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Mini HD Tutorial and Introduction to VideoStudio.

I'm all about pimping HD, so in this tutorial I'm going to give you a taste of how fabulous HD is by providing some HD samples clips for you to use. You don't have to use the HD samples, but I recommend it as I'll be showing you how to use the converter software MPEG Streamclip (you'll need to get familiar with this program!). This will be good practice for you in preparing clips from your DVD rips in the future. So please indulge me as I take you on this HD journey! (If your PC absolutely cannot edit HD, there's an alternative given later for you.)

Download some special HD clips. These are all about 20-30 seconds in length, are MOV files, have no audio, are about 20 MB or less in size, and have a watermark in the corner. (Yeah, I'm no fun!) They're just for you to play around with. RIGHT CLICK TO DOWNLOAD. Please note, these clips are all in a smaller-sized format that is NOT good for editing. (VideoStudio may open the file, but editing with it will be more sluggish and you risk quality problems or crashing at some point.) So, you'll be following a tutorial to convert them to a VideoStudio-friendly AVI file.

• The Vampire Diaries HD clip.
• Strike Back HD clip
• Gossip Girl HD clip
• The Legend of the Seeker HD clip
• Supernatural HD clip
• Robin Hood HD clip
• Doctor Who HD clip

Now I'm going to parrot the same info I have on my Vegas tutorial . . .

Converting your downloaded HD clips to an AVI file that will work with Corel VideoStudio:

Make sure you have MPEG Streamclip downloaded and installed. (Note: You will need Quicktime installed to get MPEG Streamclip to work.)

Then open MPEG Streamclip. Go to "File >> Open Files" and select one of the HD clips that you just downloaded.

You'll see that MPEG Streamclip is very much like any other media player. There's a playhead, which shows you at what spot in the video you're at (drag it right or left to move to a different spot in the video). There are play, reverse, and forward buttons.

 

Now you're going to trim down the clip to just the scene you want. Use the playhead to scroll to where you want your trimmed clip to start.

Use the forward and back arrows on your keyboard (they are directly to the left of the number pad on your keyboard) to inch, inch, inch forward or backward, frame-by-frame, to get to just the right spot where you want your clip to start. Then press the "I" key on your keyboard. Then, scroll to the spot where you want your clip to end. Press the "O" key.

Now, go to File >> Export to AVI.

 

Use the top drop-down menu ("Compression") and select Apple Motion JPEG A from the list. ("Motion JPEG" is also commonly known as "MJPEG.")

Move the Quality slider bar until it’s at 85-95%. (You can tweak this a bit, but since you WANT to edit in HD, I advise the you keep the quality high, lest you lose some of the HD goodness!)

With these sample clips you will have no sound, so Select “No Sound.” Otherwise, go with “Uncompressed” for sound.

Frame size should remain at 1280x720.

Deselect anything checked under the “Deselect for progressive movies” heading.

Then click on the “Make AVI” button and wait for the file to convert over!

PLEASE REMEMBER that MJPEG AVI files will be larger in size. Expect to use up approximately 1 GB of disk space for every 5-10 minutes of footage (more or less). This is normal and expected and for a more seamless, stable editing experience, you WANT to edit in files of this size. And like I've been saying, smaller, more compressed video files (like DivX AVI, XviD AVI, WMV) will give your software problems (either now or later on down the road).

Convert all your downloaded HD files with this process, saving them to a special folder on your hard drive called 'VIDEO CLIPS." (No, you don't have to do that, but to make things easier for yourself, I recommend that you label your video clips folder clearly.)

Now, it's time to open up Corel VideoStudio and start playing around with your HD clips!

IF YOUR PC CANNOT SUPPORT EDITING IN HD: The Sony Vegas tutorial provides you with some sample clips in SD (Standard Definition). Jump over to the Vegas Tutorial (link opens to new window), download the clips there, and follow the tutorial given there and make AVI files. When the tutorial starts giving Vegas-specific instructions, return here and continue to follow along. Editing in HD or Standard Definition is pretty much identical (except when it comes to exporting the finished video).

First Look at Corel VideoStudio:

When you first open VideoStudio X2, make sure the 16:9 box is checked (all HD clips are 16:9 or widescreen) and click on the "VideoStudio Editor" area.

Corel VideoStudio X2 (screenshot below): The trio of buttons on the left side (pink box around them) give you three viewing options. The center button is your timeline view, and you'll be using that most often. The button on the far left is "Storyboard" view (which shows each clip in the timeline but doesn't give you any idea of how long each clip is) and the button on the right is for audio (for tweaking audio levels on your music and dialog in your clips).

I was going to go into more detail about the basics of VideoStudio's interface, but who am I kidding? I cannot possibly do any better than this intro tutorial by Corel themselves. This tutorial is for VideoStudio X2.

 

I learned a lot that I didn't know from this simple 5 minute tutorial. It's a must-see. Watch it several times if you need to, to further understand VideoStudio's interface.

Be sure to check out the other tutorials at Corel Tutorials. (Scroll down the page to see the ones for VideoStudio.)