Video-Camera
Digital Video-Camera
Digital Video (DV) is a great format for anyone wanting to use a digital video camcorder (DV camera) with your PC or the Web. . No matter how much you work with your video.
However, the video-camera choice can be difficult when you look at the many choices available. The type of media you want to use, the quality you need and the price you want to pay are all important aspects to consider.
You can buy a video-camera for under $200, but you may find that you didn't buy enough camera! Picture quality is your first measure. If you are just using for the "small screen" (ie the web) an inexpensive video-camera will do. If you are doing videos for the big screen (Large TV, or movie screen), then you may need to spend a few more $$!
Even though you can do a decent job for e-mailing, and maybe something like youtube, you should test your video-camera on your TV.
Video Camera under $ 200, are typically small, and have minimal features, and can produce some fun videos that are "pretty good". However, if you want really good, you will need to spend much more. I think of these as "fun cameras", but not for serious users. For example, if you plan to make movies of your kids growing up, or you are planning to make "movies" to be played on a screeen or a large screen TV, I wouldn't expect these to be enough.
On the other hand, you just want to try it out, or have a small video to easily carry, then they could be just fine!
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Flip Video |
Kodak Zi8 Pocket Video Camera |
Sony Bloggie MHS CM5 |
CNET Reviews - Camcorders These cameras tend to run in the low end.
The better cameras come $500 - $ 1,000. These camcorders will give very good video, and problably what you want, if you are serious about good videos. They are much better in low light and for capturing motion.
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Canon Vixia CH-5 |
Sony Handycam DCR-SR47 |
Hitachi DZ-BD10HA |
When you get very picky (or professional level) You can spend many thousand$$. You will need to spend a lot of time comparing features. My personal experience is to start with camera shops, and also to discuss with professionals,, before you venture the big bucks!
Your PC
Several pieces of the Digital Video concept need to come together to make movies. PCs have to be strong enough to deal with the demands on storage and performance that video makes. Next, there had to be a way to connect a camcorder to a PC quickly and easily.
Most dual-core PCs released over the last few years will provide more than enough processing power to deal with video transfers. The increases in storage capacity and dramatic reductions in the cost of RAM have also served the DV user well.
You will need at least more than 2 Ghz (dual core), probably 4Gb memory, or more, and Windows Vista (preferably Wondows 7).
Windows XP is bately adequate, but Windows 7 is much better (and Vista). They give enough "horsepower" for video editing. Movie maker is a decent application as well. I recommend at least 4MB of storage, as well. Videos also take a lot of disk space, so look to have at least 500GB of hard drive space, and an external hard drive of at least 300GB.
Note: Memory is pretty cheap right now, so I'd recommend 8 GB, or as much as 16GB, to get the speed for video editing.
Video editing software would best be in the range of $100. However, there is free editing software available. Read the following review for a starting point.
Software
Windows 7 has Movie Maker included. While it is somewhat limited, it is a starting point. I've used Adobe elements, and that is not too bad. Some of my customers are using Adobe CS5, and like it quite a lot (though mostly for still pictures.) Read the following reviews and you can learn more.
PC Magazine Video Editing Reviews
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