This topic comes up in several of my courses and conversations with friend, so I thought I'd but up an introduction to working with digital video, there is an emphasis on educational applications.

The following products are useful for the creation of digital video projects:

Photo Story (free program for Windows XP). You need to install Windows Media Player 10 or higher. This is an excellent program for turning images into video. You can add narration, music, and other effects. It also allows for panning and zooming of individual images.

Windows MovieMaker (comes bundled with Windows XP). An easy to use program for digital video editing. See my tutorial to get started. Microsoft has some good resources as well.

ArcSoft Showbiz (free 15 day trial). If you don't have Windows XP, this will work on ME, 2000 and NT. It's quick to learn and fun to use. Please see my Showbiz Tutorial for this.

IMovie If you are a Mac User I believe IMovie comes bundled with newer models. If you don't have it, you can purchase the ILife series (IPhote, IMovie, Garageband, IDVD, and IWeb) for $79. For media, Mac has been setting the standard for home and professional use.

Sources for Media

There are several good sites that let you view and download video--Google Video and the Internet Archive are two that come to mind. But if you want to find video to use in your original projects, I would suggest the following:

United Streaming (you need a subscription). Many of the videos are editable in all of the above programs. They can be downloaded, cut, and reworked into original works. Students can learn many research skills when they take the images from an existing video, edit them into an original work, and write and record original narration. Along with the images, they can use and cite the facts from the original video.

Creative Commons Video. You can search for video with the option to "Find me works I can modify, adapt, or build upon."

Online Video Sharing Sites. If you are familiar with Flickr (If you are not, you should check it out--here's my overview of Flickr), you will see that these video sharing sites share the same basic principles--users add , tag, review, and share their digital work. You can search by tag, title, and some let you share by Creative Commons License. An entry in the TechCrunch Blog has an excellent overview of video sharing sites with a chart on which ones allow the sharing of editable videos.

Original Video

Creative and moving video to a computer, you have to be aware of the two general types of video signals: digital and analog.  

Digital sources can come from a CD, a cell phone, a computer or a digital camera—the two most popular digital camera types are MiniDV and Digital 8—MiniDV is THE MOST POPULAR and works best with existing hardware and computers.   It is what I would recommend to anyone interested in digital video.   Digital sources are quite easy to transfer.  

Analog sources require some extra hardware to convert the signal.   Sources of analog signal are VCRs, Camcorders, Hi-8, and Standard 8 cameras.

Microsoft offers a good overview of hardware for video editing ( see Selecting the Right Camera to Meet your Needs).

Digital video cameras, particularly the MiniDV, have come down in price and are convenient and easy to operate.   You can get a good MiniDV camera for $300-500 (Again, MiniDV is the most popular and versatile).   Most MiniDV cameras will have two sets of functions—a camera and a player.   You can record your video on a MiniDV tape and then play it back on your camera or TV.    For editing you will need to transfer your work to a computer. This is easy, once you know you have the right hardware (see my Digital Video Starter Guide for an overview)

Creating movies on a computer is often referred to as Non Linear Editing (NLE) (See T TTWikipedia for a description of Non Linear Editing)