Computers

In my mind, the war between PC and Mac is over. They're both so similar now, from years of PCs trying to look like Macs and Macs now running on Intel chips, that they're the same. (Except Macs look sexier, they cost a lot more, and there's not as much software for them.)

Alan and I use PCs because it's what we started on and because, since they're cheaper, we've seen no reason to switch.

Another good reason to stick with PCs is that Vegas Pro and Vegas Movie Studio run only on PCs. Here are the system requirements for Vegas Pro:

Most new PCs have all of this, but check when buying a computer.

Here are the system requirements for Vegas Movie Studio:

If you already have a Mac, you can use iMovie, which now comes on all Macs. If you have a PC and cannot afford Vegas Movie Studio, PCs come with Windows Movie Maker.

The interfaces for most editing programs are pretty similar, with File/Open/Edit; some sort of cut, chop, and move function; and a timeline for your media, with separate tracks for video and audio.

PRO TIP

You can get a lot more bang for your buck—more processing speed, memory, and hard drive space—if you buy a tower than if you buy a laptop. You can get the same specs in a tower for a third of what a similar setup costs in a laptop.

I recommend NewEgg for buying computers, computer memory, and peripherals.

www.newegg.com/ (URL 3.33)

The site is great, and its prices rock. It tends to ship really quickly too, especially if you live on the West Coast, usually within a day or two. Once I bought a printer from NewEgg with standard (not expedited) shipping and received the printer via UPS in less than 24 hours. That's kind of mind blowing.

If you're really on a budget and know something about setting up and fixing computers, another option, sort of a last resort really, might be this site:

www.propertyroom.com/ (URL 3.34)

It has online auctions for computers (and other things, including land) seized by the police. The computers have no software or operating system; they've been wiped clean. Some are even listed as having had the hard drives removed. And some have to be picked up in person. But people can get decent computers on there for $30 to $100; put in a $40 hard drive (from NewEgg perhaps?) and an operating system, and be working way cheaper than you can get a computer anywhere else.

(I wouldn't buy land on that site; I'd be afraid that the former owner would get out of prison and come back to claim it, but laptops should be OK.)

Editing

Now that you've gotten your brilliance into your camera, you need to get it out of your camera, chop out the parts that don't work, and distill it down to its happy, perfect goodness. So, take a break, get up, stretch, walk around, have a soda, and we'll meet you back here in a minute.

Free, Cheap, and Pro Audio and Video Software

Alan is going to take over for the rest of the chapter to cover basic editing on the inexpensive Sony editing program, Vegas Movie Studio ($74.95).

Later Alan will cover some advanced editing techniques with Vegas Pro in Chapter 8.

Vegas Pro costs $549 or $305 with a student ID from Academic Superstore.

www.academicsuperstore.com/ (URL 3.35)

Vegas Movie Studio looks and works much like Vegas Pro, without all the bells and whistles, and it does everything you would need for basic editing of vlogs and short videos. It can also export to WMV. And that's a good thing, because the WMV format optimizes well for YouTube.