gpatmac

iTrader: (3)

I'm frustrated that most everything I've done was crap. My first thought is that my thread may invite the 'professionals', which is ok so long as they can talk down to my level. I'm DEFINED by ghetto in most everything I do, and my home moving taking equipment, like most everything about me, is probably laughable but why is it so hard to take and edit videos?

I don't want to be investing too much time, and especially not too much money; I just want my home videos to be presentable. My suspicion is that I don't have the first clue as to which format is best, ie. mpg, avi, mov, wmv... I don't know which resolution(?) I should be using (or should have purchased). I probably don't have a computer that is strong/fast/equipped enough to do any worthwhile editing. To be honest, though, my biggest frustration with regards to digital media and software isn't as much the editting software as it is the DVD burning software.

For starters, I like the ability to use my little Panasonic DMC-LC33. I think it's a tremendous camera, but it seems as though digicams are marketed by touting the camera's features, and the video characteristics are something you 1) have to know what you're looking for, and 2) really have to scour the instruction booklet for. For instance, the camera is 3.2mp, but I'd bet that the video is probably like 1mp.

The camera only shoots in mov format. It's not bad, but it's not great. Regardless of the quality of the video, I'm really disappointed with the default software that can play mov files.

The computer I use is my Sony Vaio PCG-GRT170, but it is a couple of years old, at least. My desktop is a very old Gateway; I think I got it in '99 or '00. I used to use it to edit vid, but it's pretty rickety anymore. The software that I've used on my laptop is probably either pretty crappy or too sophisticated for me. I have put stuff together before (some of y'all might remember my first trackday back in '02), but I have a hunch that my finished product, while satisfactory for watching on a computer screen and sharing with others via download; most likely wouldn't have cut it if it were to be 'burnt' onto a DVD for regular play on a bigscreen TV.

Right now, I'm trying to put a bunch of my mov clips of my son together in order to make a nice DVD and I'm finding that many of the clips on my HD that I shot with various camcorders or digital cameras, and various formats, and in some cases were converted from one file type to another. What I have is 16gb of crap.

Oh shoot! I almost forgot another major headache. I hate the word proprietary! We just bought a pretty nice DVD recorder from Walmart (because I like their 'try-it-before-you-buy-it' policies) Turns out that it only 'burns' -R and -RW.

Anyone have any pointers or advice that an 8th grader could understand and be able to use in order to create some nice DVDs. I know that someone is going to post a link to some website like Afterdawn.com or dvdguides.com. Over the last 3yrs or so, I have spent a fair amount of time trying to bone up, but it's sort of difficult if you don't even know the questions.

gpatmac

iTrader: (3)

I'll take that as a no.