Getting started? webcast promo vids

[rfrink]

Hello Folks!

I would like to do a series of small promo web videos to market the products from my business. We manufacture and sell industrial machinery.

Initially, I'm thinking of doing some promos, testimonials, and a few tutorial clips focusing around demostrating our machinery...all on the web. The clips may be from about 1 min to say 5 mins in length.


I found this clip online which is the basic idea of what I would like to accomplish.

http://www.jancy.com/media/radius%20...ming%20WMV.asx

I would like to shoot the footage, then narrate the action after I've cut and pasted the scenes together. Here is another example: Note how the producer filmed this testimonial...the customer's voice is heard through different scenes. At first you see the custmer speaking, then the scene changes, corresponding to what is being said.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW_Ue_8TtWA&eurl=


My budget is capped at $1000 to purchase a camcorder, accesories and editing software. I plan to shoot most of the video indoors in our machine shop and host the video clips on youtube.

Were to start? I stopped at the local electronics super center to buy a Camcorder yesterday...but ended up confused and overwhelmed.

I don't have any experience, heck, I don't even have a camcorder. So what should I buy with my budget and where to start?

Sincere thanks!

Rob

[RFBurns]

Hi!

Well, the budget you specified is not much to work with, and since the end product is video clips for web presentation, the clips do not need to be high resolution and the editing software does not need to be some fancy schmancy high dollar program.

Unless the video clips are focusing on small working parts or large array control pannels with print noting what control is to what, the camera to use also does not need to be a high end, high resolution camera.

A good consumer camera, say one in the price range of 300.00 or so will do just fine. Even those have good enough resolution for a master to then dump into a computer for editing and creating the video clips.

Editing software....again for the end result..there is no need to spend a ton of that budget on software. There are probably some freebie programs that will do just fine for your clips.

When you shop for the camera, make sure that it can easily interface to your PC for editing. Most of them do have connecting cables and necessary software to load the video into the PC. The software that comes with the camera also might have some small version of a video editing program that can be used to make the clips.

Of course you also want to make the clips in a format that is most compatiable, ie: wmv or avi or asx. Most media players these days can recognize various file formats anyway, providing the end viewer has the proper codecs installed in their PC, but that is something you cannot guarantee or have any control over, so you also might consider putting up links on the clip pages of the website in case a viewer cannot play the video clips and need some codec or even links to media players.

Remember, it is the end product that determines what you will need to create the end product. In this case...video clips from 1 to 5 minutes in duration presented on the webpage. Base your purchasing decisions on that factor and you could come out in the end with plenty of that budget left over for future projects.