Solving the Digital Video File size dilemma

One of the challenges facing users of Digital Video editing systems, particularly coaches, is the amount of disk space consumed by an uncompressed digital video file.

I know I was completely shocked a few years ago when I realized that the very first game that I captured from VHS tape consumed over half of the free space on my computer! Sure, when typical hard drives were 20-30 GB and "gigs" were expensive, this was more of an issue than it is today. But, even today, as great looking as pure uncompressed video it is, its size makes it very hard to work with.

This is not as much a cost issue as a convenience and logistics issue, but it is solvable by using a video editing system that can work with compressed video - ideally without compromising the video quality.

Some systems use a format called MPEG 1 or MPEG 2. MPEG 1 is smaller, but MPEG 2 has a far superior video quality. MPEG 2 is the format used on DVD's but unfortunately, DVD's store the video in a way that can make the video unrecognizable and partially unusable to many editing systems. I have successfully converted DVD's to MPEG2 in recent years with Easy Media Creator from Roxio, and plan to test their new version which will work with DivX (see below). Easy-Media Creator is the grandaddy of CD/DVD burning software usually runs about $75-80 (after rebates usually) and is available at most places that sell packaged software, both online and offline.

Storage complexities aside, there are a number of problems with MPEG2 as a format for use in Video Editing. MPEG2 was designed for playing back movies, not for editing. For this reason, the back and forth, pause/rewind control of MPEG2 video is not as good as other formats. , and often crashes a computer. Better and far more reliable results can be achieved using uncompressed video (avi), Divx or Windows Media formats.

Recently, during testing of a number of video "converter" products, I discovered that the DIVX format works well for editing video. DIVX is a compressed format which produces an .avi file that consumes a fraction (about 10%) of the space of uncompressed DV video with a minimal compromise in quality. In fact, I recently captured 60 minutes of video and used only 2 GB worth of disk space compared to the 25GB that would have been consumed by uncompressed video. DIVX requires special software, called a CODEC to work its magic.

My first experience with DIVX was using Intervideo's excellent DVDCopy4 Platinum product ($80 - available online and in big box electronics stores). A software solution like Roxio, DVDCopy4 can convert part of all of a DVD to a small, high quality DVX file on your computer. As software-only solutions, this means you need a video card or some other way to connect a VCR to your computer. Once connected, both can easily convert from the DVD's "mysterious" format to a single file on your PC. For playback of DIVX video, a free download from www.divx.com" is available.

An alternative to purchasing a video capture card is to purchase a "converter box" like Plextor's ConvertX M402U which I used in this case. Similar in concept and function to the more expensive Canopus converter, the Plextor uses its own "chip" to encode the video while capturing, so the hit to your computer's performance is reduced. The Plextor connects via USB 2.0, which is great for desktop computers that dont have a firewire connector. The Canopus requires a Firewire port which is usually available on most laptop computers but not always on desktop computers. Plus, the Canopus format is uncompressed, making an external hard drive a requirement for storing a season's worth of video for highlight tapes. With DIVX, a season comfortably fits on a computer's hard drive.

The Plextor 402U will run you about $150 but recently a rebate had dropped the price under $100 - pretty incredible for what it includes. Get it at Amazon, Tiger Direct and other leading online vendors or Circuit City for about 50 bucks more. Plextor bundles WinDVD Creator 2, and the box I got included the ULead VideoStudio 8 DVDLE.

These are all first class companies and products will be well supported. I've also stumbled across a simple, FREE, FAST, "down and dirty" utility that will convert an entire DVD to MPEG 2 for playback on a PC. The price is right, but a second download is usually required in order to play and edit the video, and editing has all of the problems mentioned above that plague the MPEG2 format. For this reason, we think spending the $50 for DVDCopy from Intervideo is well worth it.