new camcorder

baggyman · Soul Rider Joined: 19 Aug 2004 Posts: 331 City: Vegas

Just bought my first camcorder it is a panasonic pv-gs120. Dont know much about shooting any vid so i am going to bug my family over thanksgiving dinner.... heheh

The camera is a 3ccd model but small and not too expensive which will suit me since i have to hide it from my 3yo twins....

think the next thing is a new computer so i can edit some of the tape ill end up with.

any suggestions on computers?? i dont have a ton of cash but i dont think this laptop will cut it.

freerider4 · Posted: Nov 18, 2004 9:03 pm Post subject:

just buy an external hard drive that's what I have.

Zach M · Posted: Nov 18, 2004 9:37 pm Post subject:

Don't get a laptop unless you really need the portability.

If you have the money, the new Apple G5's are amazing. I don't know how much editing experience you have, but I enjoy using Final Cut Pro, which is a mac only program. The new macs are geared for multimedia stuff. No matter what computer you get, make sure you have enough hard drive space and lots of RAM. Uncompressed footage takes a lot of space and you want your computer to keep up with your editing.

An external hard drive is a good way to get extra hard drive space, and is nice because it is portable. I recommend the ones from LaCie.

garveyj · Addict Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 877 City: Savage, MN

Congrats on the new camera - I have the same one and I think you will be happy with it...Let me know if I can answer any questions on the camera for you.

As for the computer -
Give us some stats on what you have now - it may be enough with just some small modifications needed. After we know what you have, then we can make a better recommendation.

Main things to include are: RAM, CPU, HD space, Video Card....Also let us know if you have any cd or dvd burners.

baggyman · Soul Rider Joined: 19 Aug 2004 Posts: 331 City: Vegas

This will be my first shot at trying to edit any footage so i would need a program that is as basic as i can get to start with and then go from there. as far as my computer is concerned it is a older toshiba minimal ram only (2) 513 chips is a celeron 1.5ghz and a crappy vid card. so i am going to have to get a new desktop i am sure to get the power and space needed.

Ram what is ideal and what do you think i can get by with?

Hard disk space?

any programs that you would suggest.

all the vid clips that are set to music and have some effects got me in to the mode of making my family vids a bit more watchable if possible.

Also once you put the footage on the puter can any dvd burning program put in on a dvd? or is that more difficult than it sounds? (think that would be cool to do after a summer of riding and hangin out to have a small personalized momento to give out to your ridding buddies.

thanks for the help
and garveyj, i am sure ill have some questions for ya as soon as i can figure how to get the lense cap off Wink

. but really ill hit you up for some info soon i am sure such a noob at this. btw where do you buy your tapes? do you get them online for a better deal than in the stores?

Zach M · Posted: Nov 19, 2004 7:15 pm Post subject:

The nice thing about macs is they come with imovie and idvd with them (assuming you get a dvd burner)

Ideal ram is the most you can get. The new G5's can go up to 8 gigs, which would be overkill for what you're doing. The minimum you should have is 512 megs.

Your amount of hard drive space depends on how much footage you will have on your computer at a time. 20 minutes of uncompressed footage is around 4 gigs. I have 2 80 gig hard drives and it has been enough for now, but I haven't done huge amounts of editing. I think this was a good place to start, you can always add later if you need it (especially with the power of external hard drives these days).

89comp · Posted: Nov 20, 2004 11:45 am Post subject:

baggyman-
First i'll second Zach M's comments. I do all my editing on a Mac and I couldn't be happier. As he said, they ship with iMovie (video editing) and iDVD (DVD creation) so you don't have to spend extra money on software.
Second, if you can afford a G5, then go for it. I have one with 2.5 GB of RAM and a 256 Mb video card so editing is beyond great on that machine. BUT...it wasn't cheap. That being said, before I got my G5, I did all my editing on a 15" Apple Powerbook. It handled all my needs just fine. You can probably get an Apple ibook and get away with it if you had a small budget.

No matter what way you go, you're going to need an external HD. My powerbook shipped with an 80 GB HD that I burned up with boarding footage in about a week. LaCie drives are the best and you can usually get them for about $1 per Gb.

If you have other ?s, ask or PM me. I'd be happy to help.