Making Digital Home Movies, Part 1

Introduction

Panasonic GS70 triple CCD camera

Would you like to produce your own movies and compete with George Lucas or Peter Jackson? Today, you can make movies filled with great audio and visual effects, for only a few thousands dollars. Your movies may not win an Academy Award, but at least they will amaze most people who watch them.

This massive guide, which is divided into two parts, will take all of the guesswork out of making digital home movies. In part one, we break down everything that you will need to buy, why you need to buy it, and how much it will cost. In part two, we will go step-by-step through making a movie, complete with special effects and crazy titles.

Camcorder

The first and most obvious thing to buy is a camcorder. The average consumer just wants something that records video. In contrast, if you are going to be producing movies of decent quality, you must be very careful in selecting a camcorder with professional features. What features are we talking about? How about format, audio/video connections and zoom capability.

Deciding Which Format Camcorder To Buy

Mini-DV tape compared to a Costco card

Just buy a Mini-DV format camcorder. Wasn't that easy? There are several reasons: high-resolution (720X480), tapes can be found anywhere and the video can easily be transferred to the PC for editing. Mini-DV has become the standard for digital video, which makes the camcorders and tapes easy to find. The video signal and the resulting video are recorded in digital format (0s and 1s) to a small cassette tape.

What Is This FireWire Business?

FireWire cable with 6 and 4 pin connectors

FireWire is the type of cable that connects the camcorder to your computer. It transfers information at 400 Megabits per second, which is needed when dealing with digital video. There are two types of FireWire connections: 6-pin and 4-pin. Most camcorders have the 4-pin connector, while most computers have the 6-pin connector. This will be important to know when you are buying the FireWire cable.

TOPICS
Latest in GPUs
Despite external similarities, the RTX 3090 is not at all the same hardware as the RTX 4090 — even if you lap the GPU and apply AD102 branding.
GPU scam resells RTX 3090 as a 4090 — complete with a fake 'AD102' label on a lapped GPU
WireView Pro 90 degrees
Thermal Grizzly's WireView Pro GPU power measuring utility gets a 90-degree adapter revision
Nvidia Ada Lovelace and GeForce RTX 40-Series
Analyst claims Nvidia's gaming GPUs could use Intel Foundry's 18A node in the future
RX 9070 XT Sapphire
Lisa Su says Radeon RX 9070-series GPU sales are 10X higher than its predecessors — for the first week of availability
RTX 5070, RX 9070 XT, Arc B580
These are the best GPU 'deals' based on real-world scalper pricing and our FPS per dollar test results
Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 5090 AMP Extreme Infinity
Zotac raises RTX 5090 prices by 20% and seemingly eliminates MSRP models
Latest in Features
Free Alternatives to Photoshop
Five Best Photoshop Alternatives Tested: Image Editing for Free
Awekeys Antiques Metal keycaps
Awekeys Antiques Metal keycaps are Viking-themed luxury for your fingertips
The Gigabyte X870E AORUS ELITE WIFI7
Get the most out of your processor with this motherboard's Turbo Mode
AMD RDNA 4 and Radeon RX 9000-series GPUs
AMD RDNA 4 and Radeon RX 9000-series GPUs start at $549: Specifications, release date, pricing, and more revealed
MSI Prestige GPU
Tested: Intel's Arrow Lake 140T iGPU mostly maintains an edge over AMD's older 880m
MechBoards Hyper7 R4
I’m typing this on the world’s largest keyboard, a 178-key beast designed to make you more productive