PCA Forums

ok fellas, now this is something i have absolutely no experience with. i basically plan to get a "camcorder" for home use and some kinda video editing software/hardware for my pc. this is obviously not for professional use but for simple editing of "home" videos like b-days, holidays, etc.

i'm basically looking for something that'll allow me to make home movies. i've read that it's possible to take whatever you recorded on the camcorder, add some music, simple graphics/text and burn it on a cd into vcd, dvd, etc. format or transfer it onto a vhs tape.

loking at camcorders i noticed there's dv, 8mm, hi-8, etc. dv seems like the best thing to get. i was also eyeing the pinnacle "express dv" but don't know if im over doing it a bit by thinking of purchasing too much for a simple home movie/pc solution.

budget's about $500.

hope you guys can help me out here :-)

Try this site: http://www.vcdhelp.com

a good camcorder for you would be a vhs, but they are somewhat heavy but cheapest. an 8mm balances better cuz its lighter due to smaller tape size. dv? those are digital video? digital cams are very expensive where i live. there is a vcd package on tigerdirect.com that might suit your wants. i know some of you hate tigerdirect but even they would be hard pressed to screw that one up and its only $100. if you think this post is lunacy then feel free to ignore it.

thanx guys. well, it looks like i may go over my budget. i was at best buy earlier and couldnt resist. was doing some reading this morning and the Dazzle digital video creator caught my eye. i guess the feature i liked the most was the option to directly record the "edited" movie directly to my vhs.

i'll prolly go with a hi8 camcorder as the dv's are too expensive. luckily the dazzle can take video from analog sources even directly from my vhs. obviously quality prolly won't be to good, but what the hell it's something new for me to mess around with on my computer.

thanks for the links guys!!!!

Quality won't be horrible. I've taken video from my parents video camera (forget what it is, but it's not 8mm) and it's decent. I know for a fact it would look a lot better if we just had a better video camera. I've never hooked my VCR directly up to it, but I would bet it wouldn't look bad at all (using AIW Radeon).

I've not done much, but I like you just like to fool around with it. It's fun to make a simple video, put some music to it and stuff. My biggest deal is the software... ...I'm still looking for something that'll do everything I want. THe software that came with my video card is decent, but I wouldn't mind something that had a little more options. But damn, video editing software is expensive!

Hey RaT:

We have the Dazzle unit here. The new one works on W2K ( :chug ): the old version on W98 just... crashed a lot but I can't blame Dazzle for that. I just did another capture today ( we gave Boss man a voucher to train in formula 1 (?) car for a day at a track. They make a video of you from within each car for you to take home. Believe he was governed to 140mph but he had a blast ) One thing I noticed with this newer version which occured with the old one as well is that the final image on the hard drive is pretty dark. I'm going to have to do it again, this time playing with the brightness and conrast during the recording to get it to look like it does on a TV from the original VHS tape.

One other program which receives rave reviews is Pinnacle Studio 7. I have it here, but haven't had a chance to play with it yet. ... One of the people with a regular column at InfoWorld wrote about free or low cost video software a few weeks ago... Here it is

http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xm ... ngston.xml

This one, too, I haven't tried. If you try it could you possibly let us know what you think?


Paul

after a couple hours of foolin around i was actually able to make a simple movie. yeah it did crash (i'm using 98se) but after installing the new version of the software i haven't had any problems since. yes, the video does seem a little darker than before but i'm sure it's nothing a little "tweaking" with the settings can't fix.

it's cool to be able to "capture" video from almost any source and edit and play with it on your computer. i've tried diff. sources like my vhs player, tv, camcorder, xbox and all work great.

i guess my only gripe would also be the limitations of the editing software. there are alot of options that i could think of that shoulda been included. maybe i can find some "freeware" on the net. then again... you can't have everything :-)

(i'll prolly check out that link bluewhale and see what's there)

Are you looking for a camcorder ? If so, I have an RCA Small Wonder that I need to sell.

thanks for the offer nascarfool.....

but i already purchased and went with a Hi8mm sony...