At OSAlert we are committed on being geeky. However, “being a geek” does not always constitute a person who just loves technology. There are geeks about literature (who do you think wrote “Shrek”?), and of course, art geeks. This last kind enjoys a new booming lately with the commoditization of HD camcorders. The following editorial includes suggestions on camera choices, video editors and delivery formats, and has HD video samples of hobbyist cameramen that many professionals could be jealous of.Note: The embedded Flash videos below are not HD. To view them or download them in 720p HD mode you must click their respective video names to go to their Vimeo page.
The itch
Hobbyist “home video” videographers exist for a long time, going back to the ’60s for US, ’70s for most of Europe, and just 15 years ago for countries like my own, Greece. For years, “home video” footage was all about recording the kids growing up, birthday parties, weddings, and few and between some hand-held shaky travel videos.
But things change. A similar change happened a few years ago with the revolution of the digital photography which lead the way. Take a look at Flickr and you will see that the majority of people posting pictures there are not pictures of their dog and aunt Cynthia, but artistic pictures — imitating pro photographers. There was this shift that happened, that transformed many “family & friends” photographers to artists. And the technology reflected just that. Good DSLRs can now be obtained for just $500, while that was a pipe dream only a few years back.
The same shift is awaiting to happen for artistic video too. It already exists, but at a much smaller level than photography. I believe that the critical point will be the more affordable and more targeted AVCHD-based HD camcorders, following the death of the cumbersome HDV format. And when I say “targeted”, I am talking about cameras that are equivalent to the Canon 40D in practice: background blur, good dynamic range, enough manual controls. As a videographer myself I have expressed my wishes on what I need in terms of hardware here. This kind of hardware does not exist yet, but I do expect Canon to take notice.
The camera
Until this day comes though, we will have to live with the current popular cameras. I would dare say that the Canon HV20 is the best consumer HD camera today, and it sells for just $700. It has won many awards and recently the popular site CamcorderInfo voted it as the camcorder of the year. However, the HV20 goes further than that: it has inspired this new generation of videographers and brought new blood to that emerging “hobbyist artist market”.
The vast majority of people who shoot with the HV20 are exactly that: hobbyist artists. They can’t stop raving about the camera’s ability to shoot in 24p (manual pulldown removal required), and deep color, and fast autofocus. Taking aside the semi-pro indie cameras like the DVX-100 and the HVX200, the HV20 is the first consumer camera in the market that has created a very deep and well-connected community. Sometimes I search YouTube for the “HV20” tag, and I end up with some random footage, and only quickly after I realize that “ah, that’s Lucasberg” or “aha, so that’s what Tim was doing over the weekend”. Think of the Linux community a while back when it was smaller, and you would understand the kind of connection we have towards fellow videographers.
Many professionals have caved in and bought the HV20 too. Well known in the video world for his “DV Rebel” book, Stu Maschwitz, has got one and pro director Blake Calhoun (with two feature films on his shoulder) got one too and even used it to shoot parts of “PINK“, the first completely free professionally-made web TV series.
Regarding the rest of the gear required to help you with your art, a modern videographer needs a tripod with a fluid head (smooth pans trick), a camera bag, a few extra tapes, a polarizer, an ND filter and a second battery. And of course, the ability to wake up very early, as the best outdoors light is either very early, or just before the sunset.
The NLE
There are several choices out there and it all depends what you need to do. For many people, iMovie HD ’06 does the job beautifully for example (I would suggest you avoid iMovie ’08 as it has fewer editing features). However, if you are more serious about your work and you need more control over your footage, then you need to choose either Adobe Premiere LE 4 ($99) or Sony Vegas Movie Studio 8 Platinum Edition ($130). Sure, there are a bunch of well known video editors out there, like Final Cut Express HD, Ulead, Pinnacle, Magix Movie Editor, but Premiere and Vegas are the only “cheap but powerful” NLEs that support 24p (which is important if you want to edit ripped movies, TV shows or simply your own HV20 24p footage).
My personal choice is Sony Vegas, for reasons like these: it requires less RAM than Premiere, it feels lighter and it has good exporting choices. Learning to use Vegas can be an exercise in patience but it has won over most of the “hobbyist” community that I am talking about, because these are people like me: they want enough flexibility for less money and Vegas offers just that. I’ve written here a quick tutorial if you have problem with the interface.
Unfortunately, under Linux, editing HD footage is a major exercise in patience. KDEnLive, Avidemux2 and Cinellera crash way too much for my taste and the experience, features and import/export options are just not ideal.
The export
There are two kinds of exporting formats that a videographer must understand: the “Intermediate” and the “Delivery” video formats. Their difference is explained here. Most users would be interested in the “delivery” formats and these primarily include WMV, MP4 (h.264) and AVI (XViD). My personal favorite is the .mp4 container with h.264 and AAC in it. It’s the kind of format that the Sony PS3 and XBoX 360 can easily playback, while at lower exporting resolutions the format is compatible with the iPod, iPhone, Archos, Zune, PSP, Symbian S60 3.1 and Symbian UIQ 3.0+ devices. This format can be also burned into a plain DVD media but in the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray filesystems, and then playback on their respective players. The only device missing out with this format is the AppleTV 1.0 which caps its support on 720/25p (it is not able to playback 1080p or 720/30p) — although I expect the AppleTV 2.0 to not have these limitations.
Regarding video sharing sites, YouTube should be on your roster, regardless if you like it or not. It’s the most popular video site and it will ultimately attract most viewers than other video sites. Truth is, artists like their art being seen by people. My second choice in the past few months was Revver, but that was just up until last Monday. Vimeo.com has become the favorite place for hobbyist artist videographers — in just one month! They launched their 720/24p HD support, with support from Canon. Amazing quality, on your desktop, loading immediately! Vimeo is highly recommended if you have an HD camera.
Conclusion
Not everyone is into video, as it requires much more patience than a digital picture does. However, with the boom of the HDTVs and cheap HD cameras, you might want to give it a try. Unleash your creative self and shoot some cool stuff. Join the new generation of the “geek” videographers, if not now, when the AVCHD format has taken over completely.
And if an HD camera is way out of your reach, I would suggest the Canon ZR800 (known as MD101 in Europe) for $170 which is the best bang for the buck camera as it is the only very cheap camera that has a microphone input. Here is how footage from this affordable SD camera looks like:
…and again from the ZR800/MD101:
Well, I still can’t understand how one would know whether some camera would me Mac/iMovie compatible or not when purchasing. Apple used to have a list which is no longer there and the manufacturers seem to avoid that subject as well.
Could anyone suggest a list of HD cameras that are known to work well with iMovie?
PS Anyone else drooling over RED cameras? http://www.red.com
Apple supports all DV, HDV and AVCHD cameras, so there is not a problem of compatibility. That’s why standards exist.
As for the RED, it’s a nice camera, but it’s a pro camera, even Indies can’t easily touch it at $25000 (the base costs $17000, but you need extra stuff). The only NLE that supports the RED I think it’s FCP so far — Apple has been an investor to the company too AFAIK.
That’s a rather nice article Eugenia, and some particularly beautiful, crisp footage.
Thank you, appreciated. Video has been my sole hobby the last few months so I was thinking for a while to write a summary article of my experiences.
I was looking at getting a HD video camera, but opted for a Canon EOS 400D digital SLR. I’m very happy with my purchase but gee I’d love to be able to capture beautiful things in video, particularly reef life. For example, this to me is incredible beautiful footage: http://vimeo.com/360148
You’ve inspired me.
Edited 2007-11-03 08:56
That was the idea around my article, to inspire the geeks around here.
Yeah, you can wait a bit and get an AVCHD camera when they get better quality (currently, HDV has better quality), or, if you really can’t wait, opt for the HV20.
BTW, I hope you clicked through to Vimeo to view the HD version via Flash. And if you login to Vimeo you can also download the original uploaded 720p video which has even higher quality than the 720/24p at just 2mbps that Vimeo re-encodes (it’s an inherent limitation of their encoder backend apparently).
Edited 2007-11-03 09:00
To be honest it’ll be a few years but I’m sure by then the gear that’s extremely expensive now will be within reasonable reach.
Plus I’m finding the number of storage options rather difficult to choose from. At the present I see mini-DV to be the best choice (I don’t trust mechanical hard disks – seen waaay too many die for seemingly no reason at all), DVDs seems too limiting, storage cards (flash etc) is too small, so really all I can think of is mini-DV. It’s been around for a long time, it’s tested and to me most reliable.
I can confirm, having had a go with the Sony of a relative, that MiniDVD is awful. Very easy to corrupt the disks.
I think it`s not art to Record. Art is to Create, Compose, Invent. So i will not watch these records.
I guess you’ve never heard of directors “composing shots” then? Seriously, are you one of those folks who say photography can never be art? While you could make some good arguments towards that point, it’s just hard to take seriously.
And OK, so you don’t think it’s art. Do you really need to come in hear and announce that you don’t think it’s art and you won’t watch it? Isn’t that a little petulant?
1. Yes
2. If photography is art, i`m artist too, i have lots of photos, but i can`t play violin!
3. Yes i`m petulant, because i envy these guys for the equipment!
Yes you can. It’s just that you won’t be any good with it. Same thing with photography. Any idiot can pick up a camera and start taking photographs. Doesn’t mean that the photographs are worth anything aesthetically.
Nope, any idiot can do good picture accidently, even I, but to play something good on violine by accident is impossible!
I agree with the idea that a lucky shot is not really art (to me art me must reflect an intention from the author), but it doesn’t mean that this photo has no interest. If it’s a great, just by its existence it merits attention from public, art or not.
John Lennon once said, “I’m an artist. You give me a f–king tuba, I’ll get you something out of it.” (I’m quoting from Martin Scorcese’s ‘The Departed’).
Whole libraries have been written about what art is, and mostly the conclusion is that there’s “un-je-ne-sais-quoi” making the difference.
Eugenia clearly states that many amateur videographers have moved from making the straight forward home movie or wedding movie, to sitting down, shooting and editing a movie and putting their creative soul in it, and while doing that, transgressing the limits of their instrument, be it a camera, camcorder, pencil, canvas or a f–king tuba…
Now you bring forward the violinist-argument. Well, it is a historical fact that composers curse musicians, violinists included, for being non-artistic. In the composer’s eye, the only true creative genius is the composer himself. But then again, any child can use a pencil and paper, and put black dots and lines down…
Put a monkey behind a typewriter, and he’ll write down the complete works of Shakespeare, sonnets included, …if you wait long enough.
But how many of them would be able to actually hear the notes, imagine the cooperation of the different instruments, play the whole concert in their minds and give you a piece of paper that instrument players can sit down and play together a wonderful piece ?
Now, there’s your difference.
As to videos and photos, any of them can be artistic, in the sense that it can be something that you look at and makes something move inside you, provokes some feelings, etc.
Yet, I will only call a video/photographer artist if the “artistic” creations aren’t all just lucky shots, which, for most amateurs, they are. If there’s an intent in composition, a creative will to tell a message, to provoke a feeling, to tell something, even if the message is just something simple, there’s when art begins in my book. Yet, the intent itself is not much if they lack the knowledge and the skill of mastering the tool they choose as the channel for expressing their messages.
As regarding the composer/musician story, each can be a real artist. The composer for creating a musical piece. The musician for his subjective interpretation of the piece shown trough his mastery of a specific instrument. But, two wrongs can’t make a right, a bad composer and a bad musician won’t result in a work of art.
I you have ever tried editing yourself with an NLE, you know that of course there are quite a lot of technical skills involved. But there is one skill in particular, the cut itself, its flow and its metrum, that is difficult to define and refine: you have it, or you don’t. Watching a well cut (home-)movie is like listening to a quartet playing in tune. Add to that framing and color schemes, and improvisation, and soon you get a very complex work of … art.
I like to define ‘art’ in terms of ‘having a public’. A book, perhaps a masterpiece, will only gather dust, if it isn’t read. Any painting is just paint, if it isn’t viewed and interpreted by a public. Dance is just foreplay, lest it is being watched by a jury. And a movie is anecdotal, unless distributed and watched by an anonymous public. Now, home made movies find a public through this very recent internet-medium, and for that alone, I call it art.
Art is *anything* that can create a strong emotion to a person (positive or negative). Be it a painting, video, or… bondage.
Some of the videos shown here inspired some readers, and this means that their art worked fine. So it is not logical to debunk any of this.
Edited 2007-11-03 20:06
the equipment only plays a small part in the end product, the artist’s creativity and skill in editing ultimately make the end product art.
I agree with re_re, the medium has nothing to do with art. I actually had this discussion with a friend this summer (really, a friend of a friend). She was one of those purist types that feels that art should be done in analog formats. The thing that really surprised me was that she felt that water color paintings were too juvenile and were an inferior medium, even though she conceded that it was a very difficult medium to master.
It seems to me that people who believe that art is dependent on the medium are not artist, but rather technicians. For example, this girl seemed a lot less concerned with getting shots that were emotionally compelling or thought provoking as she was having technically correct photos. She went so far as to tell to hold still so she could get a candid picture of us. Mind-boggling. It was like watching Data read poetry.
I also worked in videography for 3 years. It was blatantly obvious when watching raw footage/edited videos who actually understood and cared about the art of filming/editing, and who felt that filming was just a point and shoot sorta thing. No amount of technical knowledge is able to put feeling into a technically perfect, but otherwise boring/emotionless shot.
Art isn’t about mediums, mediums are just a tool of an artist. The concept of medium being an ends unto itself is only a scape-goat for people who lack the vision to see art.
A quick look around the internet will find a thriving and very aesthetically pleasing collection of photographs made with “toy” and other inexpensive cameras. A good artist can take the inherent limitations in their tool and use them to advantage.
http://www.dmoz.org/Arts/Photography/Techniques_and_Styles/Toy_Came…
You might have lots of Photo’s but can you actually compose a photo shot?
Many people have cameras but it does not make them artistic photographers. Many don’t have a clue about framing, light, subject composition and the lights and that is what differentiates art from happy snaps.
An artist will always be one who transcends the mundane in the field they choose to express themselves in regardless of availability of technology/tools to the masses.
Hi Eugenia,
could you please clarify? I did read the feature list of Final Cut Express (the small print), and it didn’t mention AVCHD at all. I have a Sony which captures AVCHD in an MPEG2-TS container format which is not quite standard as it appears (tried to write my own extractor based on an extractor that was written for DVB-T MPEG2-TS packets and noticed some subtle differences). I fully expect Sony Vegas to work with this footage, but are you sure there is a program available for Mac OS X which handles this format?
Second question: Do you know if Sony Vegas avoids to re-encode footage if that’s not necessary? With the camera came a small program to watch the footage and it would let you place in/out points to shrink the clips to the portion that you wanted to keep, but it definitely looked like it was re-encoding the clips. What I would expect, is that it only re-encodes the portions that are left from a group of pictures in which you have made a cut, and then goes on to use the original footage from the next keyframe on. Which is of course only possible if you didn’t change the video in any other way. But if that’s the case, I want the software to work that way. Do you know what Vegas will do?
Thanks & Best regards,
-Stephan
Stephan,
FCE does not support AVCHD because it was not updated for a long time. I expect the new version to do so. iMovie ’08 does though and FCP too.
As for not re-encoding in .m2t if the footage was not changed, this is a new feature of Vegas Pro 8. The consumer editions don’t have this feature yet.
Hi Eugenia,
thanks a lot for clearing this up, very useful info!
Hello Eugenia,
very nice article!
I do not like photography and i think videography might be a thing for me. Butt still i am a videography noob and i had a hard time understanding those fairly new/uncommon acronyms. Maybe linking those to wikipedia or something would help lazy interested readers like me
( a mouseover thingie would rule )
But awesome article nonetheless ..
Thanks & Best regards,
– Udo –
— Edit —
P.S.: For people like me:
DSLR = Digital single-lens reflex
AVCHD = Advanced Video Codec High Definition
NLE = Non-linear editing
HDV = high-definition video (i figured that out myself
Edited 2007-11-03 13:43
ouchie! slashdot attack
I for one welcome our new one liner, meme-driven overlords.
WHOW!
There’s actually a good Linux NLE out there, but it is quite expensive:
http://pixelfantastic.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id…
MainActor was all right, but the company has stopped producing it, I think…meanwhile, promising projects such as Diva and Jahshaka seem to have gone dark.
I can’t use Cinerella. It’s interface has to be the ugliest, most convoluted one ever devised by man (well, barring the old interface for 3DStudioMax), and it kept crashing on me.
The state of NLE on Linux seems to be in stasis at the moment…that’s too bad, because that’s one area where a solid, fidelized market could be developed.
I agree with you, but I must say: developing a GOOD video editor is HARD. It is even harder than developing a modern web browser with all the bells and whistles. Which is why there is no Linux OSS editor today that is even comparable with the cheapest Windows NLE or iMovie. It requires lots of *clueful* developers and years of app maturation. And finding developers who know about video inside out, is not easy to find, not even in the Silicon Valley. They are so few of them that are already employed somewhere, no time for OSS hobbies.
KDEnLive seems to trying to be serious, but so far it just doesn’t work as well as a DV user would expect.
The New Media Expo focuses on just this subject – independent people who are creating compelling video. We just finished the 3rd Annual event in Southern California and outgrew the facility so we are moving to Las Vegas for the 4th Annual next August 14-16, 2008.
http://www.NewMediaExpo.com
Tim Bourquin, Founder
Great article and slashdotted too! Well done.
Good article Eugenia! I actually stopped using tapes a while ago. I always had my laptop with me…and ultimately dumped them to there, so I just cut out the middle-man, and just record straight to uncompressed AVI from the camera as I record. Granted, most of what I do is interviews and b-roll footage though, so I don’t have to have the mobility that not being tethered to a machine provides.
This really is a great article. For many years I’ve been the one in charge of shooting the family get-togethers, gatherings of friends or going out and shooting the aftermath of a big snow storm. But, I never went beyond that, congratulating myself for perfecting my techniques in the above areas, lol. But, this was really inspiring to read and see – thank you!
Eugenia
I’m beginning to feel like some sort of a stalker… I hit OSAlert almost on a daily basis, so I’ve grown used to seeing your name and articles here and there. I am now looking for an HD camera and your articles seem to pop up everywhere… Anyway, I just spent the last 2-3 days looking at your stuff, and having a good read at all your articles… Good stuff… And now after all this HD overdose of the last few days, I hit OSAlert, and here you are again! If I am not stalking you, then you must be taking over the Internet
Jokes aside, I understand that you like the JVC GZ-HD7 for its prosumer features, but that besides that you still prefer the HV20 over the HD7, is that correct? I’m 99% certain to go for the HD7, since I don’t care about the OIS issue. What I wanted to ask you is about the rolling-shutter effects on the HV20. Doesn’t that bother you? For me, that just killed the HV20 altogether, and I am having trouble understanding how the HV20 can become such a big hit with enthusiasts while having such an issue… (I just don’t like the idea of having to have my creativity limited by having to be careful when moving the camera around…)
A lot of people seem to be hammering the HD7 for the OIS issue, but besides that, I can’t find a problem with it. It has no rolling-shutter issues, it does 1920×1080 MPEG2 encoding, and has heaps of manual control… Yeah hey, maybe the picture quality is 5% worse than the HV20 (which is only 1440×0180 btw), but are people really only looking at that? Isn’t control and artistic freedom a lot more important than just plain picture quality? I know the HV20 has lots of manual controls, but it also seems to choose a lot of defaults for you, and that you need to do a few tricks to get around some of its “I know whats best for you” behaviour even when in manual mode.
I feel the HV20 is being treated like some sort of god-sent camera just for its plain image quality while people are blindly forgetting about the rolling shutter issues. I don’t know, but it all feels like a teenage-fan-club-lastest-craze thing without too much of a solid foundation other than good looks… Excuse me for perhaps another lame comparison, but I wouldn’t like the idea of a brand new car chugging “now and then” when trying to overtake…
Am I overlooking something, or are people just really going hoo-haa over image quality?
The HV20 is liked mostly because of its 24p cinematic capabilities, not its image quality (which is better anyway). What I don’t like from the JVC model, and I did blog about it a few months ago. Copying/pasting from that blog post:
1. They used 1/5 3CCD, instead of a 2/3 CMOS. While the 3CCD can produce slightly better picture than the CMOS, the CCDs they used are so small, that they produce almost no background blur. In fact, the HD7 produces less background blur than the 1/3 CMOS-based HV20. And because this market I am talking about is an *artist’s* market, more background blur is preferable to 5%-10% better picture quality.
2. They included no 24p.
3. They included no “cine mode” gamma/contrast look preset (like the HV20 has).
If you don’t care about these things, go ahead and get the HD7. But do read the camcorder shootout on CamcorderInfo.com too where the Everio is going against the HV20 too.
Email me if you have more questions or IM me if you want to discuss it further. I have plenty of free time.
Edited 2007-11-05 20:12
Eugenia wonderful article! I do a lot of photography, and have a web site that a lot of people visit and appreciate. I make slideshows of the pics and the hardest thing for me to find is good music. Where did you find that music you used? It’s better than what I’ve been able to find.
I have been wanting to make video of what I’m capturing in still pics and your article has helped me a LOT! Thank you! JJ
Jamendo’s CC “BY” music:
http://www.jamendo.com/en/?class=2+3&license_class=cc_standard&maxr…
The “BY” license only requires attribution, nothing else. It’s the most liberal of the Creative Commons licenses.
To me, art doesn’t say anything about the creator (“artist”) but how the receiver (you!) interpretes it.
So if the mass happens to have the same opinion on e.g a video, we all might decide to call it “art” instead of a “video”, but in the end art is about you and not the artist.