advice

[bensheard]

Hi

I have done some basic videoing and editing at home with our home video camera. Lately, my friend and I have been filming events at school. We have now been asked to research and put a proposal forward for a sort of "Video" society which will film school events. ALong with the proposal, we need to give a list of equipment we would require. THis is where I need help:
Can anybody help me with the following:

1. Firstly, can anybody reccomend a camera model? brand? (Sort of middle of the range) And should i go for a camera that records on mini cassettes or mini DVDs?
2. What video editing software should i look at? brands? (also middle of the range, not too complicated to use, but effective)
3. What sort of PC hardware requirements would you need to run this software?
4. FInally, what sort of prices am i looking at?

Thanks very much, any help would be greatly appreciated!

[James Lewis]

Hi

I posted earlier today with the same headline. The Canon ZR600(although you may want to shop around cause this one has expensive accesories). works fine. It's a mini casette. All I needed was the firewire card and the cable, and it was easy. Anyway I would recommend a 250 gig HD, at least 2.8 GHZ cpu, and at least 1 full gig of ram. I have a Dell E 521. www.videoguys.com has all this info and more. It's a business website but with good info. As for editing software there are many different kinds and you can pay up to $1000. I have Vista OS, which seems to be working but, again you never know what's compatible and what's not. I also have Windows Movie Maker. People I was asking, like at BestBuy and stuff, were telling I may need to install a driver, and then it still might not work if I didn't have the right software and I was going nuts. But it turned out that once I hooked up the camera with the firewire cable there was a window that pooped up saying "installing driver". What a relief it was to see that after all those error messages.

[bensheard]

Thanks!

Re video camera, i searched for the one you mentioned above, and if i found the right one, it is one of those small compact home video cameras. I was looking more at a proper video camera with possiblity of manual focus etc... i found a possibility on a website: Canon XH A1... have you heard of this? what do you think? Are there any other similar ones (same or lower price range and similar features) that i should also look at?

[James Lewis]

No...

I don't know. Just find something you like, buy it, and learn as you go. You could research it it first but then you're not shooting, you're just sitting at your computer. At least if you just buy it and start using it you may accomplish a video. When I baught mine I had no idea the battery only lasted 1 hour and that I would have to buy another one and alternate. And the batteries cost $55. Then I had to worry about compatability. But that's just how it is.

[UncasMS]

i'd recommend a pc with a dualcore cpu, 2gb ram and TWO harddrives because especially with videoediting you will benefit from working across different physical drives!

go for two sata drives of say 250gb to 400gb each and you won't regret investing into another hdd once you compared the differences to a system where your operating system, videoediting tool and the large video data itself have to run from the same physical drive.

[James Lewis]

2 gigs of ram

I'm gonna have to get another gig of ram myself. I don't think I'll be toing anything big enough to need two 400 gig hard drives with. Hell, I had trouble with the simple stuff. Notice no one replied to my first message. lol. I don't about5 bensheard what he plans to do.