Monday, January 22, 2007

The Perfect Editing Station - Expert Help by PC Magazine

Jan Ozer at PC Magazine has an article on the perfect setup for video-editing.

Are you a filmmaker? Or a video enthusiast? Or the greatest thing to hit YouTube since that Star Wars kid? You've been editing video for a while, perhaps producing short films, training videos, or maybe even a wedding or two, and the only thing standing between you and an Independent Spirit award is the limitations of your current gear. It's time to jump-start your career with an upgrade.

The first step in your transformation into George Lucas is clear: You'll need a superfine digital camcorder. But once you've spent a cool thousand dollars on the latest and greatest from Sony, Samsung, or whichever manufacturer you favor, you've only just begun your journey from taking cute home movies to making great videos. That camera is only going to get you halfway. But that's why I'm here. I'll show you how to build an awesome editing station to take your video to the next level.

Read the full article at The Perfect Editing Station.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Unable to Load Archived Video

dnix71 asks:

For some as yet to be explained reason, none of my video stored on my hard drive will load into the editing software. This just began happening recently. Cannot even load sample stuff! CPU locks up and must be re-booted.

I have been using WinDVD creator for over a year without probs, tho I am aware of its shortcomings, it worked for me. I have attempted to load any video clip from my drive to Movie Maker and ShowBiz with the same results.

For the full post, please visit VideoHelp.com.

Video Editing Software - Tech Support Guy Forums

iandy16 asks:

I am in need of some new video editing software, Which is the best one out these days which is easiest use, and contains lots of effect features, and other editing stuff.

To see the full post and add your own comments, please visit Video Editing Software @ Tech Support Guy Forums.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Why Videoblog?

The natural point of this site is video editing meets blogging. However, doesn't it make sense to also have some information on video-blogging? To start off with, we can at least point to a good reference on how to begin video blogging.

Comon' every web 2.0 geek has a videoblog - you should have one too! Seriously though, we know it's super simple to put videos up on YouTube and for many people (okay a kabillion people) that works just fine. The nice thing about a videoblog is it's like your own little corner of the Internet. You control how it looks, whether it has ads on it or not, what format(s) the videos are in and how long they are. Plus, because it's built on a blog it has all the advantages of a blog - it's easily found in search engines, it's automatically archived, and it's easy to subscribe to.

Do you have a blog and a webcam? Get started at Freevlog » Tutorial.

CGTalk - Organization and Naming Schemes

Handling video editing projects can become very confusing and difficult if the director does not plan how they are going to organize their project files. David Edmondson, a.k.a. ThreeHams, posted a detailed explanation of how he organizes his files on his computer as he's working on them.

I've noticed something isn't really talked about all that much - organization of files during a project. When you're struggling to meet a deadline at the eleventh hour, you'll realize just how worthwhile all the preparation really is - no overwriting vital files, no searching for files, no duplicate names in subfolders, no -FINAL04.max suffixes. Everything is exactly where you expect it to be, and everything (basically) works exactly the way you want.

Sounds like advice we could all use, right? He continues...

What I'd like to see is how other people organize their projects. My scheme started out much uglier and looser than this, and eventually developed over time as I learned how to fix problems I was having. It's very streamlined for the projects I do - about 14-15 minutes of rendered footage, quick rendering times on two computers, lots of external references, and 25-30 minutes with stillframes after editing. The destination is a run of CDs and DVDs.

Want more tips and discussion like this one? Visit CGTalk @ cgsociety.org.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Dots on the Movie Screen

In older films and movies there were commonly dots or small flashes that appeared in the top-right of the screen. Up until yesterday, I thought these were simply glitches or dust motes. Then I read the following:

According to a list of Frequently Asked Questions originally created for the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.movies, those dots are cue marks that let the projectionist know that it's time to change reels. Film reels generally range in length from 20 to 22 minutes, so there are several "changeovers" in a feature-length film.

Want to learn more? Go to I did not know that yesterday!.