Robin's Nest DVD Saga

Greetings Quilters!

So many of you sent emails encouraging me with the Robin's Nest DVD project that I have decided to keep you updated on the progress via this blog.

And, as a matter of education, to also divulge all of the challenges along the way. Education in that I hope you will avoid some of the mistakes I have made. And, if any of you have insights that will shortcut my learning curve - pass them on!

Last Friday, I was hopeful that I would be able to transform my movie project file into a movie on a DVD that would be ready for duplication.

Alas, that was not to be.

I made another attempt on Saturday, and got a little further along the way. The program transformed the project, and got stuck on verifying the media. I guess that means that it couldn't find the DVD disc or disc drive. Before it stopped, a box opened asking what I wanted to have happen on that drive, and I clicked it shut (aka Cancel), since none of the options seemed right.

After some thought, tonight I will tell it to open a file when it gets to that point. Who knows, maybe that will make a difference! I'll report in tomorrow.

In the meantime....

Some History

In the June survey a lot of you said that you would like to see a step-by-step, from start to finish, DVD. So, I decided to take the plunge and do it!

A little robin had been nesting in a tree fern outside the window at my office, and just watching her inspired a quilt block. Once the quilt block was created, it was just a matter of gathering a camera and making a quilt.

Sounds so easy, right?

The quilt part was easy. I fired up my EQ5 program, and drew up a block, and then a small wall hanging - just four 9" blocks, some sashing and some borders. I wanted to make this an easy project for beginning quilters; and expandable for those who want to make something larger or more complicated.

Then I rounded up a camera. Hmmm. Now the first challenge. How to hold the camera and sew at the same time. Seems pretty impossible.

As I looked around my house, I discovered that I had possession of some old camera equipment that my dad didn't want to move to their new house. Among the treasures were a couple of tripods - one tabletop one, and one stand-on-the-floor tripod. Now I was set.

And the filming began. I decided that it would be "just in my house" - no fancy spots, no studio, just in my sewing areas. So, the lighting isn't perfect; but you can see what you need to see.

Starting and stopping as each short step was completed or when I decided it was time to change a camera angle, filming progressed. Day and night.

I found a halogen camera light, and sewed at night using that while filming. Then I realized that it cast a kind of pink glow. So much for the light at night. I finally discovered that during the day in the south part of my house with as much natural light as I could gather was the best.

Then limited to day filming, I spent most of Saturdays and Sundays filming and sewing, and many early mornings during the week.

As sections of filming were complete, I transferred the videos onto my computer into Windows Movie Maker. People told me that was a great program for editing movies, and it would convert them into the right format for DVDs, no problem. hmmm

I wish I could say now that it was that easy.

The first thing I learned was that it would have been better if I had used a series of video tapes, instead of using one tape and shooting over previous pictures. Minor lesson, though important.

Using Windows Movie Maker

As technology goes, using Windows Movie Maker to edit the video clips was very easy. After some experimenting, I discovered that I could slow it way down so I could cut out parts where I had stopped sewing and hadn't turned off the camera yet.

Not knowing any better, I just kept adding video clips onto the "project." I was amazed at how long this video was becoming - 4 hours, 5 hours, 6 hours. Then I got a warning! The program told me that 6 hours was probably about the maximum it should be.

OK - that works. When I got to the end of a section, I started a new "project." When I finished that stage of editing I had 2 project files - one 6 hours long, the other 2 hours long.

Then I merrily called my favorite audio/video CD duplicator place. I told them what I had, and asked if they could convert it into discs that could be played on computer or TV and add a Menu and Chapters. "Oh, yeah. No problem. Bring it in."

The only thing was that only 1 1/2 - 2 hours of video could go onto each DVD. But all I needed to do was write down the times for the end of each Chapter point and DVD. Easy.

A couple of days later, with timeline and DVDs in hand, I showed up at the shop, and conferred with the engineer. Sounded like everything was set, and I would have my copies in 2 weeks. He would let me know in a couple of days whether they needed anything else.

Well, a week later, I called them. Guess what! They couldn't open the file(s). They don't have Windows Movie Maker, and didn't have a clue what needed to be done. They did know that I really needed an AVI file format for them to work with.

More about AVI files later.


Happy Quilting!

Penny Halgren

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