What DV camera to buy? Whats a good video card?

[afhouston]

Hi,

Ok, this is a not a quick question, but please read it anyway :-)

I've made a dozen or so wedding, birthday, special events, etc. videos for my family and friends on basic 8mm/cvhs camcorders. From what I've been told, I have a knack for these kinds of things and I was thinking about starting a small part-time business of doing professional videography.

Now, I always wanted to make a movie and this seems like a perfect opportunity. I'm thinking from the extra money I make from the video business, I can put it into my movie budget.

Ok, here's the question: What camera do I buy that'll works well for both professional video/ film? I'm thinking DV since I already have a OK computer at home. I'm thinking I can add a card to the computer (a 500mhz Pentium celeron, 64MB ram, 10gig hd) Oh, another question while on the topic of computers, any good video cards you might recommend.

Any answers/comments would be appreciated.
-AF

[binxalot]

You will want to buy a pretty decent Dv camera. I recently bought a sony TRV-11 miniDigital Video Camera. It has manual focus and manual shutter, plus a bunch of other nice features. Its one of the lowest priced models that include manual shutter/focus. I bought it for a little under a thousand. There are tons of better ones. Sony makes the VX1000 and the VX2000, Canon has a GL-1 and an XL-1, they both cost anywhere from 2,000-5,000$ If you have that cash to spend.

You will defiantly have to get a better computer and a bigger hard drive. Your drive must be capable of sustaining a constant transfer rate of 5mb/sec to edit Dv video.

[machead]

If your considering upgrading your PC have you thought about getting a Mac?
Could be wise especially if your thinking about burning DVD's

Machead http://www.apple.com/uk/

[marti-c]

You never miss an opportunity do you !!!!!!!!!!!!!!you on commission

marti

[machead]

Marti
I'm a shareholder

[miker]

Not bad, but pales in comparison to PC companies
http://www.techstockinfo.com/sectorlinks.htm

[shirt]

Do not buy a MAC unless you have no idea what a computer even does... if you know how to upgrade your PC, then I highly suggest you do that...

why spend money on a MAC that will be obsolute in computer standards by the end of the year... and then not be able to upgrade it on top of that?

Ah well... yah PC, boo MAC!

[Jim Bird]

Hi,

You need a second disk drive ATA 66 or 100 with a Promise controller. And buy as big as you can aford (80GB is big). This second drive is for capturing the video footage only.
Your existing drive is used for the MS windows operating system and install the capturing/editing software on this drive also.

Mem well 256MB is great other wise as much as you can buy.

Your 500MHZ machine is fast enough, the faster the PC the quicker the rendering times(rendering times is the time taken for the machine to produce the completed movie including transisions and wipes and stick all the clips together).

As for which card? what editing software, as a rule you get what you pay for, but there is no need to spend big money. $200.00 buys a good starter card complete with software. Five years ago this card might have cost $250,000.00 without the software.

Jim Bird.

[machead]

or you could just buy a Mac!
Think Different!


Machead
http://www.apple.com/uk/

[Bradley Wilson]

How 'bout some reasons to buy a Mac, not just "Get a Mac! It's better!".

Reason #1: The Altivec-accelerated DV decoder on the Mac is stunningly fast (even on a 450MHz G4).
#2: Firewire under Windows can be an exercise in frustration. Not everyone has problems, but they can occur. I discovered that my video card driver (of all things) was causing problems with my firewire card... not something you'd immediatly suspect. (And even after I got it working, it'd still act all twitchy-like, dropping its connection to the camera, sometimes dropping frames, and often locking the darned system up tight.)
#3: Final Cut Pro. This was the main reason I bought a Mac G4 as it blows the pants off of every other video editing program I have seen. (I haven't tried Premiere 6 yet, though... the gap may be closing.)

Reasons to go with Windows/Intel/AMD/etc...? Cheaper hardware costs, better upgradability. If at all possible, try and find places that let you rent out time on the two different systems. That way you'll be able to make your own informed decision instead of listening to us ranting lunatics!

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I may not make good films, but at least I make my films!