When considering cameras, DV cards, editors, and workstations, aspiring videographers face a multitude of choices. We help you sort them out.

August 2002|So, you've decided to make the jump into digital video editing, and you're pondering which equipment to buy. The choices are far from easy, given that you can get started for well under $1,000 if you use your current computer, or spend more than $20,000 for the same basic shoot, capture, edit, and output capabilities with a completely new setup.

The key point to recognize is that less is more in the digital video realm. Spend more than you need to for the best camera, DV card, or video editor, and you'll likely find yourself with a product that's either too confusing to learn or poorly suited for its intended use, or both. The better strategy is to identify your intended use and user, and then purchase the appropriate setup for this profile.

To assist your efforts, we've broken the digital video market into four basic categories: consumer, department, corporate, and professional. Then we detail the factors to consider when purchasing a DV camera, the DV card/video editing solution you'll use to capture, edit, and output your footage, and the computer you'll need to pull it all together. Finally, we discuss DVD authoring tools for those seeking to output to tape, as well as other useful peripherals like an NTSC monitor. Let's start by examining our user taxonomy. (See Table 1 on page 5.) 

Who Are You?
Consumer users want to edit home videos for output to VHS, CD-ROM, or perhaps posting to an Internet site. Use is casual, not professional, and intermittent, not continuous, so the ability to quickly learn the video editor and remember how to use it 30 days later is more important than advanced features.

The next level up is the department user—the marketing, sales, or training professional who wants to start integrating video into presentations, training, or corporate announcements for Web or CD/DVD delivery. Once again, the user is non-technical, so user-friendliness is critically important. In addition, use is consistent, but not continuous, so the fastest available editing solution isn't absolutely required.

At the corporate level, the requirements start to get serious. Though the user may not be a professional videographer, it's likely a semi-dedicated artistic type who wants to push the creative envelope. Video quality starts to creep up into the required feature list, as well as the ability to go beyond the presets offered by most cameras. Since the use is becoming fairly dedicated, editing throughput also is important, making real-time editing capabilities a must.

At the top of our taxonomy sit the event videographers, professionals who make a living with their gear. Video quality, editing flexibility, and real-time editing capabilities are all critical, with price and especially ease of use somewhat secondary. Besides, any program is easy to use when you use it every day.

Certainly, the lines are never drawn quite as clearly as we do here, but if you find yourself between two profiles, study the decision criteria for both categories, and make the best decision for you and your organization. Let's get started.

DV Cameras
The first piece of gear you'll need is a DV camera, which can range in price from under $500 to over $6,000. Obviously, price will be a key consideration for most consumer users. Digital-8 cameras represent the best bang for your buck, especially for consumers with lots of Hi-8 footage. Take note, however, that not all Digital-8 cameras can still read and write in analog format, since Sony has started to eliminate this feature on its least expensive models. (See Table 2 on page 5.)

Video quality for cameras in this class is typically quite good, especially if you're used to VHS or 8mm quality, and most include color viewfinders and LCD panels for preview and playback. However, audio quality can definitely suffer, especially with the new class of wallet-sized cameras.

Another important factor is whether you want the camera to double as your still-image camera so you'll have one less device to worry about on vacations. If so, look for a camera like Sony's DCR-TRV30 that has a 1360x1020 maximum still-image resolution, sufficient for high-quality printed 5"x7" pictures.

Department users should probably spring for a 3CCD (charged coupled device) camera like the Canon GL1 and venerable Sony TRV900. 3CCD cameras capture red, green, and blue signals separately, contributing to a cleaner signal that especially pays dividends when producing for low bit-rate applications like streaming. These cameras typically also provide features like zebra striping, which warns you of under and overexposure, and neutral density (ND) filters that help shooting in low light and other extreme conditions.

Lacking in these department-level cameras, however, are audio/video controls on the camera body where they are truly useful. Briefly, virtually all DV cameras let you manually set exposure, white balance, and other shooting parameters, but only through the camera's menu system; you may have to stop shooting, adjust, and then continue your shot. Cameras like Sony's DCR-VX2000 and Canon's XL1S have these controls on the camera body, where you can adjust them in real time.

These corporate-level cameras also have manual audio gain adjustments on the body, generally with audiometers, both of which are essential for capturing high-quality audio during interviews and presentations. Though neither of these cameras includes inputs for the XLR connector used by most professional microphones, you can generally find adapter kits from third-party manufacturers.

In addition, because these cameras are larger and more expensive, the vendors can use higher-grade electronics, which translates to better-quality video across a range of conditions. For example, in recent tests for PC Magazine, the VX2000 shot clear, high-quality video in a poorly-illuminated room, while video from consumer- and department-class cameras was absolutely dark. Overall, this provides the corporate user with the best of both worlds; high-quality video in automatic mode with the ability to tinker for incremental improvements.

For absolute top quality, however, you'll need a camera like Sony's DSR-250PAC or JVC's GY-DV500U. The DSR250PAC is a second-generation camera that includes the convenient LCD panel not available on the original DSR-200. Both cameras make all relevant camera controls accessible on the body, and include XLR connectors for external microphones. The only real downside is form factor, as these shoulder-mount cameras are difficult to lug around and are very obtrusive, sometimes a drawback at social meetings or other casual occasions.

DV Card/Video Editor
After selecting a camera, it's time to select a capture card and video editor—an absolutely critical choice, considering how much time you'll be spending with this hardware/software combination. Before we begin to distinguish between the products in the various classes, let's discuss the features available at virtually all levels.

From a hardware perspective, all DV capture cards link to your camera or DV deck via an IEEE 1394 connector invented by Apple as FireWire and also called i.Link by Sony. They transfer the identical video file from camera to computer at the same speed. This means that there are no quality or capture speed differences between the various cards—buy a $39 generic FireWire card or the $2,000 Pinnacle DV-2000 and you get the same quality video in the same capture time.

Rather, as we'll see in a moment, DV cards differ in two critical respects. First are the video formats accessible by the card, important if you own extensive archives in formats like VHS, Hi-8, or BetaSP. Where some cards can only handle DV format, others can also accept incoming analog signals, which they convert to DV-formatted video that can be freely intermingled with video from a DV camera.

The second major difference relates to the nature and extent of real-time performance provided by the cards. Lower-end cards provide no real-time effects, so transitions and effects must be rendered before viewing. More expensive cards provide real-time previews and sometimes real-time DV output, which we'll detail on a category-by-category basis. (See Table 3 on page 5.)

Common Video Editing Features
All video editors connect your computer and camera (or DV deck) together via the 1394 port on the capture card, providing "machine control" that enables video capture through software controls, a great improvement over the hit-and-miss methods used for analog capture.

In addition, most software editors (or separate applets) can scan through the tape to find scene changes, courtesy of time-code information stored on the DV tape. This presents you with a list of scenes and usually a bitmap of the first frame, making it simple to identify scenes you'd like to include in the production. Then, after selecting the desired clips, the software will batch-capture them for you.

After you've completed your editing, most editors can output into virtually any relevant format, whether DV for output to your camera or deck, MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 for CD-ROM/ DVD; QuickTime, RealVideo, or Microsoft's Windows Media Technologies for streaming; or AVI. Some consumer-oriented video editors, like Roxio's VideoWave, even enable DVD authoring.

So, all video editors link your camera and computer, and they all provide access to the formats necessary to distribute your video in either the analog or digital domain. Where they differ, of course, is in the range and configurability of editing effects, and the learning curve that must be climbed to use each product effectively.

Video Editors 101
Most consumer-class video editors feature a fixed interface with a set number of tracks—generally five—enabling a video and title track, as well as tracks for the audio portion of the captured video, background music, and a narration track. While no consumer editor works with real-time hardware, previews are generally very fast for most simple effects like transitions. More importantly, these editors promote workflow with a very structured interface, so even beginners can become productive quickly.

If you're not looking to stretch the creative envelope, consumer editors like Roxio VideoWave, Ulead VideoStudio, or Pinnacle Studio are ideal. You can trim your captured video clips, insert transitions between them, create titles, and implement some special effects like converting your videos to black and white. Most allow you to insert a logo or other image over your videos, a nice addition for corporate videos.

After remaining fairly static for the last few years, this consumer category was shaken in early 2002 by the introduction of Roxio Cinematic, which introduced theme-based productions, or templates, into the mix. With Cinematic, after capturing, trimming, and placing your clips in the desired order, you select from a number of canned themes, like holiday or birthday.

Then, Cinematic provides a choice of introductory animations with customizable titles and several options for background music. Once these selections are made, Cinematic will insert theme-specific transitions between the clips, produce the background music and animations and, in some instances, introduce special effects like falling snow into your video.

At a high level, these themes provide the same creative boost that templates provide in Microsoft PowerPoint or FrontPage, and are a huge boost. Unfortunately, the initial release of Cinematic came when its developer, MGI Software, was in its final throes before being acquired by Roxio, and design flaws hampered usability.

Accordingly, Pinnacle's Studio is our top choice in this category today, but we expect a new version of Cinematic out before too long, and other vendors will introduce similar functionality into their products. Accordingly, for consumers or department-level buyers without analog footage to worry about, Pinnacle's Studio DV is our favorite choice. The Deluxe edition, which features a breakout box that supports S-Video and Composite video and stereo audio, is best for those still working with analog footage.

Consumers and department-level users should also consider iMovie, the free video editor that ships with most Macintoshes with FireWire ports. iMovie is much more functional than Windows XP's hobbled Movie Maker, and is very simple to use, especially in combination with Apple's iDVD. (See Table 3 on page 5.)

Corporate Buyers
Of course, the artistic types who assemble serious corporate videos would find Cinematic's templates and Studio's fixed interface way too confining. Most Windows users have gravitated towards Adobe Premiere, the first serious video editing solution for Windows and now the de facto standard.

Premiere is wonderfully flexible, with up to 99 audio/video tracks and boatloads of transitions and special effects. As the industry leader, it also enjoys broad third-party plug-in support, adding features like MPEG-2 encoding, as well as additional titling and special effects capabilities.

Premiere's downside, of course, is its steep learning curve. Budget several hours to get familiar with the user interface and days to become both proficient and efficient. Once you get there, however, you'll find that Premiere can handle just about any project you throw its way.

New to the market is Pinnacle Edition, a full-featured editor with several key features that Premiere lacks, such as an intuitive, Windows-like interface and a continually updated database that eliminates work lost when your system crashes. Since Pinnacle plays a leading role in department, corporate, and professional markets, it likely won't be long before we see their editor bundled with their cards.

However, today, due to its overwhelming popularity, Premiere is bundled with virtually every real-time capture card. This means that considerations other than the bundled video editor will likely drive your DV card choice. As discussed earlier, there are two primary characteristics; support for analog or digital formats other than DV and the nature and extent of real-time performance.

The first characteristic, video format support, is the easier to define. All boards in the corporate class can support S-Video and composite video, and stereo audio inputs. Component video support comes with more expensive products, like Canopus DV REX RT Professional, but you'll need to step up to Pinnacle's Targa 3000 for Serial Digital Input (SDI) for editing your Digital Beta footage.

Real Time?
Unfortunately, the nature and extent of real-time performance is much more difficult to define, and varies widely from card to card. First, it's important to recognize that "real-time" performance generally only works on transitions and other effects supplied by the capture card vendor. For example, use a Matrox wipe transition with the RT 2500, and you can preview in real time. However, if you decide to use Premiere's slow motion, or image pan filter, you'll have to render before you preview, as you would with any other corporate-level card.

Also confusing the issue is that some cards guarantee certain levels of performance while others scale with the speed of the host CPU(s). For example, Matrox guarantees that the "Matrox RT2500 lets you work with two video streams, plus a graphics/title track." In contrast, Canopus claims that the DV Storm SE can handle "five streams of video in real time," but also states that "more CPU power equals more real-time capabilities."

It's also important to recognize that for more corporate-level DV cards, real-time performance is preview only. This means that when you're finally ready to print your production back to tape, you'll have to render most transitions, titles, and other creative effects you've integrated into your video. The only exception, once again, is Canopus DV Storm, which can write certain effects out to DV tape without first rendering. That said, Canopus offers very few real-time 3D effects, an area where Matrox excels, courtesy of its vast store of graphics resources.

All these factors conspire to complicate an apples-to-apples evaluation of each product's real-time capabilities. However, for the beginning or intermediate corporate user, the entry-level real-time boards from Canopus, Matrox, and Pinnacle should more than suffice, unless you need component or Digital Beta support. Only experienced users, or those who plan on becoming experienced quickly, should look to higher levels.

On the Mac front, it's important to recognize that both Premiere and Final Cut Pro now have real-time capabilities, so long as you purchase a board like Matrox's RT Mac, or Pinnacle's CineWave. We'd rather discuss religion or politics than argue Final Cut Pro versus Premiere, since they're simpler and much less emotional topics. Suffice it to say, however, that both will get the job done.

Housing the Beast
Once you've decided on a capture card, you need to consider your editing station. For consumers and departmental users, check the minimum system requirements for the DV card/editor you've decided to purchase. Generally, for these low-end systems, you won't need special hard disks, as any ATA-100 drive will generally be fast enough. However, more is definitely better here, and with 60GB drives hovering at around $200, you should definitely consider installing a video-only drive.

Corporate and professional users should strongly consider purchasing a dedicated workstation, with DV card and hard disks installed, which will save you hours of installation frustration and give you one phone number to call if you need tech support. We especially like Canopus' rackmounted Athlon-based systems—simply plug in a keyboard, mouse, and monitor, and start editing.

If you build your own system, ATA-100 drives should suffice for the Pinnacle DV 500 Plus/Matrox RT2500 class of products, but start to consider SCSI-based drives for the Storm and PRO/One (see Jan Ozer's "Rule of Three," www.emedialive.com/r17/2003/ozer0203.html), which will benefit from the extra speed and reduced CPU overhead. We're neutral regarding Pentium versus Athlon; just get the fastest CPU that you can afford, which will pay dividends in rendering speed.

Corporate and professional users also will benefit from an NTSC monitor for previewing your video output. You can spend $3,000 for a 20" monitor like Sony's PVM20M4U, but truth be told, for most applications, a $250 color TV set with S-Video input will get the job done just as well.

DVD Authoring
DVD authoring programs fall into three basic segments. Consumer-level products like Sonic's MyDVD and Apple's iDVD are very easy to use, can generally encode your video into the proper formats, enable simple menu creation, and burn your project to a DVD-R burner. Authoring programs in this class, however, typically offer only sequential navigation, rather than true branching, a necessity for most corporate productions.

Branching is a staple of corporate-level products. You'll also find much more flexible menu and screen creation options, especially with Ulead's DVD Workshop (See Jan Ozer's review, www.emedialive.com/r8/2002/ozer6_02.html).

Missing in the corporate level of products are advanced DVD features like multiple camera angles, multiple audio or subtitle tracks, and the ability to protect your titles with CSS. If you're planning to release mass-market DVDs, you'll need to step up to the professional class of products, like Sonic's DVD Producer or Pinnacle's Impression DVD-Pro. (For more on the levels of DVD authoring, see Jeff Sauer, "The Matrix," www.emedialive.com/r8/2002/sauer1_02.html.) 

You'll also have to take a step up from the Pioneer A04 class of burner, which can only handle General DVD-R media that can't be used to master DVDs for replication. For that, you'll need a drive like Pioneer's DVR-S201, which supports the new Cutting Master Format that is designed to allow DVD-R to replace DLT (See Hugh Bennett's review, www.emedialive.com/EM1999/bennett12.html), and also can produce copy-protected DVDs. (See Table 4 on page 5 for updated DVD authoring & recorder info.)

No Foolproof Formula
From the camera to the editing station, there's no foolproof method to make sure you get the equipment that's just right for you. But if you spend the time evaluating what you need—and, just as importantly, what you don't—you'll end up with a studio setup that lets you get the most out of your digital video projects.

COMPANIES MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Adobe Systems Inc. www.adobe.com
Apple Computer Inc. www.apple.com
Canon USA Inc. www.usa.canon.com
Canopus Corporation www.canopuscorp.com
JVC Company of America www.jvc.com
Matrox Graphics Inc. www.matrox.com/mga
Pinnacle Systems www.pinnaclesys.com
Pioneer Electronics USA www.pioneerelectronics.com
Roxio, Inc. www.roxio.com
Sonic Solutions www.sonic.com
Sony Electronics, Inc. www.sonystyle.com/digitalimaging
Ulead Systems www.ulead.com

SEE NEXT PAGE FOR TABLES.

TABLE 1--USER TAXONOMY

TABLE 2--KEY DV CAMERA FEATURES

CLASS	CONSUMER	DEPARTMENT	CORPORATE	PROFESSIONAL
Price	$500-$1700	$1700-2500	$3500-4000	$4000 and up
Cameras	Sony TRV 30	Canon GL1, Sony TRV900	Canon XL 1S, Sony VX2000	JVC GY-DV500U, Sony DSR250PAC
Format	Digital 8, miniDV	DV	DV	DV/DVCAM
Config.	Palm, camcorder	Camcorder	Large camcorder	Shoulder-mount
CCDs	1 (1/4)	3 (1/4)	3 (1/2-1/3)	3 (1/3)
Optical/Digital Stabilization	Digital	Digital	Optical	Optical
Max Still Image Resolution	1360x1020	640x480	640x480	640x480
Audio Inputs	Stereo	Stereo	Stereo/XLR	Third-party XLR
Accessible Controls	Limited	Limited	Some audio/video	Full audio/video

TABLE 3--KEY DV CARD/VIDEO EDITING DECISIONS

CLASS	CONSUMER	DEPARTMENT	CORPORATE	PROFESSIONAL
Price	$100 & below	$100-300	$500-2000	$2000 & up
Product	Pinnacle Studio DV/iMovie	Pinnacle Studio DV Deluxe/iMovie/RT 2500	Pinnacle DV 500Plus & ProONE/Matrox DC2000/Canopus DVStorm	Canopus DV REX RT Pro
Signal Inputs	DV only	DV/S-Video/Stereo	DV/S-Video/Stereo Audio	DV/Component Video, Stereo Audio
Video Editor	Studio, VideoWave	Studio, VideoWave, Final Cut Express	Premiere, Final Cut Pro	Premiere, Final Cut Pro
Real-time output	No	No	DV Storm
Learning curve	Simple	Simple	Challenging	Very challenging

TABLE 4--DVD AUTHORING SOFTWARE & HARDWARE

CLASS	CONSUMER	DEPARTMENT	CORPORATE	PROFESSIONAL
DVD Authoring	MyDVD, iDVD, Expression, neoDVD, DVD MovieFactory, WinDVD Creator	DVDit!, DVD Workshop	ReelDVD, DVDit!, DVD Workshop, Impression, DVD Studio Pro	Sonic DVD Producer, DVD Creator
Recorder	Pioneer A06, Sony Dual RW, Verbatim Producer 44, Panasonic MultiWrite	Same as consumer	Same as consumer	Pioneer DVR-S201