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Choosing your video software suiteMar 16 '01 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line When choosing your video suite, make sure that you are realistic about your goals, your hardware, and your budget.
How to choose video editing software If you don't have a computer that is "DV-equipped", such as an iMacDV or a Sony Vaio with DV, make sure that you have the right hardware. You may find that you have to spend a large amount of money to make this happen - a couple of hundred dollars if your computer is a few years out of date. So you must weigh whether or not it is worth it. Compare it to buying an iMacDV - which costs around 1300 dollars new. 1. Your processor - it should be at least a Pentium 3. Pentium 2 will work, but not too well. Earlier than that, you are on your own, and you should probably stop right here until you get a better PC. 2. Your disk - You need a very fast, big disk drive. It should be at least 20GB, but more reasonably, 36 GB. This is because 1 second of video can take 30 Megabytes. So 1 minute of video is 1.8 GB. So you can only capture around 10-20 minutes at a time. THere are also compression algorithms that reduce the amount of space you need, but this is a trade off. If you use less space, you need more processor speed, or else it will take too much time to decompress when you are playing it. Your disk should be either a SCSI drive, or an IEEE 1394 firewire drive. These are both expensive propositions if you don't have them, probably around $500 or more. If you try using a slower, or a smaller disk, you will have lots of problems with your video quality, and the time it takes you to make the video. 3. A good video card. You need this so that "rendering" time doesn't take too long. If you put fancy effects in your videos (overlays, filters, transitions), the computer needs to render each frame of your movie. THere are typically 30 frames to a second, and it has to render each one individually. A good way to tell if your video card is good enough is to see how well you can use graphic intensive programs, such as games or Graphic tools such as PhotoShop. If these tools work fine, then your video card should be fine for the purpose. If not, then you may have to purchase a new card (around $150-200) 4. A digital video camera. If you have a VHS camcorder, then you can't do digital video editing. You would have to purchase expensive conversion hardware, and frankly, it's just not worth the expense. Digital Video cameras come in 3 formats - DV (for professionals), MiniDV (for consumers), and Digital8 (for people who have Hi8 tapes that they still want to play, and convert) These cameras all have a port, called either a DV Port, IEEE 1394 Port, Firewire Port, or i.Link port. This directly connects to your PC. 5. Windows 98SE or Windows 2000. If you have Windows 95, Windows NT, or Linux, it will be much more challengine (but not impossible!) for you to use video editing software. I highly recommend having one of these operating systems before you start. 5. A firewire card. You need to purchase a firewire card, that connects from your PC to your camera. You will most likely have to open up your PC and install it. It is relatively easy to do. The firewire cards typically come bundled with the video editing package. You want to make sure that you purchase the correct package. The differences between the "video capture card", or IEEE 1394 card, or firewire card, are minimal. The cost of these cards tends to be small - around $50 or less. The main thing that you are paying for is the cost of the software. Typically, the low end models will come with the basic software you need to edit on your computer. The two most popular packages are: StudioDV by Pinnacle(www.pinnaclesys.com) and ADS Pyro by ADS Technologies(www.adstech.com) They each come bundled with software that can do the job, and the whole package itself costs less than $100. If you are just a beginner, choose one of these packages, they will do all you need. If you are interested in higher end packages, they can run up to thousands of dollars. I strongly recommend not spending more than $300 for your first package - you will probably not use 90% of the features available to you. Typically, there are 3 things you do when editing video. First - you capture the video from your tape to your computer. Second - you edit clips of the video, and string them together. Third - you render the finished product back to tape. That's it. Everything else is fancy "effects" that you don't need to use, and most professionals don't use. But they are there, and they are fun if you have the time. But don't waste your money on them until you are ready. Remember - a digital video editing suite can't fix camerawork problems. If you are zooming in and out all over the place, filming in too low light, or have a shaky video, the digital suite can't fix these things - it can only put band-aids on it. You can, of course, buy other software to help you here, but it's better just to get it right when you film it. Overall, make sure you have the right hardware, and the right operating system. Video editing solutions can quickly cost more money than you had intended to budget. Read some message boards, and learn as much as you can before buying the cards. Below are some good sites to check out. Usenet rec.video rec.video.desktop Web www.dv.com www.cnet.com www.zdnet.com ADS Pyro Board http://pub9.ezboard.com/bpyro1394 Pinnacle Studio DV board http://www.pinnaclesys.com/support/products/default.asp?SeriesID=90 Good luck, and happy editing!  |
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by texas-swede
