Adding black video to your timeline

If you plan to export your Pinnacle Studio movie project to tape in a digital camcorder, you’ll need to add some black video clips to the beginning and end of the timeline. To add a black video clip to the beginning of your project, follow these steps:

1. In the Edit mode, click the Titles tab on the left side of the album. A selection of titles appears in the album.
2. If any tracks in the timeline are currently locked, click the track headers on the left side of the timeline to unlock them. When a track is locked, a tiny lock icon appears on the track header and a zebra-stripe pattern appears across the track. Unlocking all tracks is an important step because you’re going to insert a title clip at the very beginning of the timeline. If all tracks are unlocked, they all shift over automatically when you insert the title. This keeps all your narration, music, and title overlays properly synchronized with your video.
3. Click-and-drag any title to the very beginning of the video track on your timeline.
4. Double-click the title to open the title editor
5. Select the text in the title and press Delete on your keyboard to delete all the title text.
6. Adjust the duration of the title using the Duration field in the upperright corner of the title editor. I recommend a duration of 30 seconds.
7. Close the title editor. The blank title will appear at the beginning of the timeline.
8. Click the blank title once to select it, and then choose Edit➪Copy.
9. Move the play head to the end of the timeline.
10. Choose Edit➪Paste.

A copy of the blank title will now appear at the end of the movie as well. Another thing I often like to do is add a Dissolve transition between the initial black video clip and the first actual clip of the movie. This technique makes the beginning of the movie a little easier on the eyes as it fades in. In Figure 15-4, I have done this by dragging a Dissolve transition to the timeline from the Transitions tab of the Studio album.

Exporting to tape in Windows Movie Maker

You can export to tape from Windows Movie Maker, but I really don’t recommend it if you have another option. Even if you use Movie Maker’s very highest-quality capture option, your video is still compressed by Windows Movie Maker when it’s first captured into your computer. This means that the quality of the source footage stored on your computer is somewhat reduced right from the start. If you don’t have any other choice but to use Windows Movie Maker, here’s how to do it: First connect your digital camcorder to the computer’s FireWire port. I also strongly recommend that you use Movie Maker’s titling tool to create a blank title with no words and a black background. Place this title at the beginning of your project and make it 30 seconds long. Copy the title and place it at the end of the project as well. When you’re ready to send your movie to tape, click Send to DV Camera under the Finish Movie step in Movie Maker (remember, I recommend using Windows Movie Maker version 2 or later; see Appendix E for information on downloading the latest version). Put a blank tape in your camcorder and follow the instructions on-screen to export your movie to tape.

Exporting to tape in Apple iMovie

Like most software from Apple, iMovie is entirely functional and to-the-point. And at no time is this more evident than when you want to export your movie to tape. iMovie doesn’t have the ability to export directly to an analog capture card, but it definitely can export video at full quality to your digital camcorder.
To export your finished movie to tape, follow these steps:

1. Connect your digital camcorder to the FireWire port on your computer, and turn the camera on to VTR or Player mode.
Make sure that you have a new, blank videotape cued up and ready in the camcorder.

2. In iMovie, choose File➪Export.

3. Choose To Camera from the Export menu.

4. Adjust the Wait field if you want.
The Wait field controls how long iMovie waits for the camera to get ready before it begins export. I recommend leaving the Wait field set at five seconds unless you’re exporting to a video converter (such as the Dazzle Hollywood DV Bridge) connected to your FireWire port. In that case, you may want to increase the wait to about ten seconds or so to ensure that you have enough time to press the Record button manually on your VCR.
Whatever you do, don’t reduce the Wait field to less than five seconds. Virtually all camcorders need some time to bring their tape-drive mechanisms up to the proper speed, and the Wait gives the camcorder time to get ready.

5. Adjust the two Add fields to determine the amount of black video that will be recorded at the beginning and end of the tape.
I recommend putting at least 30 seconds of black video at the beginning and end of the movie.

6. Click Export.
iMovie will automatically export your movie to the tape in your camcorder. If you’re exporting directly to a digital camcorder, iMovie will automatically control the camera for you; there’s no need to press the Record button on the camcorder. But if you are exporting through a video converter, you’ll need to manually press Record on your analog VCR.

Exporting Movie

After your hardware is set up properly and you’re sure that your movie will look good on a regular TV, you’re ready to export the movie. Regardless of what software you are using, keep in mind that — like video capture — video export uses a lot of memory and computer resources. To make sure that your system is ready for export:

• Turn off unnecessary programs. If you’re like me, you probably feel like you can’t live without your e-mail program, Internet messaging program, Web browser, and music jukebox all running at once. Maybe you can’t live without these things, but your video-editing software will get along just fine without them. In fact, the export process will work much better if these things are closed, and you’re less likely to have dropped frames or other quality problems during export.
• Disable power-management settings. If you’re exporting a movie that’s 30 minutes long, and your hard disk is set to go into power-saving mode after 15 minutes, you could have a problem during export because the computer will mistakenly decide that exporting a movie is the same thing as inactivity. Power management is usually a good thing, but if your hard disk or other system components go into sleep mode during export, the video export will fail. Pay special attention to this if you’re working on a laptop, which probably has pretty aggressive powermanagement settings right now.
• On a Mac, use the Energy Saver icon in System Preferences to adjust power settings. Crank all the sliders in the Energy Saver window up to Never before you export your movie.
• • In Windows, open the Control Panel, click the Performance and Maintenance category if you see it, and then open the Power Options icon. Set all of the pull-down menus to Never before exporting your movie.
• Disable screen savers. Screen savers aren’t quite as likely to ruin a movie export as power-management settings, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

1. In Windows, right-click a blank area of the Windows desktop and choose Properties. Click the Screen Saver tab of the Display Properties dialog box, and choose the None screen saver. (That’s my favorite one, personally.)
2. On your Mac, open the Screen Saver icon in System Preferences and choose Never on the Activation tab of the Screen Saver dialog box.

Whenever you export a movie to tape, I always recommend that you place some black video at the beginning and end of the movie. Black video at the beginning of the tape gives your audience some time to sit down and relax between the time they push Play and the movie actually starts. Black video at the end of the movie also gives your viewers some time to press Stop before that loud, bright static comes on and puts out someone’s eye. Some editing programs — like Apple iMovie — have tools that allow you to automatically insert black video during the export process. I’ll show you how to insert black video using iMovie in the next section. But if you’re using some other software that doesn’t have this feature — like Pinnacle Studio or Windows Movie Maker — you’ll need to add a clip of black video to the beginning and end of the project’s timeline. You can usually do this by creating a blank full-screen title, and I’ll show you how later in this chapter. The most common failures encountered on VHS tapes are mangling or breakage at the very beginning of the tapes. Employees at video rental stores are quite skilled in the art of VHS tape repair, and they often repair beginning-oftape problems by cutting off the damaged tape, and then re-attaching the remaining good tape to the reel. If you put 30 seconds of black video at the beginning of your VHS tapes, about three feet of tape can be cut off before any of your movie is trimmed away. And if you ever need such a repair performed, head down to your local video store. You should be able to find someone there who will do the job for a couple of dollars.

Setting Up Your Hardware

Getting your hardware ready for exporting a movie to tape isn’t so difficult, really. The easiest thing to do is connect your digital camcorder to your FireWire port and turn on your camcorder to VTR or Player mode. (Oh yeah, and insert a blank tape into the camcorder.) After your movie is recorded onto the tape in your camcorder, you can connect the camcorder to a regular VCR and dub your movie onto a regular VHS tape if you want. I strongly urge you to use a fresh tape that has black video recorded on its entire length. This will prevent errors in communication between your digital camcorder and your computer.
If your master plan is to eventually record your movie on a VHS tape, you may want to skip the middleman — that would be your digital camcorder —and record straight from your computer to a regular VCR. To do so, you have three basic options:

• Use an analog video-capture card. Analog capture cards (such as the Pinnacle AV/DV board) can usually export to an analog source as well as import from one. When you export video using an analog card, I strongly recommend you use the software that came with that card. Most analog capture cards come with special utilities to help you import and export video. The Pinnacle AV/DV board uses Pinnacle Studio to capture and export video. To get Studio ready for analog export, follow these steps

1. Connect the analog outputs for the card to the video inputs on your VCR.
2. Make sure the software that came with the capture card is set to export to the correct ports. The Pinnacle AV/DV, for example, uses the Pinnacle Studio software. In Studio, choose Setup ➪ Make Tape. The Pinnacle Studio Setup Options dialog box appears. On the Make Tape tab, choose Studio AV/DV analog in the Video dropdown list.
3. Make sure that the right analog output ports are selected. The Pinnacle AV/DV board has both composite and S-Video outputs, so choose the one to which you have connected your VCR.

• Use a video converter.
• Use your digital camcorder as a converter.

I know, I know, I said I was going to show you how to avoid using your camcorder as the middleman when you export to VHS tape. But if you don’t have an analog-capture card or a video converter, you might be able to connect your digital camcorder to your FireWire port, and then connect a VCR to the camcorder’s analog outputs. If nothing else, this arrangement reduces wear and tear on your camcorder’s expensive tape-drive mechanism. Some digital camcorders won’t allow you to make this connection, because some models can’t send video out the analog ports at the same time they’re taking video in through the FireWire cable. Experiment with your own camcorder and VCR and see whether this arrangement will work for you. If you are exporting to a VCR, make sure that a new, blank tape is inserted and ready to use, and make sure the VCR is set to the right channel. (Many VCRs have to be set to a special “AV” channel to accept video from composite video cables.) As a last step before you begin your export, preview your movie on a TV connected to the VCR to make sure that the VCR is picking up the signal.

Prepping Your Movie for TV Playback

This means that the video that looks just peachy in the preview window of your editing software may not look all that great when it’s viewed on a regular TV. Computer monitors and TVs differ in three important ways:

• Color: Computer monitors and television screens generate colors differently. This means that colors that look fine on your computer may not look so hot when viewed on a TV.
• Pixel shape: Video images are made up of a grid of tiny little blocks called pixels. Pixels on computer monitors are square, but the pixels in TV images are slightly rectangular. This usually isn’t a problem for video captured from your camcorder, but still images and graphics generated on your computer could be a problem.
• Interlacing: TV video images are usually interlaced, whereas computer monitors draw images by using progressive scanning. The main problems you encounter when you export a project to tape is that the very thin lines that show up on the screen may flicker or appear to crawl. Pay special attention to titles, where thin lines are likely to appear in some letters.

If you use the LCD display on your camcorder to preview your movie, keep in mind that the LCD panel probably isn’t interlaced. However, the camcorder’s viewfinder probably is interlaced. This means that flickering thin lines (for example) may show up in the viewfinder but not on the LCD panel. Preview the movie using both the LCD display and the viewfinder before you actually export it.

Finding an online home for your movies (Youtube Alternatives)

If you want other people to be able to download and watch your movies, you’ll need to put the movie files on a Web server. Your Internet service provider (ISP) might actually provide some free Web server space with your Internet account. This free space is usually limited to about 5 to 15MB, but the exact amount varies greatly. You can use your Web server space to publish pictures, movies, and Web pages that anyone on the Internet can see. Check with your ISP to find out whether you have some available Web server space — and, if you do, get instructions for uploading your files to their Web server.
If your ISP doesn’t provide Web server space, or if it isn’t enough space to hold all of your movie files, don’t worry. Plenty of other resources are available. Several companies specialize in selling server space that you can use to store your movies. These are Youtube alternatives:

• .Mac (www.mac.com): This service from Apple includes e-mail tools, an address book, antivirus service, and most importantly, 100 MB of storage space on their Web server. Uploading movie files to .Mac is just as easy as copying files to different disks on your computer. The .Mac service costs approximately $100 per year, and provides many more features than I can list here.
• HugeHost.com (www.hugehost.com): As the name implies, HugeHost.com lets you put huge files online. The service is quite affordable, as well. For example, 1000MB (yes, one thousand) is just $5 per month, or $55 per year. See their Web site for other pricing plans.
• Neptune Mediashare (www.neptune.com): This service is partnered with Microsoft so you can easily access the Neptune Web site directly from within Windows Movie Maker. When you export a movie for the Web from Movie Maker, you are given the opportunity to log on to your Neptune Mediashare account and upload files instantly. The Mediashare Pro service provides 100MB of storage space for $39 per year. Whatever you use as a Web server for your movie files, make sure you get specific instructions for uploading. You’ll also need to know what the Web address is for the files that you upload. You can then send that address to other people so that they can find and download your movie.

Using the Windows Media format

Although Microsoft was late to the online multimedia game, Windows Media is quickly becoming one of the most popular video formats on the Web. Pinnacle Studio can export directly to Windows Media format. To do so, choose View ➪ Make Movie, and then choose Stream on the left side of the Make Movie window. Click the Windows Media radio button that appears. I strongly recommend that you review export settings before making a Windows Media file, and you can review those settings by clicking the (surprise!) Settings button in the Make Movie window. The Make Windows Media tab of the Pinnacle Studio Setup Options dialog box appears.
When you adjust settings for Windows Media export, check the following:

• Title: Enter a plain English title for your movie here. This title will appear at the bottom of the Windows Media Player window when your movie is played.
• Author: They can’t give out awards if they don’t know who made the movie! Enter your name here to give yourself proper credit.
• Copyright: Enter a year, and month and day if you like.
• Description: Type a brief description of your movie. This description will scroll across the bottom of the Windows Media Player window as the movie plays.
• Rating: Give your movie a rating if you want.
• Markers: If you include Markers in your Windows Media movie, viewers can jump from clip to clip by pressing the Next and Previous buttons in their Windows Media Player programs. manually named while you were editing your project will have markers.
• Playback Quality: Choose the Low, Medium, or High presets in the menu on the left. If you choose Custom, a second menu appears to the right, displaying a wider selection of presets. A summary of movie settings for each preset is shown under the Playback Quality menus.

Using the RealVideo format

RealVideo is a popular format for online videos, and making RealVideo movies in Pinnacle Studio is pretty easy. In the Make Movie window, click Stream, and then select the RealVideo radio button. Next, click Settings. The Make RealVideo tab of the Pinnacle Studio Setup Options dialog box appears.
Review the following settings, adjusting them as needed:

• Title: Enter a title for your movie. This title will appear in the program window when people view your movie, so it should be written in plain English.
• Author: That’s you! Enter your name here.
• Copyright: Enter the year. You can enter the month and day if you wish, but it’s not necessary.
• Keywords: Enter some keywords relating to your movie. This will help people who are searching for your movie using the keywords you list.
• Video Quality: Choose a video quality option here. Most of the time, the safest choice in this menu is Normal Motion Video. The Smoothest Motion Video option works well with video that doesn’t have a lot of action, whereas the Sharpest Image Video option is best for video that does have a lot of action. The Slide Show option shows a series of still images, which obviously isn’t ideal for most video. If you choose the No Video option, no video will be included in the file.
• Audio Quality: Choose an option from this menu that matches the majority of audio in your project. Choices include No Audio, Voice Only, Voice with Background Music, Music, and Stereo Music.
• Video Size: Select a frame size for your video image here.
• Web Server: If you know that your movie will be placed on a RealServer streaming media server, choose the RealServer option. Otherwise, choose HTTP.
• Target Audience: If your movie will be placed on a RealServer, you can choose multiple options here. The server will automatically detect the connection speed of each person who accesses your movie, and a movie of the appropriate quality level will be sent. If you are placing your movie on a regular Web server (HTTP), you can only choose one option. Movie quality settings will be automatically tailored to the Target audience that you choose.

If you’re placing your movie on a regular Web server (HTTP), you may want to output two different versions of the same movie for people with different connection speeds. Output a lower-quality movie using the Dial-up Modem setting, and then output a higher-quality version of the same movie using one of the DSL/Cable settings. Give each file a unique name and provide separate descriptive links to each one on your Web page.

E-mailing your movies

The World Wide Web seems to get all the attention these days, but I think that e-mail, more than anything else, revolutionized the way we communicated during the last decade. Most of your friends, relatives, and business associates probably have e-mail addresses, and you probably exchange e-mail messages with those folks on a regular basis.
E-mail is already a great way to quickly share stories and pictures with others, and now that you’re making your own movies, it only seems natural to start e-mailing your movie projects to friends as well. Before you do, keep in mind that movie files tend to be really big. Most e-mail accounts have file-size limitations for e-mail attachments, sometimes as low as 2MB. Other e-mail accounts don’t allow any file attachments at all. And of course, many people still have slow dial-up modem connections to the Internet, meaning it will take them a long time to download a movie you send them. If you want to e-mail a movie to someone, first ask the person whether it’s okay to do so. Send an initial e-mail that says something like, “Hi there! I just finished a really awesome movie and I want to send it to you. The movie is in QuickTime format and the file is 1.3 MB. Can I e-mail it to you?” Most people will probably say yes, and they’ll appreciate that you took the time to ask.

Making QuickTime movies with iMovie

If you’re using Apple iMovie and you want to make movies in QuickTime format, you’re in luck. QuickTime is the only movie file format that iMovie can produce. QuickTime movies can be played using the QuickTime Player program, which is available for free for Windows and Macintosh systems. If you want to output in a different format, such as RealMedia, you’ll need to use more advanced software such as Final Cut Express. Pinnacle Studio can export movies in RealMedia or Windows Media Video format, but not QuickTime. To create QuickTime movies in Windows, you’ll need QuickTime Pro, or a more advanced editing program such as Adobe Premiere.
Exporting a QuickTime movie from iMovie is pretty simple. The QuickTime format offers a variety of quality and output settings that you can adjust, and iMovie provides several easy-to-use presets. You can also customize export settings if you wish. To export a QuickTime movie:
1. When you’re done editing your movie in iMovie, choose File➪Export. The iMovie: Export dialog box appears.

2. Choose To QuickTime from the Export menu.

3. Choose the best preset for the way you plan to distribute your movie from the Formats menu.
iMovie provides three preset formats for export: Email, Web, and Web Streaming. Unless your movie is very short, the CD-ROM and Full Quality DV presets generally produce files that are too big for online use. If you want to fine-tune your own settings, choose Expert Settings from the Formats menu.

4. Click Export. A Save Exported File As dialog box appears.

5. If you chose a preset format, give your movie a filename, choose a folder in which to save it, and click Save to save your movie to a file and finish the export process.
If you chose a preset format in Step 3, you’re done! But if you choose Expert Settings in the Formats menu, you still have a few more steps to complete in the export process. At the bottom of the dialog box, you can choose presets from the Use menu, or click Options. If you click Options, the Movie Settings dialog box appears.

6. (Optional) In the Movie Settings dialog box, leave the check marks next to Video and Sound if you want to include both in your movie.

7. (Optional) In the Movie Settings dialog box, click the Settings button under Video in the Movie Settings dialog box and adjust video settings. The Compression Settings dialog box appears.
Start by choosing a codec from the menu at the top of the dialog box. The Sorenson or H.263 codecs are pretty good for most movies, and the Motion JPEG A codec works well for movies that will be played on older computers. MPEG-4 .
Adjust the Quality slider and preview how your video image will be affected. The Best quality setting provides better picture quality, but also increases the file size.
In the Frames Per Second menu, you can choose a frame rate, or just choose Best from the menu to let iMovie automatically determine a good frame rate. More frames per second increase file size.
I recommend that you leave the Key Frame Every x setting alone. (The default value is 24 — that is, a key frame occurs once every 24 frames — and a smaller number means more key frames.) Key frames help QuickTime compress and decompress the movie. More key frames provide better quality, but they also increase file size. Click OK when you’re done adjusting Compression Settings.

8. (Optional) In the Movie Settings dialog box, click the Filter button.
The Choose Video Filter dialog box appears. Here you can apply filters to your video image that can blur, sharpen, recolor, brighten, or perform a variety of other changes to the picture. Most filters also have adjustments that you can make using slider controls. A preview of your video image appears in the Choose Video Filter dialog box so that you can see the affects of the various filters. I don’t usually find these filters very useful because normally I’ve already applied filters or effects to my video during the editing process. After making your selections, click OK to close the Choose Video Filter dialog box.

9. (Optional) In the Movie Settings dialog box, click the Size button.
The Export Size Settings dialog box appears. Choose either Use Current Size, or choose Use Custom Size and enter a custom width and height in pixels. Click OK to close the Export Size Settings dialog box.

10. (Optional) In the Movie Settings dialog box, click the Settings button under Sound.
For online movies, choose QDesign Music 2 in the Compressor menu. Reduce the sampling rate using the Rate box (for online use I recommend 22.050 kHz or lower). Switching from Stereo to Mono will also reduce the file size. Click OK to close the Sound Settings dialog box.

11. (Optional) In the Movie Settings dialog box, leave the Prepare for Internet Streaming option checked if you want to take advantage of streaming or progressive download for this movie, and choose the Fast Start option in the Streaming menu.

12. Click OK to close the Movie Settings dialog box, and then click Save in the Save Exported File As dialog box.

The movie will be exported using the settings you provided. When the export process is complete, preview your movie in QuickTime, and check the file size of the movie. If the movie file is too big, re-export it using the lower quality settings (such as a smaller frame size, lower frame rate, or lower sample rate for the audio). If the movie is smaller than you expected, you may want to re-export it using slightly higher quality settings. When you’re done, you can share your QuickTime movie file online by attaching it to an e-mail or placing it on a Web site.