Making Headway on Sailing Video

I had previously written about problems I was having with editing video for my sailing video.  My software was freezing up constantly and, as a result, I just couldn't seem to make any headway whatsoever.  I may have found a solution to my problem.

In the last day or so, I managed to make some real progress in editing and producing this video. Whenever I make significant progress, I get excited about the whole project again!

CyberLink PowerDirector Ultra...  a very nice program
but proving to be annoyingly unstable.

One of my problems is that I have a vast amount of video footage that I must review, cut, and edit and it is more than my computer can process all at once.  Many of the video clips are 30 minutes long because we just left the camera running while it was mounted on each of the camera mounts.  So, for each 30 minute video, I need to snip out the best 15 second clips.  All this excess video footage was bogging down my computer.  

My temporary solution was to only work on one of these 30 minute videos at a time.  I clip out a good 15 second clip...   then render it and save it to a smaller file size.  Then I go back to the full clip...   find the next good 15 second clip....  cut it out...  then render it and save it to a smaller file size.  It is a little time consuming and adds some extra steps into production, but this seems to be working just fine.

The next step will be to then open all these short clips and arrange them in an interesting order to produce a full video.  Using these short clips saved in a smaller file size should allow me to do this effectively.  Thus far, it has been working out nicely.

Corel's VideoStudio Pro...  not only a nice program with some
really nice effects (notice the picture-in-picture effect
above), but also very stable!

I'm now using two software programs for all this editing and producing.  The first program (the one that was freezing up on me all the time) is CyberLink PowerDirector Ultra.  It is still a bit quirky and unstable at times, but I am making progress in using it as long as I save the project after each change.  Because of these problems, I bought a new program from Corel called VideoStudio Pro.

There is a relatively steep learning curve to using either of these programs to their full potential.  I spent many hours educating myself on getting the most out of these programs.  Each of these programs has its own advantages in the way of titling and effects.  And, unfortunately, each program has its weaknesses.  The trick is to put together a final product using the best of both products.  That is what I am working on now.  

My original goal was to keep the completed video less than 10 minutes long.  I am finding that it will be difficult to keep it so short.  My new goal is to somehow manage to keep it in the 12-15 minute range.  We'll see how that goes!

It may be taking a while but at least I am making headway on this sailing video.  It should be available soon!