by Mark Pommett
Wedding photographers and videographers are often the center of a love/hate relationship. Perhaps it’s their shooting mentality, ego, or business interests. As a videographer I find this unfortunate because photography is a very powerful medium that can be used for video production. Some of my best work resulted from a combination of photographs and video. In fact, I don’t even need to be a great photographer to still come up with a great edit. Let me explain …

First of all, a great wedding video incorporates a compelling and entertaining story. After all, this is why they hired you. Pictures are a very powerful tool for a professionally edited video.

This past month, I filmed a bridal shower for a dear friend. Now I could’ve taken the easy way and layered down a track of music and some simple editing. No thanks. While I was shooting, I gathered as many of her closest friends/family as possible and sat them down for quick interviews. This was all part of my game plan for creating a masterful edit. Once I had all my assets digitized, it was time to get to work. First step, I carefully selected music that fit her personality without dominating my interview audio tracks. Attention is required that your music choices do not conflict with the freq range of your voiceovers or your resulting mix will sound mushy.

For the opening of my video, I began with wide angle establishing shot . As I transitioned into the first interview I cut away to photographs that depict what my subject was talking about. In other words, the photographs followed the context of the interview. This creates a seamless edit that is coherent yet emotional and interesting. Most importantly, our goal is achieved and we’ve created a great video.

This approach is often seen in documentaries and is an established form of filmmaking. Now, I could’ve had cut to b-roll footage instead. However, for the sake of weddings there is something more magical and emotional when your looking at a great photograph. For the videographer, photographs are a great tool to add to your editing and production arsenal.

About the Author

Mark Pommett is an accomplished la wedding videographer. For free videography training make sure to check out his Squidoo lens.

by roger King
DVD burners will help you to store your own video memories, albums or digital photography that can be played on your standalone DVD Player. DVD Burners are now dropping dramatically and they are now more affordable than ever before. With more people becoming interested in digital photography, video making and other tasks that require big storage space, backing up your home-video memories are a breeze.

DVD burners on the market only write to single-sided discs, which hold just 4.7 GB, making it virtually impossible to make a home copy of a full-length film with decent picture quality. Capture, edit, and preserve precious video memories with the Philips DVDR75 DVD player/recorder. You can transfer and assemble your most treasured camcorder footage, archive old videotapes, or burn digital photography video from a PC straight to high-capacity DVD.

†HP DVD Movie Writer dc3000 DVD burner with built-in analog video capture lets you quickly and easily transfers home video memories directly from tape (via camcorder or VCR) to DVD. It provides a full suite of software to enable video editing along with digital photography, music and data applications, and it lets you write and read CD-R and CD-RW discs as well as DVD+R/+RW.

Panasonic DMR-E80HS DVD burner with a built-in hard drive recorder, allowing you to record all your favorite shows onto digital disk as well as watch DVDs. The DVD Movie Writer also functions as a standard DVD/CD writer to burn music, digital photography and data to CD and DVD backup program files.

If your computer does not already have a DVD burner, you can add an internal drive or attach an external one. It’s easier, of course, to plug in an external one and it’s portable too, although a little more expensive.

About the Author

About The Author: Roger King has been using DVD studio pro for DVD authoring and get the best results ever. In-house post production facility that do custom video editing,, visit his web site www.finalvideoproduction.com for his services.

by Anna Woodward

This article provides an introduction to what you can do with your video to DVD transfer. It goes beyond the simple transfer and looks at custom transfer features you can take advantage of to make a unique and fun family video DVD.

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Upgrading our old family videos to a new format is great. Now, you have all those old videos on a high quality format that everybody can enjoy on any TV.

But, DVDs offer you much more in the way of custom features. Instead of just a video that rolls along from beginning to end, you can have your family video DVD loaded with special features, just like the DVDs from the store.

Put Whatever You Want On The Menu

Video rolls along from beginning to end, but DVDs serve up entertainment from a main menu. When you first turn them on, it shows you a table of contents with all the stuff on the disc. This way, you can put several hours of different videos on a DVD and see what you want when you want.

You can also make a custom background for the menu. Most video transfer places will allow you to choose an image, or even a scene from the video, to put in the background of the menu screen.

Make It More Easy To Navigate

If you have long videos on your DVD, you can split them up into “tracks” like a CD has. You can make your own scene selection screen on the start menu so that you can find exactly what you are looking for.

Another custom service that is usually offered is time markers. You can have the DVD made so that viewers can skip ahead to a certain time in one of the videos.

Make The DVD So That You Can Watch It Anywhere

There is a custom feature called “international video standards conversion,” which means that a video duplication service can make your video region-free.

For DVDs, the world is divided into 8 major regions. Videos from each region can’t be watched in the other regions. DVD players simply won’t be able to read them. This is a measure created to keep people from bootlegging and selling cheap DVDs.

This can be a real pain for consumer, though. That’s why most video transfer services offer region-free video conversion.

More Editing Options

It depends on the company, but many video transfer services allow you to do custom editing. They may charge more, or offer it as part of the deluxe package. You might be able to…

- Edit certain scenes. Is there a long stretch where somebody left the camera on and forgot about it? You can make it disappear. You can also make collages or “best of” collections.

- Custom music. You can often choose music for the start menu and opening scenes, but some places will allow you to add music into certain scenes. You can turn your home videos into Hollywood thrillers!

- Photos and slideshows. DVDs can store all kinds of information, and some services allow you to preserve your pictures on the same DVD as a movie. With photos on the DVD, you can also make slideshows.

A simple conversion to DVD will protect your family videos and keep the quality from deteriorating, but custom features can turn your average home videos into interactive adventures! When you shop around for a video transfer service, be sure to ask about what special custom features they offer.
 

About the Author

For video transfer, DVD features, duplication and post production, the Transfer Zone is a professional full-service lab operating since 1976. At The Transfer Zone, http://www.thetransferzone.com/, we look forward to helping you with your video reproduction needs!

by Ian Ball
Many mobile phones have two movie capabilities. It is possible to take video on the phone itself, much like the camcorders of old, but newer technology makes it possible to download and actually watch videos and movies on a mobile phone. As videos become more a part of our everyday society, movies on mobile phones will help lead the trend to make memories and share them with others.

Making Movies Many phones offer still pictures, but fewer offer high-quality video capabilities. The Nokia N series is one line specialized in quality camera phones. Other companies such as Sony Ericsson are also well known for producing notable camera phones.

For example, the Nokia N93 is an integrated 3.2 mega pixel camera combines with a Carl Zeiss lens. The phone also has optical and digital zoom, and in landscape mode, the camera is capable of making DVD quality videos. The N93 then can store the video or send it to friends via wireless internet. By connecting the phone to any compatible television, the video can then be played for an audience.

Movie making on cameras has become so common, classes are now being offered at the university level on making films using camera phones. These classes take students beyond the basic methods of capturing images and into the finer points of movie magic. In fact, the first full length motion picture, SMS Sugar Man, was recently released and was shot entirely on mobile phones. It was filmed using a Sony Ericsson W900.

Enjoying Movies Short videos on internet sites such as YouTube can be readily downloaded to mobile phones. In fact, this is one of the major selling points of the new Apple iPhone. Short internet films are not the only features available on mobile phones, however.

Major motion picture studios such as Sony are now releasing certain films in a 128 megabytes size. This size of movie is capable of playing on a mobile phone and these films can be downloaded much like music from the internet.

As screens on mobile phones get larger, and companies continue to push technology into new realms, it is only a matter of time before watching any new movie is a simple as pulling out your mobile phone.

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About the Author

Ian Ball is an employee of Mobile Express

by Keith Valentine
Over a period of time camcorders have evolved and the world’s newest being used are digital camcorders but before looking into buying a digital camcorder it is necessary to see some of the important camcorder features that should be considered when looking for one. A digital camcorder works to produce higher quality images and sounds, and it can send information to digital media like discs instead of tapes as in older models.

When you’re searching for a camcorder don’t forget to look for image stabilization - a must when it comes to important camcorder features. A digital camcorder will offer either optical or electronic image stabilization. Optical stabilization is where the lens on the digital camcorder moves in accordance with the camera’s movements. Electronic stabilization is where images on the lens are captured onto the charge couple device (CCD), and internal circuits are used to interpret video images after recording is finished.

Important camcorder features should include a lens with optical zoom level of at least 10x. Some digital camcorders have higher zoom levels, but the higher levels may not be necessary in many cases. In fact, when a camera is recording at a higher zoom level the video quality can be poor as it is harder to keep still on something that is being recorded.

One of the most important camcorder features is a good-quality liquid crystal display (LCD) screen. This screen is what is used to display images that are going to be recorded onto the video disc in the digital camcorder. With a larger screen it can be easier to see what is being recorded, and it also helps to make playback previews editable. Larger LCD screens also have menus that can help to make customization of options on the camcorder easier, thus allowing for a greater level of control.

A digital camcorder’s built-in microphone records sound. Various digital camcorders feature zoom microphones that can enhance sounds in certain areas where recording is taking place. Some digital camcorders will also have a socket that allows for an external microphone to be plugged-in.

Other important camcorder features include a full auto switch (which lets you point and shoot), autofocus, zoom, quick review, auto-exposure, backlight compensation, audio/video inputs (that let you record material from another camcorder or VCR), digital still capability (that lets you take snapshots), built-in title generator, time-and-date stamp, time code (which is a frame reference of exactly where you are on the recording media — the hour, minute, second, and frame), remote control (which helps when you’re using the camcorder as a playback device or when you’re using a tripod), and programmed recording (self-timer).

The last of the most important camcorder features to consider but by no means least, is night mode. Some cameras have the ability to record images in darker settings with ease, and a camera with a night mode can help. Some camcorders will have an infrared or slow-shutter night mode to help with using ambient lighting in scenes to help improve the lighting levels for the camera. Usually a digital camcorder will have one of these settings, but some have both.

So there you have it, a summary of the most important camcorder features to look for in a digital camcorder. This type of camcorder can be great for recording memories and events, but be sure to consider these important camcorder features in one so that it can be used for everything you need out of it.

About the Author

Keith Valentine has used camcorders for vacations, weddings and personal use for years. Learn more, get free advice on buying a camcorder, and photos of popular camcorders in use today at: http://camcorders.easyarticles4u.com