Noglory

What kind of vid camera's ya guys using? Brand, style, all that good stuff. Lookin to get a new vid camera and need to kno what ta look for. Any help would be GREAT! oh yeah and what programs ya using to edit? using mac's or pcs?

Reeff

cannon gl2 with all the goodies

ABEStunts

Adobe makes a real nice one kinda costly but if you know someone with some computer skills it can be free!!!

SmurfKilla

Vegas 7 for editing...It rocks...Adobe Premiere is good to...

We will be upgrading our camera this year to a 3 CCD type...

I have spent quite a bit of time researching cameras, the Canon GL2 is
good bang for the $$$, but the one I will be buying is the Panasonic DVX100B.
Its about $1000 more than the Canon, but will do 24 frame non interlaced, bigger lense and is a better camera..

Good luck with the upgrades..

Cheers

SK

Scott982

I'm using a panasonic dvx100a and editing on a mac with final cut pro. If you want to make quality video's get a good 3 chip cam and for editing it's all personal preference and what you want to spend on your set up. Check out dvxuser.com, skateperception.com, and dvinfo.net. You can learn alot on those sites regarding filming and editing.

My dvx setup with the century fisheye and bescor 20/40 light..

banjaxed

3g's for a gl2

Noglory

i was thinkin bout the gl2 found it for 1700 just gotta shop round!

excessa

I'm using a Sony HC3 which is good for high def footage but not a pro set up. Which is exactly what I needed because the pro stuff looks too complicated for me.

banjaxed

whered you find them for that cheap? i want to start making vids of the local guys here in daytona

Scott982

check with b&h I think they have some really good prices on the gl2 or you can find used vx2100's for around $1,300 all day long...

hot magma

The Sony VX2000 or 2100 is a more durable camera than the GL2, that Sony is also better in low light. Mac w/Final Cut Pro is always the way to go when it comes to editing.

Nick Apex

XL1S beater, HVX200 is my "good" camera, avid when I can but I don't know it well enough to make it a main, for now raylight, V7, and AFX.

Fallout Carl

I use a Canon GL2. It may not be the GREATEST camera but it is a terrific 3ccd camera and it may be the best bang for the buck out there. Although I don't have much experience with Panasonics I have friends that love their 2000's and 2100's. The are pretty similar cameras to the GL2. The Panasonic is probably better in low light, the Canon is a much lighter weight camera. Both have various pluses and minuses.

I use Vegas for editing. It's a terrific program that rivals anything else out there for features and is less expensive than most other programs in it's class.

I'm sure I'm going to **** some people off here but I'll go ahead and say what needs to be said regarding Final Cut Pro. The bottom line is that Adobe Premiere and Sony Vegas both have tons of incredibly useful features (some that are near must-have) that final cut pro does not have. Final Cut Pro is simply living in the dark ages. I can't imagine ever using FCP again after using Vegas. It would be like going from a nice new car with all the bells and whistles to a 1908 ford that doesn't even have suspension or air filled tires. My production rate because of the limitations of FCP would drop dramatically.

With that said there are plenty of people who are much better editors than I am who use Final Cut Pro and I'm sure there will be people that come on here and cry and complain that I'm wrong, but the facts speak for themselves. All I have to say is do your homework. It's a huge task to really learn an editing program, make sure you learn what you think is the best program with the best features for the money. In my opinion if you're about to undertake learning an editing program and want the best features possible I would strongly recommend Vegas (or Premiere) over Final Cut Pro.

Here's a post that a friend of mine put up on an editing forum answering a question about how FCP stacks up to other NLE's. He has tons of professional editing experience and is incredible at what he does...

As a preface, I have used every major editing system on the market and have used FCP extensivly... That experience along with two decades of computers has taught me one firm tenet -

Show me a person who raves about Final Cut Pro and I'll show you someone who has never used anything else...!

Its as simple as that. Feature for feature comparing FCP to most other major NLE's - Vegas, Premiere Pro, Avid - FCP looks very very weak.

Here is a QUICK list of things that Vegas can do that FCP cannot:

- True format and resolution indepedance
- Mix resolutions on the same timeline without rendering or losing real-time performance (FCP is a LOOOONG way from this)
- Add, remove and adjust effects During real-time playback
- Surround sound mixing
- Unlimted Parent-Child track control
- Video effects at event, track and output level
- Video and audio bus tracks for project level automation
- Bus level automated motion blur and super-sampling
- One-click audio normalising
- Real, smaple accurate, audio multitracking tools (audio in FCP is a cruel joke)
- 3D track motion and animation
- Unlimited point bezier masks
- Velocity frame rate control envelopes
- Open scripting in Visual basic or Java script
- Multiple copies of Vegas open at the same time (have one rendering while you edit in another at the same time..!)
- Punch in, punch out audio recording
- Streaming media meta-data commands from the timeline
- On the fly marker inserts during playback
- Monitor wet/record dry audio recording (hear the input with effects but record without effects)
- Simultaneous multi-channel audio recording with real-time effects monitoring
- Parent-Track compositing modes
- RED Book CD mastering form the timeline
- Audio Pitch and Tempo correction on the timeline
- Control surface suppourt for any MIDI device
- MIDI Timecode synchronisation
- Built in Metronome and flexible ruler format including all timecodes as well as Measures (bars and beats)
- Bump, Displacement and Height mapping track options
- Unlimited 'undo'
- Import from any source format including DVD camcorders and direct export for mobile devices; psp, ipod.
- Built in CD ripper/extractor
- Synch audio tracks with online CD database for metadata retrival
- Built in suppourt for dolby AC-3 format
- One click red-eye removal
- Bus to Bus audio mixing
- Abilty to import, read and edit already authored DVDs
- Real-time one-click video event Reverse
- Envelope animation control of transitions
- Free-hand Paint-on envelopes (audio, pan, velocity, motion blur etc)
- Split screen preview for pre and post effect...

I'd go on but i reckon you get the picture. FCP has none of the above. FCP is a good editor, but thats all it is. It is very underpowered and severely limited in its flexibility and feature set.

On the final cut pro side there are really only two elements that stand out; one is the titling tool. Live Type in FCP is a superb text titling tool and far superior to Vegas. The other is Fcp's functionality as an off-line editing tool (via it's CinemaTools utility) for off-line editing of 16mm and 35mm film as well as offline HD

If I had to off-line a celluloid film production I'd use FCP. Its very very good at it. But, that said, I live in the digital age not the dark ages..! Film is dead and so is off-lining. Hollywood may still be doing it but the writing is on the wall. Its a much more flexible production world and FCP is Just Not Flexible.

I have no loyalty to Vegas, when i find something better I'll switch faster than I can change my underwear - just as I did between Media100, Avid, Final Cut, Premiere and Vegas.

hot magma

Don't even waste your time with Avid, I have $10K in a Final Cut system on a G5 and I'm doing a 4:2:2 1080i project right now. To do that with an Avid would be way over $100K and the work flow would be much slower. I think I can handle 1080p uncompressed but haven't had the opportunity yet. I'm shocked you cut "Revolution" with those edit programs it looked great I never even noticed the compression, nice work. Give FCP 5 or newer a shot, you'll thank me in a few months.

Fallout Carl

A warning for everyone: Be VERY careful with stuff like this. There are several B.S. companies on the internet offering too good to be true prices on new GL2's (specifically in that $1,700 price range) that are just a scam. They even advertise on Google and Yahoo. Some of them even use (steal) the identities of real companies as a front to look like legit businesses. Most of them are outside of the U.S., be VERY careful. The best legit price I can find new is $2,300 through B&H.

Scott982

I would still use final cut over vegas any day. Final Cut with dvd studio pro, compressor, soundtrack pro, motion, and add after affects and it will do every thing you could possibly want and is easy to learn. Plus it's on a mac, I could never edit on a pc again after owning a mac for 2 years with out it ever crashing or freezing up on me. In the end it's just what your comfortable using though because I have seen wonderfull stuff done on both but final cut and avid are the industry standards.

hot magma

You don't even have the slightest clue what you are talking about.

Today at 8pm ET I'm doing the open for Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. It's a crappy gig but I'm old and tired and I never work in NYC during December, traffic is nasty. They have Avid Adrenalines over there but I would prefer Final Cut it would be faster and easier to color correct.

What are you cutting tomorrow?

Fallout Carl

That quote (maybe I wasn't clear) was from a friend with over 20 years professional experience editing for television, etc. It was a general statement and his opinion. Maybe FCP is better specifically for broadcast color correcting than AVID, and FCP certainly does have does specific strengths. It wasn't my personal opinion because I haven't used enough NLE software in it's class to form an opinion like that. It's obviously you're right to disagree with my friends opinion.

The main point he was making (and I was making at the beginning of my post) is that FCP is way behind Premiere and Vegas for features, some of them incredibly useful and incredibly powerful. By simply looking at the list I posted it's obvious there are many features in Vegas (around 50 features just off the quick list I posted) that are way more advanced than what FCP offers, some incredibly powerful, incredibly helpful and several that certainly speed up production, workflow, etc, quite a bit.

As an overall editing program in general I feel Vegas blows away FCP no question, and I feel the list of features I posted goes a long way in backing up my opinion.

Personally, I'm just trying to help the person who asked the question, by showing some of the important differences between the two programs.

By the way, I earn my main source of income as a professional sports writer. To answer your question, tomorrow (for my side business) I will be editing stunt footage and ****.

Being a sports writer from CT. Keith Olbermann and I used to run in some of the same circles. Back in the day he was a sportscaster here in Bristol, Connecticut at ESPN.

banjaxed

what about used ones in that price range?

Fallout Carl

You can definitely find a real good used one in that price range or less. I got one on ebay for $1,700 with a bunch of extra accessories from a guy with a very high feedback rating who used the camera just a few times. He had a sales receipt for the camera that was less than two months old, and most of the accessories were still sealed in the plastic.

With that said you're obviously taking a chance buying anything used but it worked out very well for me. I haven't checked in a while but $1,500-$1700 is probably about the average going rate for a used GL2 in real nice shape with a few extra accessories. So in the end I saved $600 on the camera itself plus it had a couple hundred dollars worth of extras (extended life batteries, hard case, filters, etc.)