Making the Avi Movies into one long clip????

Is there a way to make the AVI movies (on my G2) into one long movie? Some sort of editing program, add voiceovers, add breaks, captions, etc.

(I do not like having to keep clicking and finding files for Quicktime or Media Player to start)

I took my G2 to a cocktail party the other day and did 20-30 second movies of everyone, and had to play it back to big audiences 8 times over the next three days..it was so much fun.

It works really well as playback on a Television but I want something to stitch them together on the computer for computer playback. Also once I downloaded the movies to the computer and erased them from my card then they could not be uploaded again to the card for showing on Television...any suggestions there?

PS My first foray into the Forum........my reading of the Canon Talk has given me so many hints on my new G2 --Cheers David S

David Strachan said:

Is there a way to make the AVI movies (on my G2) into one long
movie? Some sort of editing program, add voiceovers, add breaks,
captions, etc.

Click to expand...

David.. I assume you got ArcSoft's "Video Impression" bundled with your camera. I've been making longer movies with my CP775, and having just bought a Canon S110 today, I've been making movies with it too.

I can't even view AVI files on my PC, but Video Impression let's me load, edit and display them, then saves them in my choice of formats (MPEG-1). You can add clip after clip, overlay sound, add titles, insert some neat transitions, and trim whatever scenes you don't like. Works great. Then you can download Windows Media Encoder for free, and convert your film to a .wmv format, and stream it from a web site. A 3+ mb video compresses down to about 500k in the wmv format.

Have fun!

Drew
--Gallery: http://cohn.cohn.net

Thanks Drew, but the G2 owners do not get ArcSoft Camera Suite (enticingly described in the user manual for the G2, but not available for us) or the "Video Impression" is also not available. Cheers David S

Drew said:

David Strachan said:

Is there a way to make the AVI movies (on my G2) into one long
movie? Some sort of editing program, add voiceovers, add breaks,
captions, etc.

Click to expand...

David.. I assume you got ArcSoft's "Video Impression" bundled with
your camera. I've been making longer movies with my CP775, and
having just bought a Canon S110 today, I've been making movies with
it too.

I can't even view AVI files on my PC, but Video Impression let's me
load, edit and display them, then saves them in my choice of
formats (MPEG-1). You can add clip after clip, overlay sound, add
titles, insert some neat transitions, and trim whatever scenes you
don't like. Works great. Then you can download Windows Media
Encoder for free, and convert your film to a .wmv format, and
stream it from a web site. A 3+ mb video compresses down to about
500k in the wmv format.

Have fun!

Drew

--
Gallery: http://cohn.cohn.net

Click to expand...

I use a tool called VirtualDub which will allow you to join AVI files. You may need to get an MJPEG codec to allow it to read the files off the camera.

Unfortunately it's really just a manipulation package, it doesn't let you edit in the way adobe premiere does.

A basic avi joiner is here:

http://extra.newsguy.com/archive/pub/pcapps/PPJ11bf.zip

Its called pecks power join. You can only join similar format movies though.

Regarding having to open quicktime to view your movies, go to windows explorer and find the "C:\WINDOWS\SendTo" folder. Insert a quicktime player shortcut in here. Now to view movies without opening media player, simply right click the movie, and choose "send to: quicktime player."

David Strachan said:

Is there a way to make the AVI movies (on my G2) into one long
movie? Some sort of editing program, add voiceovers, add breaks,
captions, etc.
(I do not like having to keep clicking and finding files for
Quicktime or Media Player to start)

I took my G2 to a cocktail party the other day and did 20-30 second
movies of everyone, and had to play it back to big audiences 8
times over the next three days..it was so much fun.

It works really well as playback on a Television but I want
something to stitch them together on the computer for computer
playback. Also once I downloaded the movies to the computer and
erased them from my card then they could not be uploaded again to
the card for showing on Television...any suggestions there?

PS My first foray into the Forum........my reading of the Canon
Talk has given me so many hints on my new G2
--
Cheers David S

Click to expand...

David Strachan said:

Is there a way to make the AVI movies (on my G2) into one long
movie? Some sort of editing program, add voiceovers, add breaks,
captions, etc.

Click to expand...

If you only want to cut 'n' paste your movies a small but very useful tool called VirtualDub will do nicely (I use it all the time). It's freeware and you can get it here: http://www.virtualdub.org .

If you want to do advanced editing you should get one of the big guns like Adobe Premiere or Ulead Mediastudio. I've seen both, and they are bot awesome pieces of software. Mediastudio seemed the more userfriendly to me, and Premiere the more powerful. Prepare to fork out quite a bit of money for each of these packages.

David Strachan said:

It works really well as playback on a Television but I want
something to stitch them together on the computer for computer
playback. Also once I downloaded the movies to the computer and
erased them from my card then they could not be uploaded again to
the card for showing on Television...any suggestions there?

Click to expand...

I have not tried this myself as I use my computer with a tv-out card to show movies (and lots of other things) on my tv. If you do a search in this forum you may find some answers.

One more thing about G2 movies: they are compressed with an mjpeg codec. Windows does not have this codec natively, and to play them in mediaplayer or edit them you need to download this codec. Look here: http://puntkomma.dhs.org/tutorial for more info.

Hope this helps

Jeroen
the Netherlands

http://autorai2001.dhs.org
Cool pictures of sports cars, taken with a G1.

Drew said:

David Strachan wrote:

Click to expand...

Then you can download Windows Media

Drew said:

Encoder for free, and convert your film to a .wmv format, and
stream it from a web site. A 3+ mb video compresses down to about
500k in the wmv format.

Have fun!

Click to expand...

Hi there :

I tried... but do u knwo that is was COMPLETELY impossible to transfer an AVI file from the Canon G2 into a .wmv file using the Windaws mdia Encoder ?? I could not believe it !

Real Media Producer works PERFECTLY well (Free version, otherwise: 300 DOllars...) but is much, much, much more simpler... U use AVI files as input files, it'll accept them. Wioth WM Encoder, avi files, though quoted as compatible and even importable, are not allowed in the programmm...

Such a stipid thing...

I have not tried it yet, but I think plain old Movie Maker, bundled with Windows Me and Windows XP will allow you to join files together. After you have joined them, you can convert to wmv (Windows media format) which makes it a MUCH smaller file. (See my post on e-mailing movies).

Movie Maker is real easy to use and you can convert the G2 AVI file to WMV with just a few mouse clicks.

I also have VideoWave III which may also be able to connect files and edit them. I got it free after rebate. I think Ulead has a good video product also.
So many toys, so little time to play with them...

Movie Maker does the job just fine. I just joined 3 Canon movies together into one, compressed it, and converted it to Windows Media File. These were two 30 sec clips from my G2 plus a 10 sec clip from my daughter's A40. The three original files would add up to 20 MB. This file is 900kB.
http://www.acebiz.com/photos/combo.wmv

I just imported the 3 files, dragged and dropped them to the time line, and did a "save as". Extremely easy.

If you can't play this, you may need to get the lasted Windows Media Player, available free here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/

David Strachan said:

David Strachan wrote:
Is there a way to make the AVI movies (on my G2) into one long
movie?

Click to expand...

Hi David,

Checkout VirtualDub:
http://www.virtualdub.org/

• Scotty

http://pbase.com/scottyee

Hi

BTW, how did you manage to use WMV producer with G2 since it is COMPLETELY incompatible ?? That's what i've been told by the program itself (file not recognized) and by other users. I was very surprised to see your film playing beautifully!

One more thung: did you notice that if you want to use Real Producer to stream or compress video (works great!) you are supposed tohave the original file, and that no modification is allowed ?? This is bothersome, especially if you edit in Quicktime (Hey, I just bought the program for that, and now I can't use it for this purpose), cut some parts of the film, or use this very convenient tool: audio volume, to play films a little louder and change effects (right speakers or left speakers). Nothing is possible, just stick to the original file... I can't satnd this, since Quicktime is a great tool: you can add a discrete soundtrack (music or comments), controm its volume level... while your film is playing. You have an AVI file in the end or a MOV one, but you won't be able to compress it for Real...

Any suggestion?
Thanks :!

Gus Stangeland said:

Movie Maker does the job just fine. I just joined 3 Canon movies
together into one, compressed it, and converted it to Windows Media
File. These were two 30 sec clips from my G2 plus a 10 sec clip
from my daughter's A40. The three original files would add up to 20
MB. This file is 900kB.
http://www.acebiz.com/photos/combo.wmv
I just imported the 3 files, dragged and dropped them to the time
line, and did a "save as". Extremely easy.
If you can't play this, you may need to get the lasted Windows
Media Player, available free here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/

Click to expand...

--
--
Cornwall (Stéphane Roger)
http://www.dts-phile.com
1509.75% dedicated to DTS Digital Surround Sound

Cornwall said:

Hi

BTW, how did you manage to use WMV producer with G2 since it is
COMPLETELY incompatible ?? That's what i've been told by the
program itself (file not recognized) and by other users. I was very
surprised to see your film playing beautifully!

Click to expand...

I used Windows Movie Maker. Is that what you meant by "WMV producer"? Well, I didn't know it was incompatable, so just went ahead and did it - worked fine. Maybe we are not on the same page.

Cornwall said:

One more thung: did you notice that if you want to use Real
Producer to stream or compress video (works great!) you are
supposed tohave the original file, and that no modification is
allowed ?? This is bothersome, especially if you edit in Quicktime
(Hey, I just bought the program for that, and now I can't use it
for this purpose), cut some parts of the film, or use this very
convenient tool: audio volume, to play films a little louder and
change effects (right speakers or left speakers). Nothing is
possible, just stick to the original file... I can't satnd this,
since Quicktime is a great tool: you can add a discrete soundtrack
(music or comments), controm its volume level... while your film is
playing. You have an AVI file in the end or a MOV one, but you
won't be able to compress it for Real...

Any suggestion?
Thanks :!

Click to expand...

I don't have any Quicktime producers, so don't know anything about that. It is my understanding that Quicktime is NOT a compression scheme like RealMedia and WMV, but correct me if I am wrong.

As I see it, there are two very different aspects to this subject of movies.

1) You want to combine, edit, add sound, add narrative, add music, generally produce a nice movie that you can maybe burn to a DVD and have your friends over to watch it. In this case you would most likely create a Quicktime or MPEG movie.

2) You took some movies of your new baby and you want to send them to your parents right away, by e-mail. For this, you MUST compress the files, you can't be sending 8 MByte files by e-mail. For this, you have to use either RealProducer to create a ".rm" (real media) file or you use Movie Maker (or it's equivalent) to create a ".wmv" (windows movie) file.
What I have been discussing in my post is all related to #2.

I don't think I answered your second question, maybe you can reword it.