Buyer's Guide to Video and Editing Systems
A mini-DV camcorder is a near-broadcast quality format introduced by Sony in 1996. The blank tapes are smaller than VHS, VHS-C and 8mm. The same machine and tape can do- digital audio (variety of formats, including 44 kHz, 16-bit CD-quality)
- still digital photos (720x480 pixels; about 700 fit on a tape)
- 60 minutes of video, stored digitally as 720x480 pixels, 30 frames/second, compressed with MPEG
All you really need in a DV cam is a digital output. This is variously referred to as a "DV out", "Firewire", "IEEE-1394", iLink or USB. Be careful here as there are different cables.
There are at least three kinds of mini-DV camcorders:
- palm-sized
- mid-priced 3-CCD
- semi-professional 3-CCD
Palm-sized miniDV camcorders
Palm-sized camcorders are good when making a video is incidental to other activities. For example, you may be on a business trip and are carrying a camcorder in case something interesting catches your eye.Palm-sized recorders generally suffer from poor video quality due to having only one charged coupled device (CCD) imaging sensor. That wouldn't be a problem if you were taking black and white. But 1-CCD cameras try to capture red, green, and blue for each pixel with their single CCD array. This is done by laying a matrix of colored filters over the CCD pixels and then interpolating to try to approximate the color and intensity for each pixel. Palm-sized camcorders also suffer from poor audio quality when the built-in microphone is used. The microphone itself is of acceptable quality but it is hard-mounted to a rigid metal case that contains the motors and gears driving the tape.
A good example of the palmcorder breed is the Sony DCR-PC110 which does all the usual video jobs and also functions as a one-megapixel digital still camera, storing digital photos onto a memory stick. The other unusual feature of the DCR-PC110 is "NightShot". This is an infrared light underneath the lens that enables videography in complete darkness (up to 10 feet). If you want a cheaper smaller unit, look at the Sony DCR-PC5.
The Canon camcorders are also worth looking at. Canon is the leader in image stabilization, which is critically important for making handheld video. Canon machines also tend to have good still picture capturing capability.
Mid-priced 3-CCD camcorders
A 3-CCD camcorder splits the image optically and feeds color-filtered versions of the same scene to three CCD sensors simultaneously. The tape thus records a true red-green-blue (RGB) value for each pixel. All TV production is done with 3-CCD cameras and if you have the money and care about quality, you should do the same.Two examples are the Sony DCR-VX2000 and the Canon GL-1. These don't fit as well into a professional production environment as the semi-pro camcorders (below) but they offer just about everything that a consumer would want, including reasonable capabilities for using external microphones.
Semi-Professional 3-CCD camcorders
The semi-pro camcorders offer features such as interchangeable lenses and XLR audio inputs. The video quality is similar to that of the mid-priced units.The Future
The next step in camcorder technology is the HD or High-Definition format. Sony and others have released consumer models with HD capability. They are expensive to say the least. They use tape like a MiniDV but are much larger cameras and have many more features.
Accessories
Don't leave home without a tripod and the right microphone for the job. It will very seldom be the case that the camcorder's built-in mic is the right tool. If you're doing a family history video, pin a lavalier mic on your subject's shirt. If you're capturing sound as a distance, get a boom mike.Editing
The most important resource to budget for editing is time. Count on one hour of post-production for every minute of final video. As your original data are digital, the most sensible way to begin the editing process is by copying the captured video to a computer's hard disk.The digital video output of a camcorder is an IEEE-1394 "Firewire"
connector, iLink or USB. You simply run a cable from this connector to your personal
computer and plug it in. Unless you own a Macintosh you probably
don't have an IEEE-1394 input. It is possible to add a Firewire input to a PC.
Almost any Apple Macintosh
system will function out of the box as a digital video production tool.
When you buy a machine that has bundled Firewire input and video editing software you can be fairly sure that the machine has adequate input/output bandwidth to copy incoming video data onto the hard disk. Data comes out of the camcorder at 3.56 MB/second and there is no way for the computer to tell the camcorder to "hold on for a minute." Your editing computer needs to have a reasonably fast internal bus and fast hard disks.
The standard IDE/ATA drives are fast enough.
Distributing your video to friends
If you want to distribute video to your friends and family, the best media are probably VHS video tape or DVD. A computer sold for video editing will very likely have an analog video output suitable for connection to a VHS video recorder. Many of the newer Apple Macintoshes and some of the latest HP machines can write DVDs.Distributing video on the Internet
Even Web users with cable modems and DSL lines won't want to wait for a DV-quality movie to download. At 3.56 MB/second, a 5-minute video will consume roughly 1 GB of storage. At 1 Mbit/second, this will take roughly 3 hours to download.There are three ways to attack download time:
downsizing, compression and
streaming.
Downsizing in the video world implies reducing screen dimensions to
360x240 or 180x120 pixels (1/2 or 1/4 the full DV standard). Downsizing in the
audio world entails cutting down to mono from stereo and/or to 22 KHz sampling
from 44 KHz.
Compression entails throwing away information that is redundant,
e.g., frames 2-30 in a one-second still where the content doesn't change from
frame to frame.
Streaming involves distribution via a protocol whereby the
user can view content as it comes in.
As soon as you decide to go streaming, there is no download time for users. There is only setup time. Your user's client has to make a connection to your server. After that, it is a real-time show. The decision to stream means that the user's Internet connection speed affects the quality of his experience. You have to use downsizing and compression to fit your content into his or her available bandwidth.
Note that you may not need any special software in order to serve streaming video. If you want the user to be able to jump forward or back up, you'll need to run a streaming media server of some sort. But most client software has the capability to start playing video as it comes in. The user is limited to passive from-the-start viewing until the entire video is stored on his or her local hard disk. However, everyone benefits from the fact that the video can be served by the same Web server program that is serving HTML pages and photographs.
Video camcorders and editing equipment are available from retailers or online.
If you're not satisfied with the software that came bundled with your computer, look at Adobe Premiere and related products (http://www.adobe.com/motion/main.html).
Video requires a lot of planning and thought and, usually, carefully placed lights, microphones, and assistants. Here are some book recommendations to get you started.
- Single-Camera Video Production by Robert Musburger
- Film Directing Fundamentals : From Script to Screen by Nicholas Proferes
- Producing Great Sound for Digital Video by Jay Rose
- Placing Shadows, Lighting Techniques for Video Production by Gloman and Letourneau