[thechat] more advice on buying a digital camcorder, please

[Alan McCoy]

=> also, the camera salesman didn't know squat about movie 
=> editing software, he sent me down to the software section, 
=> where this kid slash salesperson who was busy restocking the 
=> playstation games said that "pinnacle" is the best movie 
=> editing software to get
=> 
=> anybody have movie editing software recommendations?

I've been wanting to get a digital video camera soon, so I've been reading
this thread with great interest as well.

As for the editing software, I do have some experience with a few apps.
Basically, it first boils down to the OS you're using.

For Windows, MS Movie Maker (which comes with XP) is a decent basic package.
Very easy and has some good basic features (video capture, importing audio
and stills, some neat canned effects, transitions (fadeins/outs), and some
VERY basic exporting of finished movie) Not much in the way of burning the
finished product onto VCD or DVD, but like I said, it's a BASIC package.
You'd need a 3rd-party app for the VCD and DVD burning.

For Mac, iMovie3 (part of the iLife package for OSX) seems to be the current
equivalent to MS's Movie Maker. However, iMovie seems to be a MUCH stronger
app than Movie Maker. (DISCLAIMER: I'm not a Mac user so these are my
observations after checking out apple.com)

For Linux, there's a few apps out there that seem pretty nice. One is
Cinelerra (http://www.heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3). Another is Kino
(http://kino.schirmacher.de/). CinePaint (http://cinepaint.sourceforge.net/)
is kind of a motion picture version of Gimp (kinda like AfterEffects is a
motion picture version of Photoshop).

Personally, I've also used Adobe Premiere and AfterEffects. They're both
really good for what they do (Premiere just does basic A/V editing whereas
AfterEffects goes beyond that by letting you lay some REALLY nice effects on
your video), but some of the aforementioned apps might be better if you're
just getting started.

HTH!

Alan