I finally took the plunge and got into computer video. I didn't really intend to do it, but as in a lot of things, it just happened.
It all started when one of my daughters wanted a camcorder to record videos of our grandchildren. Their budget couldn't quite afford a new one, so "Pop-Pop" came to the rescue. I "needed" a new camcorder (at least, that is what I told my wife) and so I gave my old one to my daughter and bought a new one. I ended up with a Sony Digital-8 unit, because my old camcorder was an 8mm unit, and this way I could play both my old 8mm tapes and the new digital ones. This is a nice feature, but it locks me into Sony for a few more years. Oh well...
So, now I had the camcorder itself. It comes with the capability to interchange digital video with a computer, using the FireWire or IEEE 1394 interface. All I needed was a cable and a FireWire interface card for my PC, both of which were relatively inexpensive when compared to the cost of the camcorder itself. I selected an interface card that came with fairly popular software for manipulating video on your computer.
After going through the usual installation process, I fired the software up and read some video from the camcorder. It seemed to work fine. The interface worked without a hitch, and I was able to control the camcorder (forward, play, reverse, etc.) with no problem. Then I decided to capture some of the video from a recent granddaughter's birthday party and send it to her parents. At that point, things could have been better.
The software itself was "cranky". It tends to take over the computer and doesn't share time well with other programs. When controlling the camcorder the PC tended to become unresponsive until it had completed what it was trying to do. The number of options in the software were confusing, to say the least. You needed to be an expert on video formats, sampling rates, etc. just to figure it out.
My next step was to check on the website for that software manufacturer. I learned that there were newer versions of the software that I could purchase (more money) and so I downloaded a 30-day trial of it. The trial was a bit better than the software that came bundled with the card, but only a bit.
The first thing you find out is that the files created are really huge. You need gigabytes of free space on your hard drive for just to 5 or 10 minutes of video. So, even after you go through all the effort of recording the video, you will find that you can't send the resultant file in email because its just too darned big, even for a high speed connection like Road Runner.
Next, the size of the video window was kind of small, and the video somewhat jerky compared to what you would see just hooking up the camcorder to your TV. Again, I am sure this was due to my inexperience with setting the options.
But, I finally managed to get a video created and added some titles at the beginning. I shipped all 44 megabytes of data off to my daughter and she loved it! I guess it was worth the effort. But I obviously have a LOT to learn on this subject. More later when I become an expert.
(Bob Seidel is a local computer consultant in the Southport / Oak Island area. You can visit his website at www.bobseidel.com or e-mail him at bsc@bobseidel.com).