Funky Monk wrote:Hello peeps!
I've finally decided to give AMV's a go after thinking about it for a decade surely.
Now there seem to be about a hundred questions running around my head after these few days of researching and I hoped the people from a community like this could help me out so I can get started.
I only have some Photoshop knowledge from back in the day when I was a part of Planet Renders community so I'll probably handle the editing process with trial and error but for now I have some questions regarding formats, software and ripping.
I did read the sticky thread but even tho it's very nicely put together (thanks for that, must've taken quite a while) it opened a lot of questions so I'll just go ahead.
My biggest issue so far seems to be the format I'll be working in. Obviously .mkv is the king nowadays and my entire collection is the same format but if I see it right Adobe Premier Pro and other top editing programs don't support .mkv? I tried out Filmora Wondershare because it does support it but there are barely any options for actual editing so it also doesn't seem like the right choice.
Eventually, when I'd be posting my work online, I would rip my own videos but the problem of format still remains.
So I guess my question is do I have to convert all those hundreds of GBs to .avi or .mp4 or whichever one is optimal for editing?
Also if I rip a video myself I can get rid of all the hardsubs, watermarks? Will that make it ethically legit for me to use and post around the interwebs?
Now regarding cutting clips from larger videos... Do I first have to cut all those small pieces that I will use and then input them as I want along with the song in the background or can I do all of that in the same single project as I see fit?
These would be the burning questions I have before I can even start playing around with the editing programs (BTW I chose Adobe's Premier Pro, is that too arrogant of a choice for a newbie?) so I hope I'll get some help from all of you guys and dig into all this as soon as possible.
Thanks in advance people!

For .MKV, I use Zarxgui to encode it into an MP4 format. Time consuming, but efficient. I think it's safe to say most of us use it here (I hope). So yeah, to edit those files, you have to convert them. As for hardsubs, you can't eliminate them. Although, depending on where you obtain your .mkv from, you can turn off soft subs pretty easily if you have those.
The watermark elimination method: Zoom your video past the watermark. You'll get quality degradation, but it's better than having a watermark. I advice you to find blurays and rip them yourself, then you'll avoid all those nasty tv logos AND you can get creditless openings! (Don't think I ever make videos without using the openings!)
As for the cutting the clips, I'm kind of a weirdo when it comes to editing. Rather than cutting the pieces in my project media viewer using ins and outs (Like in Avid media composer or after effects), I lay out the entire thing in vegas and cut away at the bits of stuff I want. (Ex. Split the clips by pressing s, and copying and pasting them to the part of the video I want to use them.) The reason why I do this is so I don't lose track of what stuff I've already used. When I see a split in my clip, I say "Hey, I know I used that clip." Granted, this is in vegas and in premiere it's a tad bit more organized. Premiere is a bit more difficult to learn than vegas and some things like doing a simple fade are made a tad more annoying, but if you stick with it and learn, I bet you'll do great.
I've seen some INSANE timelines in premiere that make my vegas timelines look like cornflakes.