Uploading / editing Contour vids

[caimg]

Hey y'all,

Having fun with my new Contour Roam, it's good fun even just recording trouble-free rides! However, tried to upload a 13 min clip to YouTube and the StoryTeller program started counting down from 4 hrs so I thought sod that and went to use iMovie before realising that iMovie won't import MOV files. How do you regular YouTube guys work on and upload your vids? Do you convert them to a different file format then use iMovie? Bit of a faff if so!

 

[HLaB]

When I've edited a movie, I've done so in Windows Movie Maker, it has different compression settings depending what quality you want. IME though Movie Files are big in general so I tend to be a bit selective of what I upload, maybe only uploading the few minutes when something actually happens. Occasionally I've uploaded longer but unless you want to compromise on quality or have super bandwidth I think the only answer is to be patient.

 

[caimg]

When I've edited a movie, I've done so in Windows Movie Maker, it has different compression settings depending what quality you want. IME though Movie Files are big in general so I tend to be a bit selective of what I upload, maybe only uploading the few minutes when something actually happens. Occasionally I've uploaded longer but unless you want to compromise on quality or have super bandwidth I think the only answer is to be patient.

Yeah I reckon you're probably right - 13 mins of footage is probably a bit optimistic!

 

[gaz]

iMovie should import MOV files. Which version of OS X and iMovie are you using?

Uploading long videos will take some time depending on your upload speeds.

 

[Mr Haematocrit]

As gaz stated iMovie should import mov format. I use iMovie on OSX lion with my contour camera and have no issues

 

[caimg]

Uh oh well that sounds like trouble. Not sure which version of iMovie, not home ATM but I'll find out. Running it on Snow Leopard, I googled it and seems like lots of people are unable to import MOV files into iMovie unless you're running an older version of it. All I get are greyed out files that I can neither import or drag into iMovie, it's a real PITA!

 

[Mr Haematocrit]

been reading up on the net, it seems to be that earlier versions of iMovie did not support all formats of MOV as such you may have to convert it

http://www.mediaconverter.org may be able to assist in the conversion.

 

[Rezillo]

If yuo want to cut down your recordings for upload, mpeg streamclip is free and can do simple trimming (and joining) of mov files very quickly and with no loss of quality, as no re-rendering is involved. All you have to do is make sure that after selecting the in and out points, you use the File/Save As command and NOT the File/Export To command as the latter will re-render and take forever. Save As only takes a short while but you may get a blank progress bar for a bit as the file is created.

If you want to use a different editor, then renaming the mov extension to mp4 can work. This is a bit of a kludge as it doesn't really change the container format but it does allow some editors (and some playback hardware) to work. A better solution is to use Yamb v2.1 (free). This has an mp4 file creation dialog that losslessly repackages the Contour h264 file into an mp4 container very quickly. The resultant mp4 file then plays back on anything that doesn't work with the extension renaming kludge - android phones, ps3 etc. - or it can be loaded into other software for editing. Like mpeg streamclip, the great thing about yamb is that it is very quick and there's no quality loss - don't know if there is a mac version though.

John

 

[caimg]

If yuo want to cut down your recordings for upload, mpeg streamclip is free and can do simple trimming (and joining) of mov files very quickly and with no loss of quality, as no re-rendering is involved. All you have to do is make sure that after selecting the in and out points, you use the File/Save As command and NOT the File/Export To command as the latter will re-render and take forever. Save As only takes a short while but you may get a blank progress bar for a bit as the file is created.

If you want to use a different editor, then renaming the mov extension to mp4 can work. This is a bit of a kludge as it doesn't really change the container format but it does allow some editors (and some playback hardware) to work. A better solution is to use Yamb v2.1 (free). This has an mp4 file creation dialog that losslessly repackages the Contour h264 file into an mp4 container very quickly. The resultant mp4 file then plays back on anything that doesn't work with the extension renaming kludge - android phones, ps3 etc. - or it can be loaded into other software for editing. Like mpeg streamclip, the great thing about yamb is that it is very quick and there's no quality loss - don't know if there is a mac version though.

John

Thanks John! That's all really helpful, cheers bud

 

[Rezillo]

Thanks - forgot to add one important mpeg streamclip step, but hopefully it is fairly obvious anyway. After setting the In and Out points via the Edit menu, use Edit/Trim before using the Save As command.

Joining files works in a similar way - open the second file in the sequence, then Edit/Select All/Copy. Close the file from the File menu, open the first one in the sequence and go to the end of it, then Edit/Paste. Then use the File/Save As menu to create a new file. Do not use the File/Export commands!

This is all very crude stuff compared to any half decent video editor but in its favour, it is free, quick and keeps the original file quality as there is no re-rendering. It is also very quick - joining two 4gb files takes only a handful of minutes on my aging pc.

John