http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ Videomaker Community Forums » Tag: questions - Recent Posts en Thu, 16 Feb 2012 20:43:01 +0000 http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/just-starting-have-questions#post-74790 Tue, 14 Feb 2012 21:01:00 +0000 composite1 74790@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p>John,</p> <p>With low, micro or near zero budgets like yours, keeping it simple is the only way to go. In all seriousness look at a good Point and Shoot camera with video built-in. Most do HD in 720p or 1080p and you can get really good images. Don't spend more than 200 bucks. Take another $100 and buy a Zoom H1 so you can record synced audio because you won't get good audio with just the camera. Next, go to 'S-Mart' and buy a small camera bag that will hold the camera, a small tripod (Joby preferred), the Zoom, 2 or more SD cards (4GB or bigger), two extra camera and AA batteries, your manuals a cleaning cloth, the battery charger and any connection cables. Don't spend more than $30 on the bag. You'll also want a larger tripod again don't spend more than $25. You'll need a small light. There are many small LED and fluorescent LED lights you can hand hold, put on your head or rig up to light your subjects that are under $20. Trick will be to choose the proper whitebalance with your camera settings to get the color right.</p> <p>You can find good point and shoot cameras with video and many of the other camera accessories at BHPhoto-Video.com. Stay out of Best Buy. Their job is to make you spend money. You'll blow your budget fooling with them.</p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/just-starting-have-questions#post-74788 Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:35:32 +0000 vid-e-o-man 74788@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p>John,&nbsp;Sony Vegas Studio is in the affordable range and it comes with an audio editor to help with the clean up of your&nbsp;audio. It should do anything in the basic range&nbsp;of editing and producing DVDs etc. It also has has a lot of the features of the pro model except for the unlimited quantity of audio and video tracks and some things that are more advanced. It should fulfill all of your needs for editing and outputing&nbsp;your video. Keep shooting.&nbsp;</p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/just-starting-have-questions#post-74785 Tue, 14 Feb 2012 19:56:45 +0000 cfxcorp 74785@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p>Tough budget.&nbsp; Sony has a bluetooth lapel mic you can pin on the subject and it links to the ActiveShoe receiver on a Sony camcorder.&nbsp; Or buy a $99 Zoom mic and place very close to the subject then sync the audio and video in the editor (challenging).&nbsp; I think you cold save money on the editor and sink it into the camera and mic by using AVS4You Video Editor -&nbsp;lots of bang for the buck.&nbsp; Also, Corel and Magix products are decent for this type of work.</p> <p>The AVS4You has some nice titling effects for lower thirds, etc. and allows for video overlays like Picture in Picture or PowerPoint slides with adjustable opacity, etc.</p> <p><a href="http://www.Izotope.com">http://www.Izotope.com</a>&nbsp;(Nectar and Music &amp; Speech Cleaner)&nbsp;and <a href="http://www.bias-inc.com">http://www.bias-inc.com</a> (SoundSoap) offer audio cleaning tools for $199.00, $39.00, and&nbsp;$129.00 respectively.&nbsp; Both offer trial/demos.&nbsp; If you are going to use plug-ins instead of stand-alone tools, you won't be able to use the AVS4You Video Editor, probably want at leat Vegas Studio version.</p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/just-starting-have-questions#post-74656 Fri, 10 Feb 2012 21:35:20 +0000 John 74656@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p> Greetings,</p> <p>I am just starting out in film and am having trouble getting the information I want answered by any of the suits at the big electronic stores.  Unfourtunate for me, I have no friends with experience in these matters either.  I am looking for some (i call them simple) answers, and I am hoping that someone here might help me.</p> <p>The project:  I am doing a documentary of a precarious group of people and require equipment and know how.  </p> <p>1st question:  What Camcorder should I look into.  I have a budget of about 700 dollars, and am looking at a mic, and a software compliment for this camcorder.  I am hearing alot of good things about the Canon Vixia, but I have no idea if the information is accurate. </p> <p>2nd question:  I have heard that Vegas Software would be above my grade for a documentary, but better to have it and not need it I always say.  I want to eventually burn it to a dvd to watch, would Vegas work well for this and say normal burn software?</p> <p>3rd question:  With a documentary I am going to be interviewing people in some pretty noisy places, and would require the tools to turn down the volume levels of the area to better hear the subject's response.  Which program would I use, or would it depend on the mic or camcorder?</p> <p>Any help would be appreciated...</p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/stop-motion-beginners-issues-please-help#post-62365 Thu, 30 Sep 2010 08:42:17 +0000 Jonas K 62365@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p>I might have approached it wrong, rob. Will try again. Thanks. Else there is always the quick-time method. God, I like this forum.</p> <p>The panning is SO easy in Adobe After Effects. Does exactly the same, it's just easier to use and therefore also easier to make great. Try and search in youtube, if you bother. :P</p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/stop-motion-beginners-issues-please-help#post-62364 Thu, 30 Sep 2010 07:29:26 +0000 Don 62364@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p>this is why I do stop frames with my d-slr.... I just take a folder full of stills (prepped in Aperture, batch processed in Photoshop with actions if needed) then open them up with quicktime pro set the frame rates and export it as a quicktime file.... open that up in final cut express and use motion to pan and zoom in a 16x9 aspect ratio and export it from there to 720 p quicktime (I find 720 works best with the apple tv and renders to standard def dvd faster than 1080p so it works for me).</p> <p> I'm too dumb to get decent results with an nle...</p> <p>one question though... can't you do the panning with Final Cuts Motion and save yourself at least one step?</p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/stop-motion-beginners-issues-please-help#post-62362 Thu, 30 Sep 2010 06:00:50 +0000 robGRAUERT 62362@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p>really? the Strobe effect doesn't work? Have you adjusted the Strobe Duration in the filters tab? All this parameter does is tell FCP how long to hold each frame, which is what you're doing when you do stop motion with a still camera - you shoot each photo, then tell your editing program how long to hold each still image.</p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/stop-motion-beginners-issues-please-help#post-62360 Thu, 30 Sep 2010 04:46:35 +0000 Jonas K 62360@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p>Hmmm... I think that the strobe-thing won't work. If anyone has any good suggestions for this, I'll be eternally grateful! :P</p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/stop-motion-beginners-issues-please-help#post-62356 Thu, 30 Sep 2010 02:44:03 +0000 Jonas K 62356@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p>Thanks a bunch! So simple answers as well. :)</p> <p>I really haven't got any idea what I will do as regard to the 15fps then... But I might copy each frame and do it 30 fps and then perhaps later I could do some editing which deleted them once again.... :P</p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/stop-motion-beginners-issues-please-help#post-62332 Wed, 29 Sep 2010 07:52:59 +0000 robGRAUERT 62332@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p>To add your wind screen effect to multiple clips (or photos in your case) at once, simply add the effect to one clip or photo. Copy the photo (Command + C). Highlight all the other clips or photos, right-click, paste attribute. A dialog box pops up and you can checkmark which attributes you want pasted.</p> <p> </p> <p><em>"2'nd problem: We're doing the film in 15fps. This is an option in After Affects, but not in Final Cut Pro it seems. Is there anyway to change this?"</em></p> <p>No, not really. Try the strobe effect.</p> <p> </p> <p><em>3'rd problem: Sometimes it could be very useful to merge the stills into a video clip. Is this doable without exporting and importing?</em></p> <p>Drop the photos into a separate sequence. Then drag that sequence from the Browser window onto your main sequence. This is called nesting.</p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/stop-motion-beginners-issues-please-help#post-62328 Wed, 29 Sep 2010 07:00:14 +0000 Jonas K 62328@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p>I am trying to make a stop-motion music-video. Most of the footage is done and editing will commence, but I keep running into problems. </p> <p>I would like to do the clipping and color-correcting in Final Cut Pro 7 and then do panning in Adobe After Effects. </p> <p>1'st problem: As there is a mix of video and still-frame footage (and because it looks good) we want to do 16:9 format. However as the stills are individual (and as this setting goes for the entire production) in timeline it's a drag to drag down widescreen effect on every. So how to make a transparent layer with widescreen effect on to have in top of your timeline (or use a different method?) Can't figure it out.</p> <p>2'nd problem: We're doing the film in 15fps. This is an option in After Affects, but not in Final Cut Pro it seems. Is there anyway to change this?</p> <p>3'rd problem: Sometimes it could be very useful to merge the stills into a video clip. Is this doable without exporting and importing?</p> <p> </p> <p>Thanks so very much to the people that might want to help me out, I'm still a beginner at just 18.</p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/beginner-needs-advice-on-hardwaresoftware-for-documentary#post-50275 Fri, 21 Aug 2009 07:40:57 +0000 cfox 50275@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p>It seems I forgot to mention something huge in my original post that would have helped guide the suggestions thus far. My delivery method for my documentary project will be DVD and web video (smallest file size possible), so if I would have disclosed that in the beginning I'm sure I would have been guided to the point where my research led me today. The camera I was looking at was great, but there's no way for me to burn AVCHD to a regular DVD disc, and the majority of my target audience does not own a Blu-Ray player, nor do I own a BR burner. So, although that camcorder is very nice and I'd love to start with that one, if I can't burn my HD video then I can't justify purchasing an HD camera at the moment.</p> <p>Stepping down to an SD camera just made things much less complicated for me as far as hardware/software, so let me just run one other things past you guys. Instead of the Canon HF S10, would the Canon FS22 be sufficient? I'm having some difficulty finding answers to my questions about the speicific cameras in question, so I hope you guys aren't tired of helping this newb yet. I just need a camera that will be able to shoot some good footage for a documentary. It must have decent sound or ability to connect a mic, must have tripod connection, etc. Please give any advice on the camera side if you can, and I'll promise to stop posting for a while, lol. </p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/beginner-needs-advice-on-hardwaresoftware-for-documentary#post-50271 Fri, 21 Aug 2009 06:17:25 +0000 cfox 50271@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p>Alright, so I'm in the process of purchasing a couple external hard drives to get a head start on this before I bite the larger bullet of ordering the sotware and camera. Here's where I'm at so far...</p> <p>LaCie 1TB external HD, very affordable at $165 each from Dell. Only problem is it doesn't appear my PC has FW 800 connectivity (heard Vista doesn't support that interface yet...?), so I won't be able to daisy chain two of these on the 800Mbps side. So here's the big question, do I get two drives and daisy on FW 400 or just get one drive and connect via eSATA?</p> <p>Thanks again for all the help! </p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/beginner-needs-advice-on-hardwaresoftware-for-documentary#post-50193 Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:45:47 +0000 cfox 50193@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p> Thanks so much for the helpful advice!  I know I'm bound to hit some snags along the way, as you said, but I wanted to get as many suggestions as possible from people with much more experience.  So, thanks for that!</p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/beginner-needs-advice-on-hardwaresoftware-for-documentary#post-50161 Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:04:10 +0000 NormanWillis 50161@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p>And it sounds like you are doing your research, which is good.  You will hit snags, but persevere.  Your basic plan seems sound.</p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/beginner-needs-advice-on-hardwaresoftware-for-documentary#post-50160 Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:02:48 +0000 NormanWillis 50160@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p>You'll be fine.  You'll have some technical support issues, because that is the nature of the beast.  But your basic plan and strategy is sound.</p> <p>You definitely want a second hard drive for HD: and in fact a RAID 0 setup for the second drive is even better, although not entirely necessary.  </p> <p>AVCHD is a bear, because the files are compressed so much.  The processor has to uncompress them on the fly in order to edit them, which is a big job, so it taxes the processor heavily.  However, you can ease the load on your machine somewhat by transcoding the files with Cineform NeoScene, a $99.00 utility through Videoguys.  I use the Canon HF S10 (which I love) and the AVCHD .mts files make my CoreDuo Quad 3.0GHz run at 95% capacity on all four cores.  However, when I transcode the files first with NeoScene they run at about 57%, and the colorspace is much better.  NeoScene is the cheapest thing you can do to increase your relative processing power/speed.  It makes AVCHD editing so much easier.</p> <p>Internal drives are at least hypothetically better than external drives.  Some guys have problems with external drives, but it all depends on you and your machine.  Most guys use external drives with out problems, but if you have the option, bring the hard drives inside of the box to eliminate problems.  The same goes for DVD or BluRay burners.  Most times you are fine.  But.</p> <p><em>&gt;&gt;Second, am I starting too big?  I don't really want to use Windows Media Player, and I know that Adobe Premeire is very high-end, so if there's something int he middle that will get the job done and make my project look just as nice, please let me know.</em></p> <p>If you want something 'in the middle' try Sony Vegas.  It is a comprehensive all-in-one suite that is very easy to use.  Most of the people on this forum (maybe 2/3rds) use it, because it is so easy to use, and because it delivers excellent bang for the buck.  It does not have the higher-end features of CS4, but lots of guys use Vegas for their primary (because it is so much easier) and then they export whatever needs 'finishing touches' to CS4 with a free utility called DebugMode Frameserver (which I have not used yet, but everyone loves).</p> <p>I hope that helps.</p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/beginner-needs-advice-on-hardwaresoftware-for-documentary#post-50159 Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:51:05 +0000 cfox 50159@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p> I've been trying to read around about the compatability with the Canon VIXIA HF S10 and Premeire Pro, but I need some confirmation.  I've read there may be difficulties with this model's encoding (AVCHD) and Premier...any idea if this camcorder will cause me any problems if using it with Premiere to edit?</p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/beginner-needs-advice-on-hardwaresoftware-for-documentary#post-50021 Wed, 12 Aug 2009 08:35:48 +0000 lmenningen 50021@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p>1. I use PremierePro CS4 and use multi-cameras and may have many more than three timelines/sequences, some nested, and all the other stuff you'd do when editing, and PremierePro handles them just fine. There doesn't seem to be a limit to the number of timelines.</p> <p>2. Your computer should be OK, but having three (3) internal or eSata hard drives can help. Premiere lets you allocate drives: say drive C for the system and project files, drive D for your source files and a third drive for the preview files. This allocation provides tremendous speed improvements. Buy tera-byte drives.</p> <p>3. Your processor should be fine - mine is the i7-940 which is only slightly faster than yours, but I do have 12GB memory. Before I went to Vista 64-bit I had a system with only 4GB of memory, and PremierePro CS4 constantly crashed on projects of very minimal size. It was very frustrating, and it crashed on over a dozen projects. The problem was that 4GB in a 32-bit OS is not enough. You have 6GB and a 64-bit OS which is much better, but be alert for crashes - that shouldn't happen unless you have a larger project; most projects should work just fine.</p> <p>4. Editing doesn't make much use of your kind of graphics power, but of course it won't interfere in any way either.</p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/beginner-needs-advice-on-hardwaresoftware-for-documentary#post-49969 Mon, 10 Aug 2009 11:11:34 +0000 BruceMol 49969@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p>I capture to an internal hard drive for editing, but I also eSATA drives for backups. My preference is to have 2 copies, one on the data drive of my computer and one on an eSATA drive which I regularly exchange for another drive in my safety deposit box at the bank. Read about the read/write speeds and I'm sure you'll go with eSATA. My new m/b (ASUS P6T) has an eSATA port and I was able to add an eSATA card to my other computer quite easily.</p> <p> </p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/beginner-needs-advice-on-hardwaresoftware-for-documentary#post-49961 Mon, 10 Aug 2009 08:11:17 +0000 TDedmonSBP 49961@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p>I do all of my editing from my external. I have a 72000RPM seagate connected with firewire 800 and it runs just fine with Adobe master CS4. If you can find an external with eSata then you will be even better off because of the speed.</p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/beginner-needs-advice-on-hardwaresoftware-for-documentary#post-49959 Mon, 10 Aug 2009 07:46:27 +0000 cfox 49959@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p> Dang, just as I licked Post, one last question, lol....</p> <p>On my secondary hard drive, do I need it to be an internal drive or could I get by with an external?  I'm assuming I could just dump all my footage from the camera on an external and then transfer it over to my internal to edit on it, but Adobe's reccomendations leave my wondering if that will work smoothly.  Any advice?</p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/beginner-needs-advice-on-hardwaresoftware-for-documentary#post-49958 Mon, 10 Aug 2009 07:45:03 +0000 cfox 49958@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p> Thank you so much for all the help!  Now I have a better idea of what the capabilities of my system are as far as editing, so now it just comes down to deciding on the camera model.  I'm looking forward to my first project, so thanks again for the help and suggestions!</p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/beginner-needs-advice-on-hardwaresoftware-for-documentary#post-49957 Mon, 10 Aug 2009 07:22:41 +0000 BruceMol 49957@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p> According to the HFS10 manual <a href="http://gdlp01.c-wss.com/gds/9/0300001969/02/hfs10-s100-nim01-en.pdf">http://gdlp01.c-wss.com/gds/9/0300001969/02/hfs10-s100-nim01-en.pdf</a> you are always recording in wide screen. There are 5 recording modes 2 of which are full HD abnd the others are less. So, for this camera, it appears that the 4:3 option doesn't really exist (see pages 46 &amp; 46) . Previous cameras (I use an HV20 and XHA1) do have that option. </p> <p>If you really need to produce in 4:3 aspect ratio you'll have to set up your Adobe Project settings to reflect that, capture your recording and if what you want is not in the field then nudge it over.</p> <p>Certainly HD is more demanding on the computer. With my i7 920 based computer I can have 3 HDV video timelines before I see a halt in processing. Sooner if I've color corrected an entire timeline. My previous computer could barely handle 1 line of HD though it had no problem with 3 timelines of SD. </p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/beginner-needs-advice-on-hardwaresoftware-for-documentary#post-49939 Sun, 09 Aug 2009 12:02:20 +0000 cfox 49939@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p> Just to clarify, are you saying on an HD camera like the Canon I was looking at, I should be able to choose to shoot in 16:9 SD even though it's an HD camera...is that right?  One other clarification, I've heard that editing in HD is extremely demanding on the computer, can mine really handle that or should I shoot in SD if I can?</p> <p>Thanks for the advice on Adobe, I'm looking forward to getting it and diving in to get used to it!</p> <p>Please keep the suggestions coming, I really appreciate it!</p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/beginner-needs-advice-on-hardwaresoftware-for-documentary#post-49937 Sun, 09 Aug 2009 08:59:57 +0000 BruceMol 49937@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p> I think you are starting off right. I just finished up a documentary using two Canon HD Cameras, an i7 920 PC, Adobe PPro CS3. I shot in HD though my project was always intended to be 16:9 SD. (you can select 4:3 or 16:9 SD in the menu options) Shooting in HD allows for some flebility in framing a shot, you can move around quite a bit in the frame. I highly highly highly recommend one more drive. Also note what others are currently writing in recent posts about professional products like Adobe - they hardly ever choke. I can't recall how many sequences I had but I had 25 x 63min DV tapes to edit and the only time I had trouble is when I inadvertently caused it! </p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/beginner-needs-advice-on-hardwaresoftware-for-documentary#post-49935 Sun, 09 Aug 2009 06:28:45 +0000 cfox 49935@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p> Hello everyone.  As stated in the title, I am a complete beginner to all of this, so I would really appreciate any and all advice.  I'm planning a documentary-style production as part of a little project I'm working on, but I need some serious help deciding what exactly I need.  I've been looking at some camcorders and researching as best I possibly can, and I already have a decent PC that I hope will be able to handle the editing side, so let me run those by you first.</p> <p><strong>Camcorder<br /></strong>I'm looking at the Canon VIXIA HF S10.  It's a HD model and has internatl 32GB storage which I think would be handy considering I'll be shooting at multiple locations and might not want to transfer video to my PC in between (or have multiple cards).  However, I'm not sure if this is the model that I NEED...it's a great-looking camcorder and would handle my project nicely from what I can tell, but if I should start with something lower-end first I'd be open to hearing that.  The big question is...do I need HD?  If I shoot with an SD camera will it affect the picture when viewed on TV's (will it be 4:3 or can I still get a 16:9 with an SD camera)?</p> <p><strong>PC<br /></strong>I currently have a Dell XPS 730x as my gaming rig that I think I should be able to use for the editing side of this project.  It has an Intel i7-920 processor (8 core, probably 2.6GHz if I remember right).  It has 6GB of RAM, running Vista 64-bit, and I've got a dual ATI Radeon 4870HD for a total of 4GB video RAM.  I have one hard drive, and from what I've read on the Adobe website about the Production Premium suite, I don't know if I'll need a second hard drive (website says "dedicated hard drive for editing....").  Just not sure.  So do you think I will be fine with this computer?</p> <p><strong>Editing Software<br /></strong>I've been looking seriously at Adobe Premeire Pro (and the other titles included with that CS4 suite).  The biggest question I have on this is would I be able to run that software suite smoothly on my PC with the specs listed above?  Second, am I starting too big?  I don't really want to use Windows Media Player, and I know that Adobe Premeire is very high-end, so if there's something int he middle that will get the job done and make my project look just as nice, please let me know.</p> <p> </p> <p>Alright, that's all of my questions so far.  I am very much a beginner, but I'll save the technique questions for a later time and try to figure most of them out myself while I'm experimenting with my gear once I get it.  For now, I need the most help with figuring out what the best gear would be for this project.  I know you pros must read many posts from beginners and get tired of answering all these simple questions, but I would really appreciate any help you can offer!  Thanks in advance!</p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/macbook-vs-macbook-pro#post-38920 Thu, 31 Jul 2008 10:37:22 +0000 cdanddvdpublisher 38920@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <blockquote><p> yeah but adding a 23 cinema display to your macbook.... beats out buying the Pro.....</p></blockquote> <p> yup, that it does... i'd love a cinema display, but not in the cards for me right now</p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/macbook-vs-macbook-pro#post-38898 Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:10:10 +0000 Don 38898@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p> yeah but adding a 23 cinema display to your macbook.... beats out buying the Pro.....</p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/macbook-vs-macbook-pro#post-38897 Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:10:21 +0000 robGRAUERT 38897@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p> Yea. It is nice to have a lot of screen space. I think the more advanced you become, the more screen space you'll want. I have a 23in apple display and I'm looking into getting another one. I hate having to open and close windows. I'd rather have everything open at once. It's not major, just a convenience thing.</p> http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/macbook-vs-macbook-pro#post-38896 Wed, 30 Jul 2008 11:50:42 +0000 cdanddvdpublisher 38896@http://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/ <p> i'd stick with the macbook too; it's always come through for me (though there have been times when i'd have liked the bigger pro screens)</p>