Video Newbee! What to start with for Editing?
 

Hi, I feel sort of strange with asking this question when I'll most likely be pointed to thread in a far off land. I've looked for a long time and I just can't find it!

I've been a professional digital still photographer for many years now and I've dabbled in video. I want to shift my skills over to the dark side, I mean LIGHT side and start up a video biz. I 've contacts and potential jobs I just need the correct equipment for editing. The learning curve is steep for me and I don't understand all the jargon about dual processors, video card speeds, the proper transfer decks (DSR20, DSR30...), mixers, 3/4" Recorders...

I need your help in purchasing all the basic equipment needed. Yes, I know you'll ask, "What do you have?".

-XL2
- Beefy Sticks and head
-2 23" hi res 1900x1200 moniters
-P4, 250gig, 512 Ram, 800hrtz, CDRW, DVDRW
-1 Arri 150, 2 Arri 300, 1Arri 650 fresnel.
-French Flag kit

If anyone can give me more of a clue on start-up editing equip from camera to delivery, that would be GREAT!

Thanks, Joe

Joe,

Plenty of threads regarding platform and NLE favorites. Each has their own advantages, disadvantages, strengths and weakenesses. Easiest thing to do is download the trial versions and give them a test run.

Before you even do that, are you on PC or Mac? Mac is pretty much limited to Final Cut Pro and it's 'lite' version, Final Cut Express, plus I-Movie which comes on Macs. Additionally, AVID Xpress Pro runs on Mac and PC.

For PC, of course you probably already have 'movie maker' for windows. Don't scoff at it. You can download footage, make cuts and transistion and simple disolves... which is what 90 percent of most movies consisit of. It's free and you can play with it starting today. Get an idea of 'clips', the 'timeline', and how the 'non-linnear' aspect of computer editing works.

Beyond that, its a great big wide wonderful world of choices. My impression from this board, (and it's just an impression) is that most are Vegas users, followed by Premiere and Liquid and Final Cut. I cut on Avid, and get most of my info from the Avid forum.

Good luck.

I would recommend Adobe Premiere Pro. Very advanced and lots of possibilities. Not too complicated to use.

I agree. Also, the amount of tutorials on the WWW are available easily and most of them are free of cost!

Thanks for the info on Premiere Pro, Vegas and others. I'll look at the tutorials before I buy.

What about the other stuff needed? Transport device that will work with mini dv tapes?/editing-Vegas, Premiere.../output process? In the past I've used professional editing suites for the whole bang.

I'm affraid that I know just enough to be dangerous.

Joe

Transport device: You can just use your miniDV camera to capture tapes.

If you want to save wear and tear on your camera, then pickup a cheapie consumer miniDV camera for capturing. It's all 1s and 0s, so you get the same quality happening.

If you need to make broadcast masters, then that's a different story. BetaSP is the most common format to deliver on. You'd need the betaSP deck (several thousand dollars), hardware cards/devices (i.e. aja, decklink, blackmagic, avid, etc.), and a drive array (2 ATA hard drives in RAID 0 would work).
Most people on these forums don't do broadcast work requiring betaSP.
It all depends on what you're doing.

If you distribute on DVD, then you'd need a DVD burner. Maybe a DLT machine (if sending a master off for replication; some companies don't ask for a DLT master), maybe a duplicator.