The Very Basics

Obviously you can't produce a movie if you can't shoot one. We'll assume that you already have one.

MicroDV is another type of digital video camcorder. Unfortunately this format is not well supported by the current crop of video editors, so no more mention will be made of it here.

Increasingly, new PCs come equipped with Firewire (also known as I-Link or IEEE 1394). If your PC hasn't got Firewire you can buy a Firewire PCI card for about £12 from here. You'll also need a 6-pin to 4-pin Firewire cable available from here.

Ideally your PC should be running Windows XP and your filesystem set to NTFS, otherwise you'll be limited to about 20 minutes of video due to maximum filesize of approximately 4Gb.

The minimum PC specification for video work depends on the video editor you use. Using the Edit Studio video editor, you should be able to manage with a 1GHz PC with 256Mb memory and a 30Gb hard disk. A fast PC with lots of memory means that a lot of operations happen much more quickly.

No matter how fast or slow your PC is, you should ensure that when doing video work you have no other programs running. A useful free program for closing down all background programs can be downloaded from here. Run this program before doing any video editing.

There are many video editors, varying in price from free to several hundreds of pounds. The more commonly used are:

• Microsoft Movie Maker Version 2. You can download this free video editor from here.For a free video editor MM2 is surprisingly good and may satisfy the requirements of many. A problem occurs when outputting to AVI, since MM2 outputs only AVI DV Type 1, and many other video programs will only allow the import if AVI DV Type 2. Not a serious problem, since a free "fix" is described at:

  http://users.tpg.com.au/mtam/guide_wmm2.htm
  

• Edit Studio. A good video editor costing about £60 if you download it from here. A cheaper option is to find a free Version 3 CD on the front cover of a video or computer magazine and upgrade for £20. You can download a trial version that will allow you to use it for 30 days. If you get Edit Studio, you're best advised to also get the optional MPEG XS Codec (£20 from here).
  
  
• Pinnacle Studio 9. Version 7 was a good video editor, but Version 8 was troubled with bugs up to Version 8.11. Studio 9 seems to be OK but does tend to be memory-hungry and requires 512Mb of memory to run properly. This video editor costs about £80 and can be ordered from here.
  
  
• Adobe Premiere. A video editor considerably more expensive than any of the above. It provides additional features through the use of plug-ins (some of which are included with the product). Premiere is memory-hungry and generally requires 512Mb of memory to run properly.
  
  
• Vegas 5. An advanced video editor that has an easy-to-use interface but with a lot of features. Expensive but an excellent product. It will run on PCs with relatively low specifications.

Note that most video editors provide a CD burning facility. If yours doesn't, then you can use Nero, available from here.

This operation transfers your video from your camcorder to your PC. You need to:

• Connect your camcorder to your PC's firewire port.
  
  
• Ensure that your PC is switched on, and switch your camcorder on.
  
  
• Run your video editor and select Capture. Many editors display a mimic of your camcorder permitting you to control the camcorder from your PC.

Most video editors bring in your video footage as a series of clips (Premiere is the exception which brings in the whole of your footage, which then needs to be broken down into individual clips manually).

As each clip is captured, the first frame of the clip is displayed as a still image. These are the building blocks of your movie. Information about each clip is displayed against the still image (e.g. Clip ID, length). You can usually replace the Clip ID with a more meaningful name for the clip.

This is where you do your creative bit. Essentially, the process is:

• Trim each clip, discarding the front end/back end as required.
  
  
• Do any other clip processing. The more advanced editors allow you to manipulate the clip, adjusting (for instance) the brightness, contrast, colour etc.
  
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• Edit (if required) the sound tracks. Some editors allow you to fade-in and fade-out the sound. Some allow you to replace the sound tracks and add background music (see below).
  
  
• Assemble your clips in the order you require into the time-line. The familiar drag-and-drop usually works here.
  
  
• Insert fade-ins/fade-outs and transitions between clips as required. Most video editors provide a selection of these.
  
  
• Insert title (obviously usually at the beginning of your timeline). and credits (at the end of your timeline). Many video editors provide titling, some with scrolling/fade-in/fade-out). A common (and useful) practice is to use a still image as a background for your titles/credits - so if your camcorder takes stills remember this when you're shooting your movie.
  
  
• Add background music and/or dialogue to your timeline. Usually extra sound is added using layers which you can add (if you need to) for your sound.

And that's about it for the Edit phase. At any time you can preview either individual clips, or all/selected portions of your timeline.

Since editing can sometimes take a while when you're engrossed in your own creativity, most video editors permit you to save the Project at any time, and come back to it later when you've had a good night's sleep In fact I'd recommend it, since previewing your movie with a fresh pair of eyes will often show flaws and suggest to you ways in which you can improve your movie.

This is the process of outputting your finished movie. You have various output options (depending on your video editor and other factors), including:

• "Master" your movie back to your camcorder's miniDV tape (only if your camcorder has DV-in).
  
  
• Make VCD. VCD is a relatively low-quality video media on CD (see note below) but which is small in filesize. VCD uses the MPEG-1 video format.
  
  
• Make SVCD. SVCD is a high-quality video media on CD (see note below) with larger filesize. SVCD uses the MPEG-2 video format.
  
  
• Save your movie to your PC's hard disk (usually as an AVI file - but can be in MPEG or other video formats depending on your video editor). This is the way to go if you're sending your video over the Internet.

Making your movie can take some considerable time, since a lot of processing goes on. Its a good idea to make your move overnight (or while you're down the pub).

The options for making your movie depends on your video editor and the codecs that your video editor can use. A codec is a software module that converts one video format (e.g. minDV) to another (e.g. MPEG-2 for SVCD or DVD). The quality of your finished movie depends to a large degree on the particular codec being used.

DVD media may present problems (see below), so since most people have a VHS recorder, you may consider this to be the way to go for "universal" distribution.

If you've got a TV output on your graphics card then you'll have no problems. All you need to do is connect the video/audio from the graphic card to the VHS recorder and play your movie from your editor while recording on your VHS recorder: you may have to set up your editor to use a high resolution. Alternatively you can write-back your finished movie to miniDV tape in your camcorder (you'll need DV-in on your camcorder to do this) and play from the analogue output (and audio) into your VHS recorder. A useful piece of kit which you might find useful is a SCART adapter as shown on the right. You should be able to pick one of these up for about £3 at a local market/cheap shop.

You might expect that distributing your movie on a a CD would require the recipient to be in possession of a PC. Fortunately, most of today's DVD players will play VCDs. The downside of VCDs are that they deliver a low quality picture. The upside is that most video editors will allow you to burn VCDs. The native video format of the VCD is MPEG-1, which returns very low filesize at the expense of poor quality.

This media format gives good quality in return for a restriction on movie length (in time), generally working out at a maximum of approximately 20 minutes. Again, most video editors allow you to directly burn SVCDs, and most domestic DVD players will allow the viewing of SVCDs.

Video beginners are often surprised that, in addition to commercial DVDs, there are in fact 5 separate DVD standards, DVD-RAM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R and DVD+RW. This anomaly, which makes things difficult for the home movie make, is due to (in the early days) different manufacturers trying to get their own version adopted as the "industry standard". Though DVD-R is allied to
DVD-RW, and DVD+R with DVD+RW, there's no guarantee that any domestic DVD player will play all variants without problem - though some do. You can get a handle on the compatibility of any particular domestic DVD player at http://www.videohelp.com/dvdplayers. This is an extremely useful site since you can specify a range of CD/DVD formats and search for the particular domestic DVD players that support the range you have specified. Alternatively, you can name a particular make/model and find just exactly which CD/DVD media formats that particular DVD player supports.

If you're simply looking for an inexpensive DVD player that will play all the popular CD/DVD video formats then you could do worse than buy the £40 Pacific DVD player in Asda stores.

I've only mentioned the DVD-RAM media, since it hasn't been universally taken up because the disks are relatively expensive - though they are far, far more robust than any of the other DVD media formats (especially the caddy versions). The DVD-RAM has, however, found a place in domestic DVD TV recorders. Since most PC DVD-RAM burners also support more than one of the remaining DVD formats, it's a format that should be taken seriously - though not for routine move burning, rather for backing up your data from your PC's hard disks.

To be realistic though, it really comes down to a choice between DVD-R and DVD+R. Which one to go for? I wouldn't dare to come down on one side against the other, though there are more legacy (fancy word for older) DVD players supporting DVD-R rather than supporting DVD+R. Another factor to be considered is that DVD-R blanks are less expensive than DVD+R blanks - less so today than six months ago, but worth considering. Another factor which might seem to be significant (but actually isn't) is that a given movie will usually take longer to burn as a DVD-R than when burning as a DVD+R. The reason why I say it isn't significant is because all DVD burning takes a long time, most clueful people start the burning then go down the pub (or maybe do something more useful).

All is not lost however, since there are a number of DVD burners that allow you to produce both DVD-R and DVD+R videos.

Another thing that surprises those starting to produce home video DVDs, is that very few video editors provide DVD burning facilities - VCDs yes, SVCDs yes, but rarely DVDs in any of the formats. There are one or two now beginning to appear, and interestingly they are at the low end (low-cost) end of the market. I personally would not recommend any, since of the ones I've seen either lack good video editing or they produce relatively poor quality pictures.

If my opinion is worth anything, I'd recommend getting one of the video editors listed at the top of this article, and then invest in the latest version of Nero. Most of us are working within a very tight budget, but for those who have more money at their disposal I'd suggest going for DVD Architect (made by the same people who make Vegas which I'd also recommend for those with deep pockets). Though it is bundled with Vegas in some of the packages, it can be bought separately and will work after editing in any of the video editors that I've mentioned previously.

As you can see there are many issues to consider, but to get down to practicalities all you have to do is use your video editor and output as MPEG-2 files. Then read them into whatever DVD software you have settled on. To make it easier for you later, its a good idea to plan your DVD menu system before you do any editing whatsoever, and produce a number of MPEG-2 files, one for each menu section. Some DVD programs do allow you to split your movie before menuing, but it is time-consuming and sometimes difficult - especially in getting the accurate section-breaks.

If you want to know more about DVDs, you can find much information here:

http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html