Hello fellow EBay members,

Learn more about my video project at livingsteam.com

SO YOU WANT TO MAKE YOUR OWN MOVIES

I will flesh out this article over time. Here are my tips for making your own DVDs and making the jump to HD:

1) Going HD? Figure your total budget -- Count costs of videocamera PLUS editing software AND a sufficient computer

CAMERA
When I decided to get an HD camera, I was in for a few surprises. The Canon HV20 I use is great but was nearly $1000 when I bought it. Prices are coming down but not that quickly. I chose the HV20 because you can set a constant zoom rate (slow, med, fast). Consistent slow zooms make your video look more professional.

SOFTWARE
While Windows Movie Maker claims to allow HD editing, it is quite limited. You can only capture the entire tape at once, whereas doing so may fill up your hard disk. I upgraded a previous version of Adobe Premiere to Premiere CS3. I also purchased the entire Creative Suite for about $1200 to get Encore for DVD editing, After Effects for great video effects, Soundbooth for audio editing and Photoshop for image and DVD menu editing. My final word on software is to expect some frustration. Adobe is not as well integrated as it should be, and there are still bugs that make the software crash.

HD EDITING MEANS SERIOUS HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS
Before I was able to run the latest versions of Adobe Software, I needed to purchase a new computer to meet Adobe's "SSE2 enabled" requirement. That wasn't the end of the story. By the time I was done with the Living Steam project, I had upgraded to 3Gb of RAM, a total of 2.4 Terabytes of hard disk space, a new GeForce 8800 video card and a small HDTV to connect to the card.

2) Buy vs. build? Cost, compatibility

REPLICATION, DUPLICATION AND BURNING
You have to look at the scope of your project and decide the best way to make your discs. I have one printer (an old C86) to print my disc labels. I bought another printer to print directly on Inkjet DVDs. Then I had to buy blank inkjet printable DVD-Rs. Ordering Amaray-style cases will help make your  project more professional and easier to ship. Then you have to factor in the cost of ink, paper, and shipping envelopes. In the long run, ignoring labor, it's cheaper to make your own DVDs but you'll have to sell quite a few to pay back your investment.

Sending your DVDs out for professional replication will ensure better compatibility, but you have to be ready to make a run of 1000 to get glass-mastered DVDs like the ones Netflix sends out. If you use an outside company that simply burns the DVDs, you're going to have the same potential compatibility issues as if you burned them yourself. If you don't think you'll sell 1000 DVDs you'd be foolish to go to glass-mastering.

While home-burned DVD-Rs burned at 8x or slower should be compatible with most all DVD players, there are some exceptions. I have a SUPER-cheap $50 Walmart (Magnavox) DVD recorder that won't play my DVDs. This seems to be an aberration, as its the only player I can find that's imcompatible. However, I found some other glitches. I use Encore-style titles on one of my special features, a slideshow. Instead of using Premiere to put the titles on video (foolproof), I assembled the slideshow in Encore and added descriptive titles in the Slideshow itself. I found that in two DVD players (an old Sanyo VCR/DVD combo and a brand new Blu-Ray player) the titles do not appear. Wierd but true.

Now, maybe you don't want to take the time to buy printers and blank DVDs and Amaray cases 100 at a time. One more option is to use Amazon.com's Createspace.com on-demand DVD service. You author and burn one DVD. You send it to Createspace. You upload all your artwork to Createspace. They make a proof and mail it to you. If you're happy you go live on their website for a few bucks per DVD and a 15% cut to Createspace. You only pay if your DVD sells and they handle all the shipping, taxes, etc. You can also put your Createspace DVDs on Amazon but they take 45% instead of 15%. If you want your DVD available with no hassles, but don't expect to make much money, go with this option.

Coming:
3) HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray

4) Burned disc compatibility vs. glass-mastered replication

5) Tips to get and edit good video