How to bring home videos to life
The incredible boom in digital video camcorder sales means that there’s likewise a boom in the number of people now making - or wanting to make - movies.
With still photography, you can immediately see the picture you've taken and decide instantly whether you want to keep it or not. Shooting video footage is different. People don't, as a rule, rewind their camera to look at the clip they've just taken. Eventually, they will plug their DV camcorder into their television set or their computer and watch all the scenes they shot. The viewing experience usually isn’t that great - a series of clips, some good, some bad, which often jump from one environment to another without any kind of transition or explanation. This is where video editing software can improve this scenario.
Ulead (now owned by Corel) and Adobe both have affordable programs to turn those scattered clips into interesting, entertaining and memorable home movies. Ulead VideoStudio 11 (US$70; Plus version is US$100) and Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0 ($130) offer an easy way to capture your video to your computer from your camcorder, arrange the shots into a pleasing or logical sequence, add a sound track and export the finished product to DVD or a web video format. VideoStudio 11 and Premiere Elements 3.0 have both been upgraded and can also be used with Vista or XP.
Video editing, and in particular rendering (taking the raw clips and converting them into a finished format you can burn to a DVD and thus play in any standard DVD player) takes a lot of processing power, so more is better and also with lots of RAM. Video footage takes up a lot of space so a big hard drive is also desirable. If you have a newer camcorder that allows you to download video using a USB 2.0 connection, you should be good to go if your PC has a USB 2.0 port. Otherwise, you may need an IEEE-1394 (also known as Firewire) port because all but the newest DV camcorders use Firewire. If you’re still using an analog camera, you will need an analog capture card. You will also need a DVD writer if you want to save your home movie in DVD format.
VideoStudio11
Formerly produced by Ulead, the VideoStudio series now belongs to Ottawa-based Corel Corporation. For years, this series has helped movie makers produce home movies they were proud of.
Going back to the days of 8-mm analogue camcorders, VideoStudio products always managed to keep up with the advances of technology. Today, VideoStudio 11 is right there, offering tools to make and share HD movies.
From the outset, and as soon as VideoStudio11 is loaded and activated, you’ll know you have more than a handful of goodies. Importing a video file? No problem, the program can handle VHS, S-VHS, Video-8 or Hi-8 camcorder/VCRs in the analog world. It can handle DV AVI type-1 and type-2. It can import High Definition Videos from HD, DVD or Hard Disk Drive (HDD) camcorders.
And finally, VideoStudio 11 can capture TV footage through a TV tuner so you can capture a segment of your favourite TV show and blend it into your own home movie. Editing movie clips with the program also offers some useful features, such as being able to correct an overexposed scene or adjusting the white balance using Color Correction.
Even early versions of VideoStudio had a satisfying number of effects and transitions and this continues in the current version. Suffice it to say, there are more than enough of them and it would take hours to try each and every one.
A new function in VideoStudio 11 is Overlay, which allows you to overlay clips and create a picture-in-picture effects. And it is simple to use -- you simply drag the clip you want to superimpose onto the overlay track. The overlay image can be cropped vertically and horizontally, and you can also control its opacity and the thickness of the overlay frame borders.
Before rendering the entire project into a movie file, VideoStudio11 suggests to save it first as a VideoStudio project file (*.VSP) which enables you to return to the project and make more edits.
But if you just want to save your home movie on disk, the choice is yours : DVD, VCD, SVCD or HD DVD.
Premiere Elements 3.0
Premiere Elements draws its strength from Premiere Pro, a very powerful video editing program which has been in existence for years.
Premiere Elements 3.0 is therefore a simplified version of a product that has proved itself over the years. But Premier Elements 3.0 still has enough features and power create high quality home videos.
The program is capable of capturing video from DV camcorders, HDV camcorders or Webcams. It can also capture video from DVD discs, Digital cameras, mobile phones, tapeless camcorders or even card-readers.
In terms of video effects and transitions, Premiere Elements offers a large choice of both. It lists 12 categories of video effects, each containing between three and 10 effects, and 10 categories of transitions - including between seven and 10 transitions each.
The great advantage of those effects and transitions is the fact that they can be "experienced," or visualized, simply by clicking on them.
Titles are also something else in terms of variety. Premiere Elements, in effects, offers you all kinds of titles for practically all kinds of situations: the announcement of the birth of a baby boy is an example; an action title over a sinking ship is another.
There again, you will need plenty of time to go through them all.
Premiere Elements 3.0 also includes good instruction through the Adobe Help Center. Those short, step-by-step lessons guide you through various tasks and are very easy to follow. The program also offers a "how-to" section that helps you navigate through the different operations of putting your movie together.
Finally, once your movie is finished, Premiere Elements also gives you many choices of what you can do. You can save the movie directly on a DVD that can be played back on any standard DVD player; you can also record it to videotape, or you can export it to a format for the Web, email or other devices or applications.
The incredible boom in digital video camcorder sales means that there’s likewise a boom in the number of people now making - or wanting to make - movies.
With still photography, you can immediately see the picture you've taken and decide instantly whether you want to keep it or not. Shooting video footage is different. People don't, as a rule, rewind their camera to look at the clip they've just taken. Eventually, they will plug their DV camcorder into their television set or their computer and watch all the scenes they shot. The viewing experience usually isn’t that great - a series of clips, some good, some bad, which often jump from one environment to another without any kind of transition or explanation. This is where video editing software can improve this scenario.
Ulead (now owned by Corel) and Adobe both have affordable programs to turn those scattered clips into interesting, entertaining and memorable home movies. Ulead VideoStudio 11 (US$70; Plus version is US$100) and Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0 ($130) offer an easy way to capture your video to your computer from your camcorder, arrange the shots into a pleasing or logical sequence, add a sound track and export the finished product to DVD or a web video format. VideoStudio 11 and Premiere Elements 3.0 have both been upgraded and can also be used with Vista or XP.
Video editing, and in particular rendering (taking the raw clips and converting them into a finished format you can burn to a DVD and thus play in any standard DVD player) takes a lot of processing power, so more is better and also with lots of RAM. Video footage takes up a lot of space so a big hard drive is also desirable. If you have a newer camcorder that allows you to download video using a USB 2.0 connection, you should be good to go if your PC has a USB 2.0 port. Otherwise, you may need an IEEE-1394 (also known as Firewire) port because all but the newest DV camcorders use Firewire. If you’re still using an analog camera, you will need an analog capture card. You will also need a DVD writer if you want to save your home movie in DVD format.
VideoStudio11
Formerly produced by Ulead, the VideoStudio series now belongs to Ottawa-based Corel Corporation. For years, this series has helped movie makers produce home movies they were proud of.
Going back to the days of 8-mm analogue camcorders, VideoStudio products always managed to keep up with the advances of technology. Today, VideoStudio 11 is right there, offering tools to make and share HD movies.
From the outset, and as soon as VideoStudio11 is loaded and activated, you’ll know you have more than a handful of goodies. Importing a video file? No problem, the program can handle VHS, S-VHS, Video-8 or Hi-8 camcorder/VCRs in the analog world. It can handle DV AVI type-1 and type-2. It can import High Definition Videos from HD, DVD or Hard Disk Drive (HDD) camcorders.
And finally, VideoStudio 11 can capture TV footage through a TV tuner so you can capture a segment of your favourite TV show and blend it into your own home movie. Editing movie clips with the program also offers some useful features, such as being able to correct an overexposed scene or adjusting the white balance using Color Correction.
Even early versions of VideoStudio had a satisfying number of effects and transitions and this continues in the current version. Suffice it to say, there are more than enough of them and it would take hours to try each and every one.
A new function in VideoStudio 11 is Overlay, which allows you to overlay clips and create a picture-in-picture effects. And it is simple to use -- you simply drag the clip you want to superimpose onto the overlay track. The overlay image can be cropped vertically and horizontally, and you can also control its opacity and the thickness of the overlay frame borders.
Before rendering the entire project into a movie file, VideoStudio11 suggests to save it first as a VideoStudio project file (*.VSP) which enables you to return to the project and make more edits.
But if you just want to save your home movie on disk, the choice is yours : DVD, VCD, SVCD or HD DVD.
Premiere Elements 3.0
Premiere Elements draws its strength from Premiere Pro, a very powerful video editing program which has been in existence for years.
Premiere Elements 3.0 is therefore a simplified version of a product that has proved itself over the years. But Premier Elements 3.0 still has enough features and power create high quality home videos.
The program is capable of capturing video from DV camcorders, HDV camcorders or Webcams. It can also capture video from DVD discs, Digital cameras, mobile phones, tapeless camcorders or even card-readers.
In terms of video effects and transitions, Premiere Elements offers a large choice of both. It lists 12 categories of video effects, each containing between three and 10 effects, and 10 categories of transitions - including between seven and 10 transitions each.
The great advantage of those effects and transitions is the fact that they can be "experienced," or visualized, simply by clicking on them.
Titles are also something else in terms of variety. Premiere Elements, in effects, offers you all kinds of titles for practically all kinds of situations: the announcement of the birth of a baby boy is an example; an action title over a sinking ship is another.
There again, you will need plenty of time to go through them all.
Premiere Elements 3.0 also includes good instruction through the Adobe Help Center. Those short, step-by-step lessons guide you through various tasks and are very easy to follow. The program also offers a "how-to" section that helps you navigate through the different operations of putting your movie together.
Finally, once your movie is finished, Premiere Elements also gives you many choices of what you can do. You can save the movie directly on a DVD that can be played back on any standard DVD player; you can also record it to videotape, or you can export it to a format for the Web, email or other devices or applications.
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