Digital Video Equipment
Guide to Selecting & Buying the Best
digital camcorders, video editing hardware & software.
Once you have an understanding of the video creation process, it becomes easier to take the first step towards deciding what digital video equipment would be needed to setup a video production system.
That still leaves questions around what factors to consider when selecting those hardware and software. This article will provide you with all the necessary information, to help you select the best desktop video equipment.
From your side, you need to know what you want to shoot. Are you going to shoot simple home videos... or do you want to do some high quality work?
So here we go!
Selecting & Buying a Digital Camcorder
A camcorder is your first requirement if you want to shoot video. Though analog camcorders still exist, it is digital camcorders which everybody is using.
Even within digital camcorders, the price range could vary a lot, so you need to be clear about your budget and what you intend to shoot. If you intend to shoot only home videos i.e. basically some events around friends & family, a low to mid-range digital camcorder should suffice.
For technicalities, look at factors like firewire support, lens quality, still image capability, etc. For more information, you can read the following articles.
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Buying a Computer for Video Editing
Computer is the heart of your video production system. It is where you will do things like editing, adding effects, adding soundtrack, etc. and come up with the final DVD.
So your computer needs to have a good configuration, else you are not going to enjoy this process, since it will take ages to do all the processing.
If you already have a computer at home, you will need to check its configuration and maybe upgrade it. If you are going to buy a new one, you need to consider factors like CPU, RAM, Hard disk, upgradability, Monitor size, etc.
For more information, you can read this article on selecting a good computer for video editing.
Buying a Video Capture Device
To be able to capture your video on the computer, you need to know what format your video is stored in. It can be one of the two, either Analog or Digital.
If your video is stored in digital format (digital camcorders) then your computer will need to have Firewire card...to be able to transfer the video to your computer (Firewire gives you extremely fast transfer speeds than USB).
If your video is stored in analog format (VHS tapes) then you will need an analog-to-digital conversion device to do the transfer to your computer. It also becomes easier to preserve those videos once they are converted to the digital format.
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Buying a Video Editing Software
Broadly speaking, the various video editing software packages are meant for either Amateurs (Home Users) or Professionals. They are further classified based on whether they run on windows or Mac.
Final Cut Pro (Mac) and Adobe Premiere (windows) have high end features and are used extensively by pros. For that reason they are expensive as well.
On the other hand, if you are an amateur or intend to make home videos, Pinnacle Studio Plus or Roxio would be more suitable, considering your requirements and budget.
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Buying VCD or DVD Authoring Software
DVD authoring packages are quite cheap and affordable nowadays. Besides, they are becoming popular because of their ease of use. The process of burning a VCD or DVD is greatly simplified using an authoring package. They also let you add VCD menus and DVD chapters for easy navigation.
Ulead Systems is an industry leader for these products; you can buy such software packages from them. For more information, you can also read this article on Buying DVD and VCD authoring software.
Conclusion
I think this article pretty much sums up the digital video equipments needed for computer video production.You have lots of choices, both in terms of brands and budget. This is good from a buyer's perspective but at the same time it can get confusing as well.
The important think is not to get carried away and buy what suits your budget and requirements.
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