Creating Video - Record, Edit and Share

What do you want to do? What do you have to work with? The answers to those questions depends on where you are in the cycle.

There are times when you need to do more than hit record and upload. It doesn't matter if it is a birthday party, recital, interview, animation or a public event. There comes a time when you have to do a little snip, snip in order to make the video watchable.




Camcorder Research

You can save a lot of time by researching the camcorder you want to buy. Match it up with what you are willing to pay, the amount of time you want to invest in learning how to work the camcorder and the final format of the video.

Editing

I've written about editing before and will continue to do so. In general, on many basic point and share camcorders there may be software inside of the camcorder that will help you edit. Or not. If you are a Mac user a lot of times you will be skunked because the software that came with the camcorder is useless to you. It won't work on a Mac.

The good news is that you don't want to. The software isn't very good.

Sharing/Distribution

It use to be an easy question. There are now choice:

• For those relatives that refuse to touch the Internet - DVD
• For those relatives that think the Internet = Facebook
• For friends that have their mobile phones welded to their hands
• For distant friends that know about YouTube.
• The auteur or creatives that only recognize and will watch only on Vimeo
• For the spouse wishing to see the video displayed on that freaking big television that has an HDMI hook up that only the pre-teen in the house can connect.

Each one of those sharing options have different processing requirements. If you don't like to fiddle with stuff you probably you purchase (yes, this means buy) software that will automate the task for you.

If you do like to figure things out then I think you are going to have a better learning experience and will gain skills.

This isn't win or lose. If you goal is to make a DVD as quickly as possible then you should look at software from Corel, Ashampoo, Roxio and Muvee

If you want to really fine tune and create you can start with either Windows Live Movie Maker or iMovie. It might be that the YouTube Video Editing software is just your speed.

If you've grown past those options then certainly check out products from Adobe, Corel, Serif and Sony.

I guess the point of this post is to help folks realize that making a video is easy. Creating a watchable video take a little more work or effort. If you get the right software for you it can be easy and save time.

Or if you have the time you can make a nifty film buy getting the right software that can work seamlessly with your camcorder.

Using the right software can also make you sharing and distribution a lot easier. If you can use just one package to make a DVD, a YouTube copy and a version that can be exported out to that huge television set on the wall you've got a keeper.

Other Posts of Interest

• Windows XP Movie Maker Issues 
• Decided on iZotope Music and Speech Cleaner 
• Gadwin Print Screen for Video Stills