Here is the movie I made while creating this tutorial so you can see what it looks like.
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v...t=TestMovie.flv
HG10 Movie Tutorial (If you see any errors, let me know).
This is what I am currently doing. First of all, as of today, October 25, 2007, as far as I know, there is only one program that recognizes the Canon AVCHD file format, the files that are created by the HG10 that end with M2TS or MTS, and that program is Ulead MovieFactory 5.6 SE that comes on the Ulead CD with the camcorder. It doesn't have a lot of features and is kind of quirky. But you can make a movie with it. So let's make one.
1. I am assuming that you have figured out how to get the clips copied from your camcorder to your computer. You do need to keep track of where in your computer those files were placed so that you can find them again.
2. Open Ulead MovieFactory.
3. Click on the button titled New Project.
4. Select DVD. Click on OK.
5. In the upper left, click on the film strip.
6. Now you have to browse to the folder where your clips were placed when you copied them from the camcorder and select the files you want to put into your movie.
7. A smaller box will open up with the files that you selected. Make sure they are in the order your want them to be in; I have sometimes had the first file end up on the bottom. You can order them by file number by clicking on the bar where it says Clip File Name. They should now be in sequence if they weren't before.
8. Click on OK.
9. It will take a little time for the files to be imported into the program.
10. When the program is ready you will see the clips along the bottom of the screen and one of them in the viewer to be worked on.
11. You can do various things now. But let us not get too complicated. I am looking at my screen and I have imported two clips.
12. Now I want to put a title at the beginning.
13.I click on the first clip and then I click on the left of the program where it says "Enhance Video." Another screen will pop up.
14. You will see your first clip in the viewer with a box and the words Double-click here to add txt. So double-click there.
15. Type in a title for your movie. On the left are some controls to change the font, add a shadow, change the color of the text, etc. I titled my movie "My Grandchildren." I made the txt red and I added a drop shadow.
16. You can use your mouse to grab the box that the title is in and reposition it. I put mine right in the center of the screen. When you have it the way you want it, click on OK in the lower right.
17. Now you are back to the main screen and you should be looking at the first clip in the viewer with your title in place.
18. If you want to add a second title after the first one, you can do that. Perhaps you would like to put the date on the screen after the title. To do that, again click on Enhance Video. Now look at the bar just below the clip and you will see a little blue section at the beginning. That is your title. Drag the little red job bar with your mouse so that you are past the right edge of the little blue section and the title goes off the screen leaving you with a box again that says Double-click here to add text. Type in the date or whatever you want it to say. Reposition and resize and when you are ready, click on OK.
19. You can put as many of these on your movie as you want. I will do one more at the end. It says The End.
20. Now I could add music in the background but I won't.
21. Now I am ready to save my movie to a single movie file.
22.I have to make sure that I select all of the clips. I click on the first clip. I hold down the Ctrl key on my keyboard while I click on the last clip. Now all of the clips are outlined in blue, right?
22. If I wanted to have my movie burned onto a CD or DVD, I would click next. But I don't want to do that at least not yet. All I want to do is create a file on my computer so I can see how my movie looks. So instead of clicking on Next, I click on Export Selected Clips. And all of my clips are selected.
23. I get a box with a lot of choices. I have not experimented with all of those choices but I have tried a few of them. I set my camcorder for 16:9 shaped clips because my monitor and my TV are both shaped like that. If you have the older style monitor or TV, you will want the camcorder to shape the clips 4:3 and you will want to make your movies 4:3. But I want 16:9. I could select HQ (High Quality) or GQ (General Quality) or customize and make set my own settings. For this example I will select HQ 16:9 Dolby Digital.
24. Now a box pops up and it wants you to give your movie file a name (you don't have to use the one that it suggests) and you can browse to a different location if you want to put the movie somewhere else. I called my movie Test Movie. It will be saved in mpeg format.
25. I now want to click on the Options button. Click on Compression tab. Drag the Quality slider to 100 (the better the quality the bigger the file and the longer it will take). But what the heck, we spent a lot of money for a HD camcorder, we may as well try for the best quality we can get. If we wanted less, we should have bought something less.
26. While we are in this window, look at the section for video settings. Put a check mark in the box that says two-pass encode. You will get better quality that way.
27. Now we are ready to "render." Click on OK. Click on Save.
28. Now you can watch what rendering is all about and how long it takes. I am just using two small clips. It will take about 9 minutes. I don't want to have any other programs running while this is going on, so I turn off everything I can before I render.
29. Now show your movie to everyone in your family and listen to their compliments.
Thank You!!!! I'm printing this out right now!
Creating a DVD
Linear Mode
