now wait a minute, regarding making AVI files in VDM and importing those in Premiere (not for bait and switch), didn't the AMV guide warn that this has quality-control issues and fills up one's hard drive? This is the way I used to do things because I was only working with movies, not 50+ episodes of a particular series.

What quality issues? If you're using HuffYUV, Lagarith, or Uncompressed RGB, there is no quality loss, save for any colorspace conversions/filtering side-effects which may be there (and colorspace conversions aren't usually noticeable unless you've done it to the footage a crapload of times, and even then it's typically only barely noticeable, unless you're looking at solid blue or red screens or whatever other colors are adversely affected by that kind of thing) - the quality issues come in when trying to use lossy codecs - DivX, Sorenson, MJPG, etc. And colorspace conversions and filtering side-effects are both concerns when using the AVS method as well.

And if you're only using clips, it shouldn't impact hard drive space much, but it will be a significantly larger amount (expect to set aside around 1.5-3 gigs if you're using HuffYUV and are aiming for 100+ clips that are say, 5-15 seconds apiece at 720x480 resolution, assuming you're using HuffYUV in RGB mode instead of YUY2 or YV12 - YV12 is only available from the ffdshow VFW encoder). Once you've got the clips, it's typical practice to delete the VOBs since you don't need them anymore, so unless you've got a small hard drive and a lot of other stuff is cluttering it up, it shouldn't be a problem (speaking from experience here; I'm currently using a 25 gig HDD that usually only has about 10 gigs free at any given moment, and even that flucuates with the amount of crap that I download regularly - right now I've pushed it up to 18.5 because I'm about to format and make it a dual boot, but w/e).

Keeper of Hellfire · Post by **Keeper of Hellfire** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 7:09 am

Qyot27 wrote:the quality issues come in when trying to use lossy codecs - DivX, Sorenson, MJPG, etc.

I'm not sure if MJPEG always is lossy, because I know that lossless JPEG exists. MJPEG at 100% quality is nearly lossless, if not lossless at all. In preparation for an IC I tested several methods, including the use of MJPEG at 100%. Between HuffYUV and MJPEG 100% I didn't notice any visible difference, even after a render with effects applied. The MJPEG files had less than half of the size of the HuffYUV files, and the performance of the MJPEG files was better too. The only hint that MJPEG 100% may be a little bit lossy was the DivX encode. The MJPEG file produced a slightly larger DivX-File(less than 1%) - with slightly better quality.

(less artefacts)

DriftRoot · Post by **DriftRoot** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 9:08 am

Qyot27 wrote:What quality issues?

There are none, unless you have a small hard drive and therefore must create lower-quality AVI clips, which the AMV guide says the following about: "Making clips can be useful for those who find it unwieldy to edit with full episodes and full dvds. It can also give you a good pool of footage to work from and saves searching around for footage. However, if you want to keep the best quality then the files you make are going to be very big so you better have a big HD. Backing up these big files is also difficult. I do not recommend this method if you want to re-create the project later but don't want to spend days burning CDs with your clips on."

I veered away from this method (which, as previously stated, I used to regularly use) because of space issues, but it looks like I'm now running into other problems. My PC is yelling about low virtual memory when I'm fiddling in Premiere with three, low-quality AVI files (each containing one DVD worth of episodes - 4). I have three more to add, and then I've got to worry about holding my computer together long enough to swap the files out for the AVS ones.

How about this: I export the clips I've already got (as I would the final AMV after swapping for the AVS files, of course). Delete the master AVI files, then bring the smaller clip files back into Premiere under a new project file. I realize my clips will be melded into sequence-like form, but this is already sort of the case and everything's sorted out pretty well. Then, I continue on my merry way, but with two options
1. In the master project file (having deleted the alread-converted clips) with the other three AVI files for the other three discs, repeat the above swapping out method, and then get down to work actually putting together this AMV!
2. Trash the AVS swapping method and get my clips in VDM. <---- Will clips using this method end up looking different than clips that used the swap method?

Note: I've got about 25 GB of free space to work with on my 60 GB hard drive.

I swear, I need to concentrate on my one little AMV with only 1.5 hours of source footage.