I wanted to find out what those of you that have videotaped your own hunt (HAVE NOT USED A PROFSSIONAL)done once you got home. Have any of you edited your video? Have you used a professional to edit it and make it woth watching? What was the quality of the video you shot? Have you watched it after you returned.

Just to let you know I videotaped a recent hunt to Namibia and thoroughly enjoyed editing the video and creating a one hour highlight dvd. I actually think it's pretty good.

I took around 3 1/2 hours of video on my first African safari with Jim Hackiewicz. I got video of my wife shooting an impala, my warthog and Jim shooting a warthog. We got some really excellent shots of game interaction at waterholes that looked like something off the National Geographic channel. My computer is old and I had no way of video editing so I hired a woman who does weddings. She made a very professional 45 minute video that I have copied and sent to numerous people. On my second hunt I was unable to use the video camera. I plan on going back again and this time will try and make an even better video with hopefully video of my wife hunting plains game.

Off the topic but could interest you next time you come over. I can help you video your full hunt for R5500.00 all inclusive (editing and shipping the dvd's) for extra hunting days add R750 per day extra.

I love video from hunts. Even crappy video is better than none. Years after the hunt it can take you back to the moment better than anything else, and helps you remember the little details that would otherwise be lost to time.

I have video of all three of my trips to Africa. None of it is very good...the camera (a Sony Digital8 camcorder) is already outdated, and the camera work is very amatuer, and of course it was seldom running when the real exciting moments were happening (this is where a proffessional videographer would be a HUGE plus!!).

I haven't done anything with the video yet, other than make some short excerpt clips. I do plan on jazzing up some full length "movies" of the trips. I finally upgraded my computing power just prior to christmas and have some really good video editting software that I am itching to get going on. Its pretty time consuming though, so it will be an ongoing winter project I think.

Cheers,
Canuck

Chris I sure am lloking forward to seeing anything you do of LU 5-if its done bring it up to PG when you come in April.

You bet Bob!

I have been so lucky, that I have spent the last safaris with my good friend Oddbjorn, and we have been doing some video shooting for each other.
I don’t believe it’s possible to video for you self. It is video camera or rifle!

Videos from my safaris is on this site:
http://www.weatherbyrifler.com/xo

quote:

I don’t believe it’s possible to video for you self. It is video camera or rifle.

Its tough alright. I have video taped myself on solo hunts, but it cost me my one and only chance at a grizzly bear (fiddling with camera when I should have been shooting).

BUT, its even tougher finding a hunting partner that has enough interest in video to actually spend the time to learn how to do it!

I do appreciate the good friends that have tried though!

Cheers,
Canuck

There might be a "one" program deal out there that's a professional version that I simply can't afford or justify. So instead, I usually end up using several programs to get the video right.

There are quite a few basic editing with transitions and disk authoring programs out there. But if you get into anything more complicated like deinterlacing for slo-mo, deshaking handheld shot video or multiple sound tracks you quickly out grow the "ONE" program.

I have edited my own travel videos; however, it requires a very "large" high capacity computer. sole dedicated to this activity because almost every other program interferes with the video editing or burning programs.

I have over three grand in my computer at this point, and I have used three different programs and several versions of each of those programs. It is a PAIN! I finally got a program to work, and the company was bought out by a bigger player and it is no longer being supported.

An hour of video is a huge file and creates major issues in handling and processing it. Most programs suggest breaking it down into parts, however, it is not clear how one gets them back together for the final burn. (Read: I am working on it!)

If I could ever get a program and computer that will reliably make and burn a video disk, I'd love to do it professionally. But it is extremely difficult. Kudude

What I have found is that one has to plan ahead when you are taping a hunt. It helps if you are hunting with a friend that can operate a camera and get in position when the shot is made. It's no fun having a video that only shows the dead animal on the ground. Once you are home the fun begins with downloading the video and the editing process. I have used Ulead Video Studio 10 and found it to be very easy to use. However, you have to be somewhat computer literate. My computer isn't anything fancy a basic Dell $700 PC that I found to be sufficient. You have to ensure that the hard drive is large enough to hold large quantities of video since it takes up a lot of space. As others have noted once the rendering begins all other programs have to be turned off since the process is rather sensitive.

I enjoyed making my video so much that I'm doing a project for a friend. If I have some time of the next couple of day's I'll try and upload my video to YouTube for all to see. I'd like to get your opinion.

What would you pay to have your video edited and burned onto a DVD? Just wondering...

quote:

Originally posted by kudude:
I have edited my own travel videos; however, it requires a very "large" high capacity computer. sole dedicated to this activity because almost every other program interferes with the video editing or burning programs.

I have over three grand in my computer at this point, and I have used three different programs and several versions of each of those programs. It is a PAIN! I finally got a program to work, and the company was bought out by a bigger player and it is no longer being supported.

An hour of video is a huge file and creates major issues in handling and processing it. Most programs suggest breaking it down into parts, however, it is not clear how one gets them back together for the final burn. (Read: I am working on it!)

If I could ever get a program and computer that will reliably make and burn a video disk, I'd love to do it professionally. But it is extremely difficult. Kudude

I recommend you get Adobe Premier Elements 3.0. It is the cheaper version of their pro program - Premire Pro.

You also need lots of hard disk space - preferably on another disk than your systm disk.

(The computer I made our hunting video of this year has an AMD FX-62 processor, 4 GB RAM and 8 x 500 GB hard disks. Even this is EXTREMELY slow in processing High Definition video. So I am in the process of assembling a new computer with an INTEL QC6700 quad core processor, 4 GB RAM, and 6 x 750 GB hard disk, and a Blu-Ray drive.)

Here is a quick tip on how to assemble all your tapes into one final DVD.

Let us say that you have taken 4 DV tapes of your hunt. Number them 1 to 4.

Capture tape 1. Go through it and edit out the parts you do not want to see in your final DVD. Once you have done that, you have to EXPORT it as a seperate file and give it a name - Tape 1 edited.

Do the same with tapes 2,3 and 4.

Start a new PROJECT. IMPORT the 4 files you have edited out. Put them all together on the TIME LINE. Do whatever transitions you wish on them, then EXPORT your final film - may be call it FINISHED DVD.

That is all there is to it.

Now you just have to burn it on a DVD.

I hope this helps.

You can use Pinnacle studio as well very easy to use if you are a bit computer literatte.

Then the rendering does take most of the pc's processing power so what I usually is to edit the movie and when I'm finally ready to burn the dvd I let it run overnight.

But Harddrive space is the biggest problem taking proper vidoe with a 3ccd quality camera on dv tapes downloading it at full guality on your pc and for 5 minutes of footage you end up with 1 Gig being used roughly so for one hours of footage you end up with around 12 Gig. Then you also need extra space to render as well so space is important.

quote:

(The computer I made our hunting video of this year has an AMD FX-62 processor, 4 GB RAM and 8 x 500 GB hard disks. Even this is EXTREMELY slow in processing High Definition video. So I am in the process of assembling a new computer with an INTEL QC6700 quad core processor, 4 GB RAM, and 6 x 750 GB hard disk, and a Blu-Ray drive.)

WOW. I am reminded of Crocodile Dundee...."Now this is a knife computer". I think my new computer is like a 22LR compared to your 22 CHeetah.

I do have a serious question for you though, Saeed. When you export the results from each tape to their own file, do you do it as a compressed MPEG-2 DVD file?

Regards,
Chris

Chris,

No, do all your work in uncompressed .AVI format.

Just let the DVD burner program do the conversion to the final MPEG format

And those who think DV footage takes time to render, wait tell you try HD.

On that FX-62 computer, I tried a 10 minute HD file. 7 hours later it was still at it!?

I am hoping my new computer will cut that wait down a bit.

Still, any sort of rendering is going to take a lot of time. That si why we have a dedicated computer just for video work.

Even on this, we clean up the capture hard disk completely after each project, and format it. The video programs leave all sorts of temporary files and junk after each project done.

Yes Must say my computer is a black powder gun compared to yours Saaed.

I run a intel pentium 4 with a 3 Ghz processors with dual Bios and 2 gig ram with two external hardrives a 250G and a 300G

7hrs for 10min. clip on that system

I used Adobe premiere elements 2.0 for our footage editing and thought the final product was great. The Adobe is a great "bang for your buck" and is quick and easy to learn. 1hr 20min movie took about 12hrs to format. Put about 48hrs of editing into it!! (5hrs of footage from 2 different cameras)) but that was starting from knowing absolutley nothing about the program, I could probably do it in a 1/4 of that time now.
I also put a slide show of most of our pics with background "african" music from a CD I bought in Johannesburg airport onto DVD

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
Chris,

No, do all your work in uncompressed .AVI format.

Just let the DVD burner program do the conversion to the final MPEG format

And those who think DV footage takes time to render, wait tell you try HD.

On that FX-62 computer, I tried a 10 minute HD file. 7 hours later it was still at it!?

I am hoping my new computer will cut that wait down a bit.

Still, any sort of rendering is going to take a lot of time. That si why we have a dedicated computer just for video work.

Even on this, we clean up the capture hard disk completely after each project, and format it. The video programs leave all sorts of temporary files and junk after each project done.

Keep AVI until you're done is a HUGE tip. I agree wholeheartedly. Temp files will also cause you no end of grief if you don't delete them.

Since someone mentioned Pinnacle I'll say this because I also use it. It's a nice user friendly interface and pretty easy to learn BUT the software has some serious compatibility issues with some hardware configurations. Don't ask me what they all are because Pinnacle doesn't list them or help. Conveniently retailers won't accept returns on it either. If you have that software you may find yourself buying new hardware to make it work.

Saeed,

I'm curious if you're using your multiple hardrives in a SATA Raid configuration (striped not mirrored). The computer you describe would most likely be bottlenecked at the hardrive bus.

Saeed,

Thank you very much for the hint on the method for breaking it into tapes and then combining the tapes.

Could you repeat and amplify your comments on the AVI files? I did not get your original transmission. Thank you-Kudude

PS: I am running Adobe 2.0 now and was using Pinnacle, which is the one that was bouught out. k-d

We normally have 2 drives on RAID 0 - striped. But, I have not seen the need for them for capture.

But, it is not necessary, as single drives are very fast now and we do use them as well for capture. WE never have problems with dropped frames.

Pinnacle Studio was good when it was version 8. Versions 9 and 10 are not stable at all.

From the cheaper video editing programs, Adobe Premier Elements is the best.

I prefer to keep all video files in their original AVI format purely to avoid any loss in quality while editing.

The processors have arrived yesterday for our new video machine, and I have finished assembling it. Two hard disks have alreadyt been formatted, and I am going through the process of formatting the rest of them.

I shall post a photo later.

Just heard of this product the other day, anyone use it before????
http://www.samsung.com/Products/Camcorder/DigitalMemory...?page=Specifications

It is a camcorder that has an external clip on lens (wired, or there is a wireless version) that you can clip to your hat/head that would be great for filming your hunt when on your own!

quote:

Originally posted by trapntrav:
Just heard of this product the other day, anyone use it before????
http://www.samsung.com/Products/Camcorder/DigitalMemory...?page=Specifications

It is a camcorder that has an external clip on lens (wired, or there is a wireless version) that you can clip to your hat/head that would be great for filming your hunt when on your own!

I am afraid this is just a toy compared to normal camcorders.



Just finished assembling it. As you can see it is formating the first hard disk - takes about 4 hours to format each 750 GB hard disk.

You can see the infra red temprature gage we use to check our system on top of the computer.

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
We normally have 2 drives on RAID 0 - striped. But, I have not seen the need for them for capture.

But, it is not necessary, as single drives are very fast now and we do use them as well for capture. WE never have problems with dropped frames.

Pinnacle Studio was good when it was version 8. Versions 9 and 10 are not stable at all.

From the cheaper video editing programs, Adobe Premier Elements is the best.

I prefer to keep all video files in their original AVI format purely to avoid any loss in quality while editing.

The processors have arrived yesterday for our new video machine, and I have finished assembling it. Two hard disks have alreadyt been formatted, and I am going through the process of formatting the rest of them.

I shall post a photo later.

I agree RAID 0 is not needed for capture and a fast single drive gets the job done nicely. I do very little capture nowadays since many cameras either produce a small DVD or are accessible thru a USB cable. I just snag a copy of those files (ie. VOBs) convert them to AVI and start editing. This is usually a huge time saver and there is zero chance of capture issues since you're not doing a capture.

I was particularly curious about Raid 0 on improving rendering speed. My rendering speed tends to greatly improve if I have the video software setup to write temp files on one disk and the finished MPG on another. My thinking was at least one of those tasks would probably benefit from a faster harddrive configuration.

I know that your graphics card gets worked pretty hard during rendering as well. So it's on board memory (>256mb), it's GPU speed and bus speed (8x, PCIX) are pretty crucial. Shared graphics/system memory is a performance bummer.

It's interesting you mention problems with Pinnacle 9 and 10. Studio 8 is what I have had all my compatibility issues with. So apparently it's still luck if you load it on your computer and it works.

Based on your comments I surely check out Adobe elements when it's time to upgrade.

I like to use Sony vegas and DVD. I have used Avid, Premier and Pinacle programs. For use in a system that is not dedicated exclusively to video editing I have found Vegas very easy to use for the DIY user.

That being said the ideal system for video editing is AVID. That is what we use for the show but a good hp workstation system starts at about 20 grand.

Saeed, that's some serious horsepower.

I have video of my three trips to Africa. I had a low quality camera on the 1st two hunts, but i bought a Sony HDR-HC3 for my trip to Tanzania in October. The quality is outstanding, and the camera is very compact and simple, not bulky like some of the other HD cameras I have seen.

On the first two hunts, both 2 x 1, we took turns videoing the hunt. This was a lot of fun, but one person is videoing instead of hunting. On the last trip, there was a young man in camp that worked for the outfitter that took video for clients. Most of his time was pre-booked, and he had his own equipment and they would edit the video for you and sent you a copy when you got home. I think they quoted me around $2,500 for the 10 day hunt that we went on. I think it was a fair price but I decided to use the money for the new camera instead which was around $1,500. He didn't have any clients booked while we were there, so we hired him for a discount and he used my camera and tapes and I will do the editing.

That being said, I am very happy that we hired him. He shot almost 12 hours of tape during the 7 days that he was with us. That is a lot of tape, especially when you start capturing it on the computer and editing it in HD! And my computer doesn't have near the horsepower of yours, Saeed. The biggest difference is the perspective of the video. He was videoing while my dad and I were hunting. He caught converstations and other moments on tape that were at least as important for me to have on tape as the kill, probaly more important. I never would have got those momements recorded if we hadn't hired him. If I can afford it, I will be hiring someone to video my next hunt in 2008.

I enjoy the editing, it's like reliving the hunt over and over again, so I won't hire that out. But it can be very frustrating. I had Pinnacle 9 on my computer and it would lock up all of the time, but I loaded 10 on the computer because of the HD capability and it has worked well most of the time. It doesn't capture the HD video on .avi format, it captures the video in a .m2v format and the audio in a .wav file. The one issue I have had was one of the DVD's I rendered had the video and audio out of sinc. Somehow rebooting my computer fixed this problem. But one plus is that it only took a little over an hour to burn a 45 minute DVD.

How can I post video on the forum? I have a couple of different clips that might be of interest. One of my PH wrestling with a hartebeest that my buddy shot and we thought was dead is pretty cool.

Thanks,

Shaun

Can you compress it and email it? I would like to see that if possible.

I am seriously considering having Buzz's video guy hired for my elephant hunts this summer. Being a non-trophy hunt, that makes a lot of sense to me.

quote:

I think they quoted me around $2,500 for the 10 day hunt that we went on.

Let me add my quote again for video but in US dollar for a 7 day hunt in RSA $785.00 and then everyday thereafter $110 per day. Including all the editing.

Maybe I should think of trying some other editing software as so far I have only used Studio and know nothing else. I've heard a lot about Adobe Premier but have never tried it.

Shaun Buffee of Acacia Safaris http://www.acacia-safaris.com/ does a very good job. He was the camera man for much of Buzz Charlton's DVD. I used him myself last year.

Also a registered PH in Zimbabwe where he was orinally from. Lives now in South Africa.

A level headed young man with lots of close in dangerous game experience carrying a videocamera which takes more guts that carrying a rifle.

Has also worked with Bill Stewart and others on AR and elsewhere.

yukon delta - I will compress that tonight and send it to you.

I see you are from Palmer. How long have you lived there? I grew up in Wasilla.

I believe that Ryan Cox is Buzz's cameraman now.

SDH, I moved to Palmer this year. Before that I was in the bush above the arctic circle.

yukon delta - I just e-mailed you the video clip and a longer version of the story.

It was about 3.6 megs so if you have problems with a file that large let me know and i will compress it further.