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Basic Digital Video
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| Digital Video Shooting and Production |
| When shooting video considerations for composition, exposure, and lighting are similar to the issues in Basic Photography. A prime consideration is the movement of the subject matter. A tripod is very important in digital video shooting. |
| Camcorder cost and quality |
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With the availability of affordable, and high quality digital video cameras and related computer hardware, and the “firewire” or iLink cable interface, video production for the web is now available to anyone who is interested. The costs for equipment and editing software is many times less than it was a few years ago for equal performance. Plus, the hardware and software is infinitely easier to use for the beginner and for everyone who has ever had even a casual interest in video production or film making.
VHS or 8MM and higher quality S-VHS and Hi 8MM camcorders have been available for many years. People who have accumulated footage with these cameras can easily transfer the older material to a digital format tape such as Mini-DV. The DV or Digital Video camcorders have been available for about 10 years. Sony was among the first to produce these higher quality yet affordable camcorders. Today, many manufacturers offer really good, small DV camcorders for under $1000, many under $500 or even under $300. It is hard to find a VHS or 8MM camera today.
In the past year two years JVC, Sony, Panasonic and several other companies have started selling newer, consumer priced and even higher quality High Definition Video (HDV) camcorders. These provide an image quality many times better than VHS and several times better than DV. Prices range from about $1500 to $5000 and even higher. There are reports that new low priced HDV camcorders may become available under $1000 soon.
Many of the digital cameras have an input capability that allows a person to connect two camcorders together and record on the new digital tape. It is also possible to purchase pass through adapters and video capture boards to allow the old footage to be captured directly to a computer hard drive. This does not decrease the quality of the original footage, and it is also protected in the new digital format. Theoretically, the new digital tape or a computer hard drive will not deteriorate as quickly as older consumer video formats.
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Microphones |
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Probably all camcorders available have a microphone to capture sound at the same time that the video is being shot. It is important to realize that lower cost camcorders especially, do not have very high quality microphones. In addition, sometimes they pick up the motor hum of camcorder as it is operating. External microphones may provide much better quality. Some consumer camcorders have a “mic” input for external microphone connectivity. Wired microphones have to connect to the mic input of the camcorder and this can restrict the distance where good sound quality can be captured.
Mountain Visions has been using wireless microphones for field recording of people’s voices in the field. Attached to the camera mic input is a line coming from a wireless receiver located on the camera operator. The person speaking can be out at some distance, even as far away as 100 feet. He or she speaks into a small microphone that is attached to a small transmitter. This sends a signal back to the camera receiver and into the camera while the camera is operating. When the microphone is protected adequately from the wind the sound quality can be very good. It is important to note that there is a wide range in the quality and cost of microphones available. In addition, wireless microphones are susceptible to interference from other radio and television signals nearby. The better wireless microphones will allow the operator to choose among many different frequencies if interference is a problem in any particular location.
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Tripods |
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The advantages of the use of a tripod and video pan head, attached to the camera are important to understand. Unless a person is very steady, hand holding a camcorder while recording can result in “shaky” video. A good tripod will make the video much more useable. In addition, a video pan head allows the camera to be moved from side to side and up and down with a much smoother movement. Hand holding can be effective, but it is a good idea to have a tripod when you need it. It should be noted that many of the new consumer camcorders have good “image stabilization” features built in. It is still possible, however, to shoot “shaky” video even when this is turned on.
As a kind of middle ground there is also camera stabilization hardware available for use when the cameraperson is moving around and cannot use a tripod. The low cost “Glidecam” gyro-stabilizer hardware is an example of an affordable system that works well.
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Camcorder to computer |
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Firewire or iLink is a name for a new cable connection between computers and digital devices, such as a camcorder. Hard drives, printers and other devices may also use the firewire interface. The relationship of how this cable transfers a 30 frame per second video stream from the camcorder to a firewire-equipped computer allows a low cost, but high quality video capture. Most current Sony and Apple computers provide this as a standard component. It can also be added to other computers for a low cost. In addition to capturing video, the same firewire cable can transfer a video stream back to the camcorder. Theoretically no signal or quality loss is encountered during this process, or during the editing of the material while the digital data is in the computer. |
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Capture and editing software |
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Powerful, free or low cost, editing software is readily available for Sony, Apple, and other computer platforms. Microsoft also provides similar programs for Windows users. These programs are very easy to learn, and have proven powerful enough to prepare many different “television commercial” and “documentary” video projects for broadcast use.
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Using your Digital Video |
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Today it is possible for anyone with a digital camcorder, and a firewire or iLink computer to capture edit compress and finish short or longer productions that can be output to VHS video, DV video, web site pages, CD-ROM and DVD ROM disks. Some very inexpensive software is available that lets you do this and also create an Interactive DVD video, with special features similar to Hollywood movie DVDs.
The fact that movies with a small window size are now being produced for the Apple iPod. Sony’s PSP player, and for many video capable cell phones should also be mentioned. There is already large communities of video bloggers creating and sharing their own home movies on the internet today.
More expensive and powerful digital editing programs also exist for those who want even more ability to be creative with their video efforts. It is also possible today for anyone with a digital camcorder, and a firewire computer with a DVD recorder to edit and transfer their video creations to DVD disks. Both DVD video and DVD-ROM data can be written this way. This disc format can contain many times the storage data than a CD-ROM and is an efficient way to distribute videos. Most of the DVD players that people use in their homes with their television sets will play the video contained on these discs. The visual quality can be significantly higher than VHS or S-VHS ever was.
More expensive and powerful digital editing programs also exist for those who want even more ability to be creative with their video efforts. Small hand held video cameras and consumer video editing software has even been used to create films that have been shown in movie theaters. These tools allow anyone of any age, with a relatively low budget to create multimedia end products that would not have been possible a few years ago, even at a very high cost.
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New HDV production |
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Finally, it should be noted that the new HDV format is already available in camcorders, and video editing software already supports the HDV format. Mountain Visions and many others are already shooting and producing material that can be shown in the HDV format, but only on a computer screen. We have already placed some of these on our web site. In the spring of 2006 two new High Definition DVD formats are reported to become available. This will allow people and organizations with high quality still images and HDV footage to create the first High Definition DVDs. People will have to purchase a High Definition DVD player and the Hollywood film industry will certainly provide some of the first high quality content. However, this technology will also be within reach of many individuals and organizations.
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Reference links to information on other web sites: |
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This is just a brief sampling of a few web sites. We will add others in the future and please feel free to contribute your favorites.
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