OK, let’s say I have a Sony Digital Video camera, with an “iLink” output.
And let’s say I also have a new Dell laptop, not initially equipped for video.
To create the edgy, independant film that will make me the toast of Sundance next year, what else will I need (not including talent, vision, etc.)?
A PCMICA card giving me firewire inputs (4 pin or 6 pin?)?
A firewire, IEEE something or other, cable (4 pin or 6 pin?)?
Video editing software of some sort?
I would appreciate any recommendations, tips, general advice, etc.
(And, once my edgy film is completed, any industry contacts, agents, people to “do lunch” with, etc. But I’ll never forget the little people, I promise!)
Lots and lots of hard drive space.
And, yes, a firewire PCMCIA card (iLink = firewire = IEEE 1394).
And unless you shoot your movie shot for shot in sequence, yep, you’ll need NLE software. I’m most familiar w/ Adobe Premiere, but there’s a (supposedly) more robust program out there whose name eludes me.
Did I mention a ton of hard drive space? Depending on the quality you want, you’ll probably want/need to capture in uncompressed AVI, which is a space hog.
To figure out how many MB of space you’ll need, follow this formula: [horizontal resolution x vertical resolution x 32 (bit color) x 24 (frames per second, for film) x # of seconds] + [44,100 (samples per second) x 16 (bit sound) x # of channels (2, for stereo) x + of seconds], then divide the whole mess by either 8,192 to get the number of megabytes.
On the other hand, using this formula, I get 580,575 MB of space for one minute of 352x288 video with stereo sound which doesn’t even sound right to me (hey, it’s 4:30 AM, okay?). Well, for what it’s worth, Maximum PC’s dream video editing rig weighed in at 320 GB of HD space, if that’s any indication of what may be needed.
Ah well, YMMV.