Post by Winston Smith on Sept 22, 2005 20:56:51 GMT -5
I just bought a C5 a few days ago, and there are a couple of things that I've tried to do with it, but have been unable to. So, I'm hoping someone on this forum has had luck, and can point me the way.
1) Importing to Adobe Premier Pro
I've spent countless hours scouring the net for some way to get the infernal MP4 format files into Premier. One of the tools I've tried is MP4Cam2AVI, but the files it produces, while not outright rejected by Premier (like the MP4s are), turn out as completely BLANK video feed in the finished video.
I've tried many different settings in MP4Cam2AVI, but to no avail. The video looks fine in Premier's source monitor, but drop them into the project, and blam--blank video.
2) Motion Director
I was happy to see that one of the pieces of software bundled gave the capability to create panoramas, because I've wanted a cheap solution for making those for years. So I went out and shot a video clip that included a panoramic segment. I figured I can just crop out that portion. Problem is, Motion Director only accepts the C5-produced files, and since (apparently) no piece of software in existence can edit those files, it seems you have to be very careful not to include anything else in your video clip, if you want to use it for a panorama.
Do you see what I mean by that? Lets say your footage is 1200 frames long, and the segment that is just right for use as a panorama source is from frame 423 to frame 1155. Motion Director has no way of handling that, as far as I can tell. You just have to use the whole damned file.
So you would have to do the editing first in some other software. But since you have to convert the (infernal) MP4 files before you can edit them, you end up with a format that Motion Director can't use. I tried it. It won't work. I converted what I will call my "Sanyo MP4 file" to an AVI, so I could crop it in Windows Movie Maker. So far, so good. I then saved the edited video in as close a format as the shitty Windows Movie Maker can get to what the original MP4 was. And last, I used the included (the only thing I could find) Ulead Photo explorer to convert the WMV back to MP4. But Motion Director refuses to read the "non-Sanyo MP4" file!
--
It's all very frustrating, and has left me almost deciding to return this thing and get a tape DV camcorder, so I can import via Firewire straight into Premier. The reason I went for the Xacti C5 in the first place (besides the tiny size), was that it produces already compressed files, which negates the vast hard drive space you need for dealing with 50+ GB source video clips. I just wish I had realized what a headache editing would be.
1) Importing to Adobe Premier Pro
I've spent countless hours scouring the net for some way to get the infernal MP4 format files into Premier. One of the tools I've tried is MP4Cam2AVI, but the files it produces, while not outright rejected by Premier (like the MP4s are), turn out as completely BLANK video feed in the finished video.
I've tried many different settings in MP4Cam2AVI, but to no avail. The video looks fine in Premier's source monitor, but drop them into the project, and blam--blank video.
2) Motion Director
I was happy to see that one of the pieces of software bundled gave the capability to create panoramas, because I've wanted a cheap solution for making those for years. So I went out and shot a video clip that included a panoramic segment. I figured I can just crop out that portion. Problem is, Motion Director only accepts the C5-produced files, and since (apparently) no piece of software in existence can edit those files, it seems you have to be very careful not to include anything else in your video clip, if you want to use it for a panorama.
Do you see what I mean by that? Lets say your footage is 1200 frames long, and the segment that is just right for use as a panorama source is from frame 423 to frame 1155. Motion Director has no way of handling that, as far as I can tell. You just have to use the whole damned file.
So you would have to do the editing first in some other software. But since you have to convert the (infernal) MP4 files before you can edit them, you end up with a format that Motion Director can't use. I tried it. It won't work. I converted what I will call my "Sanyo MP4 file" to an AVI, so I could crop it in Windows Movie Maker. So far, so good. I then saved the edited video in as close a format as the shitty Windows Movie Maker can get to what the original MP4 was. And last, I used the included (the only thing I could find) Ulead Photo explorer to convert the WMV back to MP4. But Motion Director refuses to read the "non-Sanyo MP4" file!
--
It's all very frustrating, and has left me almost deciding to return this thing and get a tape DV camcorder, so I can import via Firewire straight into Premier. The reason I went for the Xacti C5 in the first place (besides the tiny size), was that it produces already compressed files, which negates the vast hard drive space you need for dealing with 50+ GB source video clips. I just wish I had realized what a headache editing would be.
