HD Camcorders Editing? And what Format?

Question

I would like to make movie and am looking to get a couple Camcorders for this. I have been looking at HD Camcorders. But, I asked at the camera shop and said that the HD Camcorders did not come with Editing software and did not think Adobe Premiere could not edit the HD format. Is this true? What can I use?

My goal is to take the film and transfer for use in film, DVD, TV Comercials, and internet (Flash). What formats should I use for each? And what will I need to produce these mediums? Can Adobe Premiere be used to format the video? And will Adobe Flash be able to tranfer the HD video to Flash format?

Answer 1

Sony HD cam or Sony XDcam is best. Use Final Cut Pro or Avid. Also  google three point lighting and learn how. consider a tripod. Consider interesting backgrounds. Try setting focus so the person is in focus and the background is not. Use complementary colors for human flesh the background should be a medium to light blue.

Hope this helps. I have won several emmys by paying attention to detail.

Alex

Answer 2

Clarification...

If by HD you mean high definition, then I would urge you to visit the Adobe site - because both Premiere Elements and Pro work with HDV from miniDV tape which continues to provide the best available video quality as compared to other consumer camcorder storage types.

If by HD you mean highly compressed AVCHD high definition captured by hard drive (HDD) based or flash memory based camcorders, yes, they will have issues with that format.

If you are truly going to "transfer for use in film, DVD, TV Commercials", then you really want to acquire video to DV or HDV. This is one of the reasons professionals use miniDV tape:

http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/cat-broadca...

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http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/contro...

Even the high-end consumer camcorders use tape:

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stor...

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stor...

I agree that if there is video editing software bundled with a camcorder, it is generally not appropriate for professional use. FinalCut for Apple Macintosh and Adobe Premiere or Sony Vegas for Windows.

You will also need to budget for lights, tripods, sturdy cases, boom for the shotgun mic, wireless and wired mics... lots of other stuff, but this will get you started.

And we don't know what kind of computer you have, but HDV uses lots of hard drive space and a fast CPU and lots of RAM are required for the video editors.