Wonder if anyone had any input or a forum that specialises in my question

I am thinking of getting into some video production stuff... just as a nice little hobby like filming me and my friends doing tricks on the ski hills, mountain bikes and stuff and making nice little videos.

I was thinking of doing this all in HD for now and then downscale it when I burn to DVD but keep all my videos on a hard drive for when burning HD will be a lot more accessible...

I was wondering if anyone had input on a under 1500 dollar camera...

I was thinking of using a mac since from what I herd is better than pc when we get into more professional video production. I was already thinking of getting a mac mini around the holidays.. Would that be powerful enough? What kind of software should I look into... I don't want to spend more then 500 on software...

Thanks
Hope someone has a forum or some input for me

It's deja vu!



You might give someone here:

AV Science Forum a try.

I do movies or really personal movies/clips.

I would look into a camera thats not HD if you plan to publish it online like I do.

A nice camera here too bad its in 1080I instead of 1080P but its still the full hd. I forget whats better for action shots I or P.

http://cgi.ebay.com/JVC-GZ-HD7-Everio-HD-C...1QQcmdZViewItem

Be sure to read reviews BEFORE buying any electronics.

A few cameras I want are listed below:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Se...&CatId=3359
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Se...&CatId=3359
This is the nicest one and the one I would get if I had the money. It has 5.1 surround sound...1080p resolution:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Se...&CatId=3359

Also, a suggestion as far as getting a mac. You'll want to make sure you have a lot of RAM, as working with video can use a lot and you don't want your computer to slow down or crash.

If you are planning on making large videos at once, it would be recommended on using an external hard drive too. Just to be on the safe side as far as freezing and crashing is concerned. This helps as far as taking pressure off your computer. If you plan on creating DVDs, obviously. You won't need it so much if you plan on making videos for internet purposes.

Of course this was when I was in college and the computers we used were used a lot, but it's always nice to take precautions.

A recommended program if you plan on making videos that are of very high quality, that's made for Macs only, is Final Cut Pro, found here. There is also iMovie, found here. I can't remember if that comes with Macs or not.

Good luck!

Thanks for the suggestions...

Going onto other forums they have been suggesting the HV20 with a Wide-Angle Lens. They we're also suggesting a DM50 high quality mic but I think this is useless since I will be doing mainly sports filming and the especially on a ski hill with lot's of wind the mic isn't going to pick much up anyways.

I was looking at Final Cut Express HD for the Mac since it's only 350$ compared to the Pro version that is 1300$...

Do you think a Mac Mini is powerful enough with upgrade RAM until I can afford a G5?

The Express HD should be okay, especially for what you are doing. The Pro version would probably be more in your league if you wanted to be creating movies and such.

The Core 2 Duo processor should be fine until you get a G5, as far as processor, and 2GB should be good as far as RAM.