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Computers Video To Make Your Movies

By Nikos L Maxwell

A computers video hobby requires start-up capital but is easy to learn. You will need a digital camcorder, a firewire cable, a computer with enough storage space and memory, as well as editing software. If you want to output your films to DVD, then you may need a DVD burner drive and software for your computer too.

Plausibly, you could get set up for as little as $1,200 ($500 for a Dell laptop, $500 for a Canon camcorder, $200 for the software). To learn, you can take a computer training course, attend film school, read the manual or watch online tutorials.

Setting Up Your Computer To Edit Videos

You may have heard that there are gaming computers, music computers and video computers. However, just about any desktop computer can be set up to edit videos as long as you have a firewire port (to connect the camera to your computer), CPU power, hard drive space and bandwidth to handle the enormous amount of data being processed.

Whenever you render your movie and await the changes you have made to take place, you will experience a huge lag if your computer isn’t up to the task. This process can take minutes or hours, depending on your equipment. A fast computer will also be able to read data from the camera, transferring it to the computer efficiently.

Shopping For Video Components For Your Setup

When shopping for computer video components, you will want no less than 20 GB of hard drive space, 512 MB of memory and a Pentium 3 processor. If you plan to do a lot of remote shooting and working, then laptop computers now come with everything you will need.

Once you have looked at laptop computers and desktop computers, you will need a digital camera to shoot on. The Canon XH-A1 is considered a "wonderful camera for indie filmmaking" in the $2,500-$3,500 range. The esteemed Canon XL-2 can cost up to $5,000. For under $500, you may want to try the Canon Elura or Canon ZR300.

Shooting Video For A Professional Look

Canon cameras offer rich color saturation and high-quality pictures for a professional look. Sony cameras are used by college campuses and professional filmmakers alike. The Sony Handycam ranges between $300 and $500 for basic digital resolution and $800 to $1200 for high-definition.

Sony is noted for its steady images and detail. You may also want to check out the Panasonic line, such as the PV-GS150, PV-GS31 or VDR-M50, which are all under $500. For more serious filmmakers, Panasonic offers the AG-DVX100A and DVX100. Panasonic cameras are noted for excellent zoom, focus and manual gain control.

Video Training Courses May Be Too Expensive

To gain valuable computers video training, many people choose to forego the costly college education and instead take a more do-it-yourself approach. There are a number of websites offering video production tutorials and software computer training online.

The most popular editing programs today are Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere. Pinnacle Studio, Quicktime, Flash, Dreamweaver, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After-Effects, Avid and Media 100 are other noteworthy programs you may be exposed to.

For some tutorials, check out www.digitalvideoediting.com, www.mediacollege.com and www.animationsforvideo.com. While a lot can be found by way of free computer training, many people still prefer the one-on-one attention of a classroom setting. This is also good if you don’t have all your own equipment yet.

About the Author:
Nikos L Maxwell has written a number of articles on digital photography and digital editing software including Digital Editing Software, Large Images, Edit Pictures, Fuji Film Digital Cameras, DVD Editing, Ray Disc, Blu Ray, Blu Ray Disc, Blu Ray HD DVD, Blu Ray Reviews, Blu Ray Vs HD DVD, DVD Duplication, Ray HD, HD DVD.

Keep a lookout as more articles are added from this popular author on this website in the near future.

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