It Takes a Village . . .

. . . of Hardware and Software to make a home movie.

Scenes from a movie about Thomas Edison (Edison, the Man, 1940) come to mind. Spencer Tracy, playing the role, keeps trying different materials to serve as the filament for his electric light bulb. After numerous failed attempts, he hits upon carbon and the commercially viable electric light bulb is patented.

Home video editing is like that, only without the commercial viability or the patent.

Depending upon the medium — a computer file resident on a hard drive, a Blu-ray disk, or a regular or high definition DVD disk  — it takes experimenting with different combinations of hardware, software, and techniques to produce a viable product.

I think video editing is a wonderful expression of creativity. But then, it is my hobby. I would not want to discourage anyone from the hobby. Editing home videos is a form of storing and sharing memories and, hey, who isn't into a bit of self-indulgence? But in my experience, it is also a frustrating process of trial and error. I suppose that also is a form of creativity. Like Edison and his filaments, I was forced to think up different trials of computers, programs, and settings to hit upon a satisfactory result.

I began editing video in the late 20th Century using multiple video-tape recorders and a switch box. It's a process called linear editing and it is not only frustrating, it's not very rewarding because with each copy, the picture quality gets worse. With the advent of affordable, consumer non-linear editing, I took the plunge. I am on my fourth system and, as it turns out, in order to share videos taken in Europe this September, I need each of the previous three.

A Simple Video File that Plays on Television

For our own use, I store video files on an external hard drive that hooks up to a new Roku box via a USB cable. My tiny four terabyte drive is only half full and replaces some fifty DVD boxes. But I did have to buy the new Roku box, and it took several tries with different file formats on my iMac before I discovered the one that the Roku could read. It's got to be in H264. The lesson here is that if you are using a Mac, you live in a small world.

Then the problem was jerky playback. What looked perfectly fine on the Mac was intolerably jerky on anything else. I won't go through the details, in large part because there were so many frustrations that I have shoved the memories into oblivion. All I remember is what worked.

First, edit the raw clips in Final Cut X in their native format. In my case, I am using a high definition, 1920x1080 pixel video camera that shoots 60 frames per second. I am rounding up. Owing to accidents of cathode ray televisions, it's actually 59.94 fps, which is double the standard NTSC 29.97 fps. Web search "frames per second" and your head will spin looking for rhyme or reason. There are more settings than you can imagine in a nightmare. At any rate, FC-X and its extra-price "Compressor" software which is supposedly "professional" and gives the user even more control over output (it doesn't) is incapable of producing a movie file that does not jerk on my television.

Second, copy the edited file into MyDVD (a hybrid Roxio-Apple program) and have it rendered into a high definition DVD. Why MyDVD? Because Toast Titanium, the much touted standard for playing, copying and authoring CD, DVD and now Blu-rays on Macs, particularly important because Steve Jobs and Apple refused to support Blu-ray (it had to do with patent royalties), does not work. Another lesson: do not use Toast Titanium for anything other than copying.

Third, strip the actual movie file from the DVD image (an "ISO" folder), now in television-legible 29.97 fps, and import it back into FC-X.

Fourth, render the imported DVD file from the ISO folder because without the DVD envelope, no Roku box or pretty much anything else will read it. By stroke of good fortune, FC-X does. It takes several agonizing minutes to import, then more time to export (the term used now is "share") the .mov file (in H264, naturally).

Oh, I forgot something. While Toast would not work at all, MyDVD has the curious habit of shifting the sound track almost two seconds ahead of the video. Like, you hear the words from my mouth one second, then my mouth moves the next. Unacceptable. The fix? Start each edit with two seconds of test frames and loud noise, then two seconds of blank video and audio. When the file is imported back into FC-X for the final rendering, detach the audio and, using the test frames, noise, and blank, shift the audio track into place.

The end product is high definition video on my television. It's quite satisfying to watch.

A High Definition Silver Platter

Shari wants to send copies to her Mum. Of course, I am flattered with any audience. Shari's Mum doesn't have a new Roku box with a USB port, but she does have a Blu-ray player. I am scared because I know the frustrations of authoring and burning silver platters are even greater than just producing a viable video file. Plus, it takes several hours for the computer to render and burn a disk, so the frustration of each trial and error is magnified.

Apple, courtesy of Steve Jobs, does not support Blu-ray. Which is why I have MyDVD and Toast. Both have facilities for authoring Blu-ray and high definition DVD (called "AVCHD" DVD) discs. Like a gullible fool, I fiddled around setting up menus and chapter markers for scenes on each program. The time was wasted. Toast would hum along for several hours then, when its little ticker-tape reader stated it was 99% done, it froze and delivered the always assuring dialogue box that reads something like "unknown error 3640137. Toast must shut down." MyDVD would hum along for several hours and produce a wonderful disc — with the audio track almost two seconds off-kilter. Unacceptable.

I thought of using my Windows laptop. There are two "big" video editing programs for consumers: Final Cut on Macs and Premiere on Windows. I also have Premiere. I had purchased it before my iMac and FC-X, only to be frustrated trying to use Premiere. So I switched back to Macs. Now came the time for Premiere and Windows glory. I copied the end product files from my iMac onto a thumb drive and loaded them onto my laptop and into Premiere. I even figured out menus and chapter markers for scenes. First I produced high definition DVD's, the AVCHD variety. Lo and behold, success!

Blank DVD's are much cheaper than blank Blu-rays. Trouble is, a DVD is good for 4.7 gigabytes compared to 23 gigabytes for a Blu-ray. My product took six DVD's, about twenty-five minutes of video each. I progressed to Blu-ray. I burned two separate Blu-rays and got perfect results, except for the photo of Shari I used for one of the menus. No worries. I had finally figured out how to produce a Blu-ray.

A Regular Definition Silver Platter

Shari wants to send copies to her Aunt. Of course, I am flattered with any audience. Shari's Aunt has only a regular television and a regular DVD player. That adds another complexity: reducing wide screen, high definition, 16:9 aspect video to the old standard resolution, 4:3 aspect video.

I tried the iMac. FC-X hummed along for several hours and produced a disk with chopped off menus and images. It's what low resolution TV broadcasters do to wide screen movies: mutilate them. MyDVD hummed along for several hours and produced a good looking disk with the audio track almost two seconds off kilter. Unacceptable. Toast hummed along for several hours and choked. It delivered an assuring dialogue box stating that the last instruction failed because it had to open too many files. Say what? It had successfully processed, interpreted, de-shrunk, sampled, re-shrunk and multiplexed some three hours of video, that's over 22 billion pixels plus audio, and it got hung up opening thirty files? Premiere hummed along for several hours then choked. It just froze. After aborting a couple of times, I thought to myself, "Maybe it needs a lot of time."  I left it on overnight. It was at 23% when I went to bed. It was at 23% when I woke up.

Shari suggested taking my files to a commercial place to have it authored and burned onto DVD. My ego took that as a personal affront. She intended only to help, but I would not give in.

After some hours, I thought to myself, "What about the old Mac?" I bought the Mac G-5 in 2006 because the custom built PC that I had bought specifically for video editing a couple of years earlier was incapable of burning a DVD without skips. Its connection between computer and burner was too slow. The G-5, like its Windows-based predecessor, is a desktop. Does anyone remember desktop computers? They are the ones so big and so heavy that you had to put them on the floor. They came with cathode ray monitors.

The G-5 version of Final Cut had never failed me editing. Its version of MyDVD worked seamlessly because, back a decade ago, Apple actually supported and integrated the then current video technology.

I experimented. I converted one of my end-product files to the DV format. Thank goodness, Final Cut on the G-5 read the files. I loaded all the files on the G-5 and Final Cut. The old ways came back, like riding a bicycle. I quickly loaded a timeline with about half the files, inserted chapter markers, rendered it, imported it into MyDVD, then designed menus. The G-5 hummed along for three hours and produced a DVD that worked perfectly.

Thomas Edison would be proud.