ELLIOTT: Travel, Lies and Videotape

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Travel, Lies and Videotape
The Travel Technologist · January 30, 2002

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then what are a thousand pictures worth if they're strung together? Not much if you've bought the camera I recommended last week following a tortuous search for the right model.

A camera is no good without video editing software and peripherals. And chances are neither your PC nor your camcorder shipped with the equipment you need (unless you buy an Apple Macintosh system, which comes with a first-rate video editing suite).

When you buy a camcorder, you're led to believe that downloading your film on to a computer is easy. That once it's there, editing the images is a cinch, and burning a DVD is as easy as taping your favorite TV show. The promotional brochures don't necessarily use the word "easy" but they certainly imply it.

I'm sitting here with three videotapes that I shot during the holidays and I'm no closer to being able to edit, much less make copies of the completed project on to a readable format.

What do you need to turn your camcorder into more than an expensive videotape player?

A reliable editing suite. I picked the top-rated Adobe Premiere 6 to edit my video. (Cost: $499) It's an impressive program that features the same functionality that you'd expect to find in a professional editing studio. I liked the way it handles storyboards and audio, and when I gave Premiere a kick in the tires after downloading it, I thought I'd master it in a snap. Wrong. The program isn't a "stunningly simple professional video editing tool" as its creators claim. Rather, it is a difficult-to-master, mercurial program that takes patience and a good coach. Which brings me to my next recommended purchase…
A good tutorial. Adobe endorses Total Training for Premiere 6, a 16-hour series that's available on DVD. So do I. In it, four experts show you how to turn your video into professional-quality films. But they also go through the basics in a visual way, so that you can learn as you edit your footage. At $249, the series may seem a little pricey, but considering the amount of time it would take to learn Premiere without any help, I think it's a bargain.
The right peripherals. Your PC is going to need a few extras for editing video. Such as more hard drive space. I like the Maxtor 1394 external storage unit, which adds a generous 80 GB of memory. (Price: $329). Maxtor stands behind its products with responsive customer support. When my drive broke down, it sent me a new one with few questions asked.

I also liked Adaptec's XHub4 Plus, which expands the number of USB ports on my PC. What are you going to do with that many ports? Just wait. If you're using your computer for video editing, you'll need them in no time. Adaptec's products, particularly this one, tend to be very user friendly. So you don't really have to worry about screwing up your system's drivers and suffering a complete meltdown. The XHub4 costs $69.

In the spirit of this column, I also tried to edit video on my laptop computer. Not a good idea. Even the best portables come with smaller screens. I strained to see to see the editing windows in Premiere and gave up after a few hours of trying.

Bottom line: You can shoot your images on a camcorder. You can download them on to a notebook computer. But whatever you do, wait until you get home to do the editing.

That is, once you've figured out how to do it.

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator based in Key Largo, Fla. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion. The Travel Technologist appears weekly on this site. This story was also published on SmarterLiving.com.