The first step in planning your project, is deciding which videos you want to use.  If you are unsure what is on your tapes, and have no way of watching them, you can take advantage of my $1 Preview DVDs* (click Here to read more).  Label your tapes with your name, and a specific title or number for each tape

 

Once you've decided on which video tapes you want to use, you can now select to wether you would like to use the entire tape, only part of the tape, break your movie into multiple movies, or mix together segments (or "clips") from various tapes.  Remember to keep in mind, that a DVD will hold approximately 2 hours.  If you exceed this, you will lose video quality.  If you have a tape thats more than 2 hours, such as a VHS tape, you'll have to chop it into 2 hour segments.  Cutting off an end of a movie, or splitting a movie into multiple movies is free, but deeper editing, such as re-arranging clips, and removing sections from the middle of your movie, will cost you.  See Video Editing Options for pricing.  For large or complicated editing, consider an hourly Design Session.

 

If you've decided to edit your movie, start at the very begining of your tape/movie, and using the time code, mark exactly which sections you'd like to keep, like to remove, or would like to move.  If you cut your movie where there is not a definative break, please add a short explaination of exactly when you'd like the movie cut.  If you are re-arranging segments of your movies, please name each segment, to help keep it organized.  Double check to make sure you've put down the correct times, labeled your tapes, and have each list of time-code clips assotiated with a tape.

 

As well as editing clips of your movie, you can asign Scene (or Chapter) points to your movies.  A scene is the marker in the movie that your skip to when you skip forward or backwards in a movie, or when you go to a Scene Selection (or Chapter Selection) menu of your DVD.  By default, I will create scene points at set minute intervals of your choosing, such as every 5 or 10 minutes.  You can also choose your own scene points as well.  Including the start of the movie as a scene, you may choose 6 scene points at a time (because a Scene Selection Menu is generally 6 scenes per menu).  Write down the time code for each scene point.  If the scene is not at a definative break, please add a short explenation of exactly when you want the scene.  Please note, that scene points can only be added at specific points in your movie, approximately every .5 seconds, so at times scenes cannot be perfectly placed.  If you have a preference, please mark if you'd rather a scene started slightly before, or slightly after your desired position.  I will try to put scenes so that they don't catch the end of the previous scene, or cut off the start of the current scene.  Please see Video Editing Options for pricing and details.  Complicated projects, such as re-arranged video clips with many scene selections may require a Design Session to avoid confusion and errors.