I am looking to buy a digital video camera for use in the office. I want to use it to video presentations, edit them and then download them onto VHS (I'm in the UK!) or store them on our network. I'd also like to be able to take still photos.

To be honest I know little about digital cameras and don't know what I should be looking for that can do the above.

- Do I have to purchase a separate editing application? - Do I need a 'firework input device'? - Can it save it to VHS from the camera after editing it on the pc?

Any help MUCH appreciated! Thanks.

Annah

-- Annah Ross (Annah_Ross@deloitte.co.uk), August 19, 1999

Answers

There are many ways to do this and some are very involved and expensive. The easiest- Some mini-DV camcorders (I know JVC DV M5 does this) will let you edit right from the camcorder to a VHS recorder. After taping you can select any scenes and put them in any order (random or non-linear editing) and push one button and they will be transfered to the VHS machine. This works quite well but will not give "professional quality" results. The hard way- you need a computer that has firewire (IEEE 1394) input/output with video capture ability and you need the necessary video editing software. Some new computers from Sony and Apple have this already built in. Be aware that all DV camcorders don't work with all systems. When you have all of this set up you now have the ability to send your digital video to the computer. Then you can edit the video. Then transfer it back to the digital camcorder and then to the VHS machine. It takes some time to learn the process but the results can be very professional. Be aware that it take about 1 GB of hard drive memory for about 5 minutes of taping, so a large hard drive is necessary. You can see how much hard drive space you could be taking up on your network. Next- still photos can be taken from most DV camcorders and these are fine for the computer but they don't have the resolution of a digital camera and so they are NOT suitable for printing. There is a magazine called Computer Vidoemaker that has a lot of information about video.

-- Ralph (REObert@aol.com), August 19, 1999.

Sony announces megapixel digital camcorder! By Michael Tomkins, The Imaging Resource (Thursday, August 19, 1999 - 18:09 EDT)

Here is a camcorder that may fit your needs. It was inevitable, but this looks like to be the first megapixal DV camcorder. (incidentally I just read about this in the NEWS section of this site.

-- david erskine (davide@netquest.com), August 20, 1999.