People often ask me for recommendations on what to use to edit their own videos.\u00a0 My first suggestion is of course to hire me to do it for you!\u00a0 But barring that:<\/p>\n
As far as platforms – computers – video editing can be relatively resource-heavy, depending on your format.\u00a0 If you intend to edit HD video (and you will eventually if you do this for awhile) you will likely need 4 MB of memory, as well as a decent amount of video memory.\u00a0 A relatively well-equipped desktop should do fine, but if you plan to work on a laptop, don’t skimp.\u00a0 So if you’re buying a computer, get as much on-board and video memory as you can afford, and consider external storage – 500GB to 1 TB – it’s cheap.\u00a0 You may think getting a large hard disk in the computer itself is enough, but you’ll want to keep your footage and your products somewhere, and no internal hard disk is going to last you very long in that regard.\u00a0 I use a home server with 1.5 TB of redundant (RAID 5) storage because I have lost too much footage from crashes, and HD uses a lot of space.\u00a0 The software that comes with my Sony camera catalogs everything and I can search by date.\u00a0 And if you buy a Sony camera, you’ll need that program because your other programs won’t give you a proper thumbnail for AVCHD files.\u00a0 Also having a firewire input can be helpful, although more and more they’re using USB.<\/p>\n
If you’re buying a camera, make sure its output works with your computer (ports).\u00a0 Stay away from cameras that store on DVD because they’re too big, and the DVD format includes a lot of loss up front.\u00a0 I recommend a flash-based camera or a hard disk camera so you can drag files to your computer.\u00a0 If you use miniDV the quality is supposed to be better, but you have to play it back while your computer captures it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then you can look at software.\u00a0 Make sure, first of all, that your software works with the output your camera produces.\u00a0 You can use what’s already on your computer (Windows Movie Maker or Apple iMovie) but you wil eventually want to do something that program can’t do.\u00a0 There\u00a0lots good programs for under $100\u00a0– check out http:\/\/www.videomaker.com\/article\/14142?utm_source=enews&utm_medium=email&utm_content=tip_enews_2009_09_3&utm_campaign=traffic<\/a> for a recent review.\u00a0\u00a0 The cool thing is\u00a0that many vendors offer “trial version” downloads, usually for a month or so.<\/p>\n And finally, if you want to do decent work, strongly suggest a tripod and an external mike.\u00a0 Even if you don’t use an external mike to record video, a decent USB mike will be useful for voiceovers during editing.\u00a0 Strangely, I have found the mike that comes with the video game “Rock Band” to be a pretty decent mike.\u00a0 The computer mikes I have tried\u00a0pick up too much hiss and pops.<\/p>\n Now all that’s needed is your own creativity.\u00a0 I’m afraid I can’t help you there \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" People often ask me for recommendations on what to use to edit their own videos. My first suggestion is of course to hire me to do it for you! But here are some other ideas if you want to give it a go on your own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1787,20,1786],"class_list":["post-120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home-editing","tag-software","tag-tips","tag-home-editing"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=120"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions\/121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}