Video editing

I don't get a deal of free time, but what I do get in the evenings I like to spend doing some home video editing.

I've recently acquired a copy of Adobe Premiere 6.5 having gone through ULead MediaStudio and ULead VideoStudio.

The Kit

Starting with the business end, we've got a Sony TRV240 digital video camera. The Sony was an easy choice for us upgrading from a top-of-the-range Hi-8 analogue camera. As well as using the same tape format (8mm) as the old analogue and having the capability of playing analogue Hi8 tapes, the '240 has DV-out and DV-in. It doesn't have the memory stick slot that the higher-end Sony cameras have, but I've got a perfectly serviceable Kodak digital still camera for that.

After the camera, you need to get the data into the PC. For that, I used to use one of the Firewire ports on my PC video card which is a ATI Radeon AIW-8500DV. I've always used ATI cards, andthe 8500DV is the best I've ever owned. However, since the PC upgrade, the AIW forewire port won't work, so I use one of the two on the motherboard instead.

The new PC I've just built, primarily for video editing is rather kick-ass. It's built around an Asus A7N8X delux motherboard which has more bells 'n' whistles than you can shake a stick at. We have 1Gb of PC3200 memory talking to an AMD Athlon 2800XP CPU with a Zalman flower heatsink. The case is a Neonlight job with a transparent side panel (from KustomPCs). For extra ventilation, there are a couple of extra Coolermaster blue LED fans. It's also got a Creative Live-IR Platinum sound card. So far, the system (running WindowsXP Pro) has proven rock-solid.

For editing, I'm currently using Adobe Premiere 6.5, and to be hopnest, am likely to stick with this. It does all and more I could ever want of it.

The final icing on the cake is a brand new shiney Sony DRU-500AX multi-standard DVD+/-R/RW/CDR/CDRW drive.

That lot plus a few odds and sods of software enables me to produce DVDs for playing back on our Sony DAVS-500 home cinema system. You can guess I like Sony gear eh?