Any Software with the Camcorder?
dharrison,
Was any software supplied with the camcorder?
Many camcorders are sold with a software bundle which includes editing software.
That's a good place to start.
ps. They'll also need a connection cable: Usually a DV cable (aka Firewire, aka iLink, aka IEEE 1394, etc.) with the correct connectors for the camcorder and the computer.
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Webconomist,
My previous Mac had dual floppy drives, no hard drive and 128kbytes of RAM. Its variable speed floppies played tunes as it worked, loading data and program modules.
We thought it slow because each run of the special project management software took over four hours. (Our previous mainframe took a whole weekend to do the same job.)
That was 1985: My next computer *may* run Apple Leopard, especially if Apple escapes from power-hungry Intel CPUs.
My point was that *any* modern computer can be used for video editing. Good stable software is available for all types of computers: Unfortunately, hyped, unstable software is also available.
As with so many modern products, price and brand-name are little guide to quality or usefulness.
Regarding time:
Transferring the contents of a standard 60 minute miniDV tape from a camcorder to *any* computer takes 60 minutes: Ordinary tape-based camcorders replay only at *normal* speed.
Burning 60 minutes of video onto a DVD is most unlikely to take less than about 15 minutes, for a reliable burn.
This leaves very little of your "hour" to do any actual creative editing, rendering, encoding and authoring.
Someone editing their first video, especially an important wedding video, should plan to spend a couple of week-ends plus a couple of evenings, producing several versions before they are happy with the result. During this time, they'll almost certainly need to "phone a friend" for help.
Richard
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