Editing Your Digital Video Movies

Although a stand alone DVD recorder will enable you to make instant DVD recordings, complete with simple thumbnail based menus making selection of movie clips very easy, it's in the computer that you have the greatest number of creative options for producing the perfect DVD or Web clip. What's more, the job of importing your video sequences into the computer, cutting out the rough bits, adding music and titles, and exporting the finished job to DVD is now very cheap. In fact, depending on the software choices you make, it needn't cost you a penny more that you paid for the computer!

Whether you're a Windows PC or Apple Mac user, you'll be able to start editing your digital video movies right now, assuming you have the right hardware connections . All you need to start working with your video footage is some 'editing software. It may surprise you to know that you have instant access to one of two great pieces of software windows Movie Maker [PC] and iMovie

The process of telling the program to copy your footage into the computer is as easy as clicking the mouse button, and when the video footage starts to copy you'll see little images (called "thumbnail icons") appearing in the window where the clips are stored. You'll also see that as each new clip starts; a new thumbnail is created, making it very easy for you to identify each clip. You can even give each clip a new name later. Once all of the video has been captured into the computer, the job of tidying up, reorganizing, and fine-tuning your movie is as quick as you'd want it to be.

Notice that the screen contains a window in which to view one or more clips. Simply click on one of the thumbnail icons and then on the "Play" control and the selected clip will play with sound and vision. Do the same with another. Notice, also, that there's a linear section running across the bottom of the screen, this is called the timeline. The timeline is where you build up your movie by dragging individual clips from the clip bin to the timeline one at a time. Try it for yourself and you'll begin to see how easy it is! You can change the order of the clips by moving them at will. Remove a clip from the timeline (though not from your collection) by deleting it. That's it, you've discovered the joys of video editing!