Editor's Letter: Making video is a lot easier than it used to be

Until recently, a typical home computer was not capable of editing video. The power to create television programs has been in the hands of a chosen few. Most people that had access to video editing tools were either employed in the television industry or they were "techies" that configured their own gear. Now, anyone with a properly configured computer can create a TV show that may be as good as some of the shows that we receive on our televisions.

Editing video with a computer is not new, it's just much easier to execute than it used to be. The key product for computer video editing is a digitizing card. Although many computer owners have installed peripherals and cards in their computers, video digitizers have been one of the most challenging items to install. Digitizing cards tend to conflict with many things in a typical PC.

In 1999, computer video editing has gone main stream. More companies are manufacturing video digitizers and the competition amongst these companies has lead to easier installation. However, installing a digitizer is not something that I'd recommend to people that have little experience installing things in their computers, because it is still somewhat complex. For those people I recommend buying a computer that is "ready to edit video." This year, several leading computer companies launched new models of machines that are configured to edit video right out of the box. Compaq, IBM, Sony and Apple all offer computers that can have you editing video within minutes after setting the machine ont…