time stamp

[alcina]

I need to put together some footage from a whole slew of mini DV tapes. It is essential that the date/time is included.

I would like to output to dvd so another person can look at the clips and see/extract the time/date.

How do I do this? Can it be done?

 

[RickSp]

I need to put together some footage from a whole slew of mini DV tapes. It is essential that the date/time is included.

I would like to output to dvd so another person can look at the clips and see/extract the time/date.

How do I do this? Can it be done?

Most DV cameras and decks will allow you to view the timestamp but won't record it over firewire. Is that what you are running up against? Many better NLEs will let you generate a timecode burn-in, but that doesn't sound like what you are going for.

It probably depends on your hardware, but the only way I would know how to do it would be to use two decks or cameras, one of which being able to transcode from analog to digital. I would set up the first deck/camera to display the timestamp. I would output from the S Video out to the second camera/deck S Video in. The second deck/camera would be able to transcode and would record the incoming S video onto a DV tape with the date and time displayed. You could do the same thing if your NLE can capture analog footage, in which case you could go capture from the S-video.

You will lose a tiny bit of resolution going from DV to analog to DV which might not be enough to notice. If it does bother you you could always also capture the same tape in DV, align the analog and dv clips on your timeline in your NLE and then matte out everything on the analog track except the date and time. That is a bit more work but would preserve the DV resolution.

The other alternative is that you could fake it by using your NLE's titler to add the date and beginning time at the beginning of each clip. You clould then fade out the initial time and keep the date. You could do the same thing as subtitles with your DVD authoring software.

Rick

 

[ChrisA]

I need to put together some footage from a whole slew of mini DV tapes. It is essential that the date/time is included.

I would like to output to dvd so another person can look at the clips and see/extract the time/date.

How do I do this? Can it be done?

Send him DV format files. You could make a data-format DVD that would contain files. It would be viewable on a computer (with the correct software) but not on a DVD player. The files would contain the exact unaltered timecode that your camera recorded to tape.

 

[alcina]

Chris -

OK...how do I do that? I use Premiere...or do I need to use something else.

Help - I'm a newbie when it comes to anything beyond totally basic!

 

[RickSp]

Send him DV format files. You could make a data-format DVD that would contain files. It would be viewable on a computer (with the correct software) but not on a DVD player. The files would contain the exact unaltered timecode that your camera recorded to tape.

I don't think that would work. Premiere or Vegas will do a timecode burn-in (making the timecode visible at the bottom of the screen) but that is quite different from the date and time information which I think is what alcina wants, unless I've got it wrong.

I may have found a simple, if not entirely free solution.

Visual DV Time Stamp 1.10

When videos recorded on a DV camcorder tape are captured into DV AVI files on a PC system, the time codes (date/time when the tape was made) are transferred along with the video/audio data to the files. But the time codes are not visible when you view the DV AVI files. When you use DVD author tools to convert the DV AVI files to DVD files, the time codes get lost. By using Visual DV Time Stamp, the time codes are extracted from the DV AVI files and superimposed onto the videos. This way the date/time will be visible when you view the DV AVI file, consequently the DVD you make from the DV AVI files will have date/time displayed.

It is shareware and costs $20.
Visual DV Time Stamp 1.10

 

[ChrisA]

Chris -

OK...how do I do that? I use Premiere...or do I need to use something else.

Help - I'm a newbie when it comes to anything beyond totally basic!

How do you copy the DV format files? You don't need Premiere or any other video software. You simplly copy the file the same way you would copy a word procesing document or any other file. I'm sure your video capture program creats some large .avi or .mov ffiles just burn those file to the DVD or even to CD if they are less then 800MB

You could even buy a 100GB firewire disk dive, copy the file to the drive then ship the dive by overnight air. Blank DVDs are cheaper then 100GB divers but the idea is the same.

After you both hve copies of the DV files you can each cut the film and the cuts are stored in small edit decisiin list files which are small enough to e-mail so you can see the results of each other's work

 

[RickSp]

Sending around DV files has several problems. They are at least 10 times bigger than the mpeg2 files on DVD. An 800 mg CD can hold a bit less than 4 minutes and a typical DVD will handle around 20 minutes.

I think you wil also find that in capturing and saving you will lose the date/time stamp. (The data may still be there but I sure don't know how to pull it up.)