Video editing equipment?

Question

I have a pc Windows computer and I want to shoot short movies and edit them. What can I get and where in regards to a camera, software, cords, etc. basically everything. What do I do?

Budget - lowest reasonable amount of money i would have to spend

Answer 1

depends what kinds of movies you want to do.

Camera- main thing you want to look for is 3 ccd's.  these are the chips that give you a good picture.  Stay away from anything HD until it gets a lot better.  A well compositioned SD picture is better than a badly shot HD.  You'll also want a focus ring for changing focus in between shots, you can do a lot more this way with your shot.  Best Buy and Circuit city have some, or you can look up stuff on Ebay (thats how I found mine) and you can usually get great deals.

Software- Don't go crazy, if you're just starting editing, just use Windows Movie Maker.  You can get the basics with that and then move up.  If you want to go to a NLE (non linear editing) then go with Adobe Premiere Elements, its about 100 bucks and has multiple tracks for video layering and sound layering.  

Hardware-  Get an external hard drive to store all your footage.  Something around 500 gigs will be more than enough and will last a long time.  Also get it with a firewire connection.  Firewire is a continuous stream of data and is much better for video.  Get a firewire cable to connect your camera to your computer to import footage.

There you go...research a bit and take a look at prices and have some fun.