On April Fool’s Day or any time to be silly, what better way to amuse your friends than getting a little giddy with the camera and going a little wacko with your video? To help you get in touch with that inner prankster, let's break down some of those camera tricks and effects we'v

Nero’s Vision The newest addition to the Nero family is Nero 7 Ultra Edition. Nero has a history of making quality products for both the novice and intermediate user. Their title as an All-In-One product for disc burning is established; the box even boasts, “CREATE, EDIT, BURN, SHARE, EN

10 for the Show A lot can happen in a year, and it has for Pinnacle. Avid officially purchased Pinnacle Systems in August 2005 and now, they’ve completely revamped the Studio line of products. With the release of Studio Plus version 10, there are even more reasons to consider this program as y

Understanding the concept of MPEG-2 and DVD authoring can be frustrating, but when you break down the terminology, you'll have better understanding of the process. "A full body cast?!" I shrieked. "Well," my mother replied, "you know your great aunt Edna, she always sai

You Need Ulead Ulead's venerable MediaStudio Pro products have gained a loyal following over the past few years. When their users sensed that the product was starting to get long in the tooth, they took to message boards, forums, and any number of other communities. Ulead heard their appeals fo

If you've been around video productions for any time at all, you know that Murphy was right. If something can go wrong, it will. If the camera is rolling (and hopefully, it is!), you've witnessed the creation of one of our industry's true joys: the outtake! So just what is an outtake

artifacting The occurrence of unwanted visual distortions that appear in a video image. A common side effect of compressing at lower bit rates. bandwidth A measure of the capacity of a data line. Video is transferred most efficiently on a high-bandwidth connection (also called broadband.) bitrate Th

For anyone who's ever physically cut film on the splicing block of a Moviola, digital video editing is one of the great technological leaps of our time. Essentially, most video editing programs work in a similar fashion: once footage has been input into the computer and converted into a digital

The FYI on NTSC, VGA and ATSC. Previewing DV clips and other digital source material on your computer monitor is fine if your video project will only be seen on another computer. But if your project will ever be viewed on a TV, many editors find using both VGA (computer) and NTSC (television) monit

Understanding the advantages and limitations of turnkey editing systems. Turnkey editing systems, simply put, include everything you need to immediately start editing your video projects. Not long ago a turnkey system was either a standalone appliance dedicated to editing only video or a souped up P

When a good song comes along, you must rip it… A guide to extracting tracks from your audio CDs (of material that you're entitled to use) for your video projects. It's so easy to forget the past. In roughly ten years, the revolution that is desktop video has all but eliminated tape-

In the beginning, there was the cut. The usual editing conventions dictate that most of your transitions should be cuts. Let’s step away from the transitions palette for a while. The very first person to ever edit any kind of moving picture undoubtedly started by simply removing something they

Datavideo Datavideo’s SE-500 switcher includes four S-Video and composite inputs, two composite outputs and one S-Video output. The unit comes with a quad-split preview monitor and the switcher mixes audio between two line-level and two mic-level inputs, with two line-level outputs. (562) 696-

Vegas 6 is a High Roller Vegas has had a serious cult following through its many incarnations, starting as a Sonic Foundry product back in 1999. When Sony bought Sonic Foundry in 2003 (when Vegas was in version 4), the fans shuddered at what might happen to their favorite editing software. But as So

Gather ’round the family and friends for a multi-camera shoot and a fun time for all. Some will tell you that, due to the proliferation of inexpensive video editing computers, the age of the low-cost video switcher is dead. Not so! Every time you turn on a football game or watch the evening ne

Understanding the basics of DVD authoring software and hardware. Nowadays, it seems like all videographers want to make DVDs. But this means more than just burning video straight onto a blank DVD. You want your video's packaging to match the first-rate look and features of the pros. Well, you&

$400 Sonic Solutions 101 Rowland Way Novato, CA 94945 (877) DVD-1124 www.sonic.com Sonic Has the Solution Sonic Solutions's DVDit Pro 6 software for Windows XP is an affordable way to prepare and master a professional-looking DVD with a var

Looking to get started in video capture or upgrade your existing system? First evaluate your acquisition method (read: camera or video source) to determine if you need a digital video converter. Its simple, if you are converting analog video (VHS, VHS-C, Super VHS, 8mm video, Hi8, Betacam, Betacam S

Previewing DV clips and other digital source material on your computer monitor is fine if your video project will only be seen on another computer. But if your project will ever be viewed on a TV, many editors find using both VGA (computer) and NTSC (television) monitors an indispensable part of the

Tempus Fugit. As video producers, it’s our job to make time fly. Or crawl. Or hop, skip, or jump. Given the tools any modern editing software has today, we can pretty much make time do our bidding. Yes, every time we sit down to edit, we are time pilots. We can slice and dice time. We can take