I’m new to the MR Forums, but I had a question or two…
Recently I’ve been working on a video of our HO Modular Club here in So-Cal. I was thinking of trying to add locomotive sounds to the video. I remember MR running an article about making a good model railroad video, but can’t find it. Anyone have any help? Where can I find the engine sound clips online? What software works to add that to the video. Right now, I’m using Ulead video editing software.
Any help her would be great. Thanks! DLL 12/22/2008
I can’t remember the issue of MR that carried the article, but I use Windows Moviemaker to edit my video footage. It came with the computer and is a good basic editing suite. Check out the results and judge for yourself.
I use Windows Movie Maker to make my videos (http://chatanuga.org/WLMRvids.html). In the ones where I’ve added sound, I’ve either taken sounds from CDs that I have or took videos that I saved off YouTube and converted them to audio files, trimming the audio to fit my video.
I have run across some el cheapo CDs of “10,000 Sound Effectzzz” and the like at the computer store and the computer section at the office supply store. A few railroad sound effects-- maybe not every specific engine you want, but a lot of general railroady. I used a professional editing program so I can’;t tell you what will work for small change there. I made a video demonstrating what commodities were switched on my layout. My track-cleaning and loco response is not the best in the west so there was some rough handling shown and I made a sound track with lots of synchronized CRASH BANG. Lots of laughs and yuck-yucks.
I’m using Movie Maker, a program called Any Video Converter, and a Koday Easyshare 475. My camera saves things as MOV. files and Movie Maker doesn’t like those. I have to convert to WAV. or WMV. You can do some cutting in Video Converter, and remove sounds. It’s a free download.But diesn’t have the cool functions Movie Maker does My Youtube
I’m going to offer up some idea for you as well, and other members are free to nitpick at them at will.
Be prepared to shoot a lot and use very little. Carry LOTS of memory cards. 1 gig is about a half an hour, And may get you 10 minutes of footage on a working club layout, But I doubt it.
If your just doing promos, stag things FIRST and have an assitant to run trains while you shoot. If your working the camera during a club running night, Pick a place and be aware of trains before they get to you, so you can get the camera on and going.
Lighting is good. If you have enough light in camera mode, you won’t have enough for a video mode on the same digital camera. Movie Maker has a lighting filter, about two times for that is good
Leave yourself plenty of head and tail footage. The head is becuse you will inevitably rock the camera in telling it to start recording, and the tail is that you bump it trying to turn it off.
Make sure you have as much non-layout stuff out of the way as you can. This may be cardstock signs for operating crews, or angling the camera so you can’t see the fascia or overhead lights.
Camera positions: Lots of people will stress tripods. These can be used to great effect, especially witha good zoom. My problem with tripods is that they take the camera out of the scene. What I do is set the camera on the layout, a
I’m using Movie Maker, a program called Any Video Converter, and a Koday Easyshare 475. My camera saves things as MOV. files and Movie Maker doesn’t like those. I have to convert to WAV. or WMV. You can do some cutting in Video Converter, and remove sounds. It’s a free download.But diesn’t have the cool functions Movie Maker does My Youtube
I’m going to offer up some idea for you as well, and other members are free to nitpick at them at will.
Be prepared to shoot a lot and use very little. Carry LOTS of memory cards. 1 gig is about a half an hour, And may get you 10 minutes of footage on a working club layout, But I doubt it.
If your just doing promos, stag things FIRST and have an assitant to run trains while you shoot. If your working the camera during a club running night, Pick a place and be aware of trains before they get to you, so you can get the camera on and going.
Lighting is good. If you have enough light in camera mode, you won’t have enough for a video mode on the same digital camera. Movie Maker has a lighting filter, about two times for that is good
Leave yourself plenty of head and tail footage. The head is becuse you will inevitably rock the camera in telling it to start recording, and the tail is that you bump it trying to turn it off.
Make sure you have as much non-layout stuff out of the way as you can. This may be cardstock signs for operating crews, or angling the camera so you can’t see the fascia or overhead lights.
Camera positions: Lots of people will stress tripods. These can be used to great effect, especially witha good zoom. My problem with tripods is that they take the camera out of the scene. What I do is set the camera on the layout, and make sure I am clear of the