planning to start a video editing hobby/business

[Dax_Brandy]

i thought of getting into this other use of my PC other than gaming and internet. so,
what do i initially need? requirements? where do i start?

any good sites to read about caputing/making/editing movies?

thank you.

[phenious]

OK. Lots of money needed up front for this. First thing you will need is a good camera. What type of filming are you planing to do? Public Events. Film stuff for families like weddings and Birthdays and such. If you are serrious about doing this then you need a high end camera and those can run you about $3K. The visual quality that you can see between the high end and low end cameras is very noticable. After you select your camera you will need to have the right editing software. Most people who are really big into editing use Adobe Primere. This is the leading editing software AFAIK. Along with this you need lots and lots of hard drive space. To keep the best quality I recomend capturing in DV Format which takes up about 11Gigs of space for about an hour of video. To capture in DV Format you need a firewire port to capture off your digital Camera. I recomend using a firewire over anlog TV capture card as its easier to work with and the quality is far better IMO. Most of the Sound Blaster cards come with a firewire port. After you edit it you can convert it to MPEG2 (DVD Standard and it will cut down the size a lot. After you have gotten the hard drive space and editing stuff you need to decide what type of media you want to output your new video on . DVD or VHS or maybe even streaming media for a website. If you choose VHS you need to get a good TV out card and sound card so you can record to a VHS tape from your computer. I recomend using a new VCR that you only use for making your recordings to keep the tape heads clean. If you choose to use DVD media you have to get your self a burner or find a DVD Production facility that you can send DLT (Digital Linear Tapes) to so they can stamp the information onto a real DVD. I have opted to burn my own as I havent had any compatability problems and I have found ways around the 4.3GB Size limit for the most part. I recomend Adobe Encore DVD to make your DVD menus. It can work with photoshop files so you can make menu buttons and backgrounds in photoshop and then import the PSD file and keep layers and edit them further in Encore and go back and forth without any loss of data . Thats is what I recomend for a bussiness. If its just a hobby with a few side jobs for people who are not looking to spend much money then you can probably use a simply Soney Handy cam that will run you between $300~$500 depending on which you choose and if you can find any savings and sales and such. If you buy a burner that isnt a OEM white box then they normally come with software that will let you edit movies and make a menu on your DVD from a group of templates. Hope I made some sense and helped some.

-: phenious :-

[watchtower7]

you have pm

[XxCowOfChaosxX]

AHHH, paragraphs!!! my eyes!! lol very thorough tho

[teengeek88]

if its mostly for fun no real big deal just get the DVD MovieFactory by Ulead its not Adobe Premier but it gets the job done. You can still create titles and stuff with that. It comes free with burners for TigerDirect.com FYI

Good luck and DEFINITLEY go with FireWire makes a world or difference

[phenious]

I can second the Ulead stuff I still use it when im doing fast stuff. It came with my burner as well

-: phenious :-

[Dax_Brandy]

wow! that was a good suggestion, phenious... i was thinking of starting off with just transfering vhs to vcd (for starters like me ). digital cameras and video will follow later if i could save some more for the firewire cards, etc. some people for other forums recommend TMPGENc for video making, is this good software? ULEAD software is quite expensive too.. hmmm... but i can try those trial versions.

thanks again for keeping me informed.. more suggestions please..

You can use applications like TMPGenc and VirtualDub for the vast majority of your linear editing work. It feels like I literally live in VirtualDub. I also recommend learning AVISynth if you are serious about video editing.

As to non-linear editing, I recommend starting with something a little less complex than Adobe Premier. MGI and Ulead both offer a wealth of low-cost NLE software solutions.

My best suggestion? Read everything you can at this site....

http://www.doom9.org

Also create a forum account and skim through the new posts atleast 2-3 times each week.

Robert Richmond

[Dax_Brandy]

thanks, rob. so much technical words.. i need some serious reading here...

im checking the site now..

[Gunny_Snipes]

Hardware and software:

Hardware:
-a camcorder or dvcam with s-video or 1394 support
-an agp slot graphics card that supports the camcorder or dvcam you have (or want to buy)
-a firewire 1394 card
-DVD-RW or CD-RW
-pc, mouse and kb

Software: (various products for various users)
-ati radeon agp cards and some cd-rw's come with limited versions of Cyberlink Power Director Pro ME or Ulead's DVD MovieFactory so no software necessary (unless you wish to upgrade for all of the features)
-Pinnacle studios 8 is promising! (get the plugins too! they're amazing!)
-Ulead Video Studio 8 has some nice stuff.
-Adobe Premier is good. (you must really be pc-video literate to use this, not for the novice)

all of these are good for the "home movie" movie maker or for vhs to vcd with a few professional intro's etc... person. (check to make sure that their DVD/VCD player can play CR-R and/or CR-RW discs...this is often a problem)

TMPGenc, VirtualDub and AVISynth are truly stuff for the professionals.

Simple setup can be quick, fast and effective if you know what you're doing. Enjoy!