Editing hd video

Editing HD Video

Working with the video of camcorders such as the Sony

HDR-HC1 can produce a serious business. HD video

contains four times the number of pixels that

standard definition offers, and it's much more

heavily compressed.

Keep in mind that you need a powerful computer with

a lot of memory to deal with the extra data and

compression. Pinnacle for example, recommends a

minimum 512 MB of RAM and a graphics card with 128

MB of RAM for standard resolution video, although

that goes up to a GB of RAM and a 256 MB graphics

card when working with 1080i HD video.

You can find plenty of software available that

supports editing high definition videos. For example,

the latest versions of Pinnacle Studio and Ulead

Media Studio 8 can import and edit files in HDV

format.

Even though the high definition video with these

types of looks great when played back on an HDTV,

at the present time is there is no way store HD

video on a DVD. The only way you can store HD

video for playback is on your PC or the same type

of media you used in your HD camcorder.

There is however, a new generation of high definition

optical media format coming soon. Products that

are based on the HD-DVD and Blu-ray disc formats

are very expensive, and they will remain that way

for the near future.

HD-DVD players were announced a while back that

they will cost $500 and up, and will be available

very soon. You'll also need one of the new HD-DVD

drives to write to the disc, which will cost as

much again. You can expect the same story with the

Blu-ray disc, as both the recorders and the players

are going to be expensive for a while to come.

There is one other option as well. There is a

DVD player from KISS, the DP-600, which can play

back high definition files that have been compressed

to Microsoft's Windows Media 9 format. This can

at least provide a stop gap until the price of the

HD-DVD and Blue-ray disc players and writes come

down to an affordable price.

You can always play back the recorded video you

have through the camcorder itself, although you

shouldn't expect to be able to write it out on a

disc with the current available equipment and

preserve its quality. If you wait it out, the new

generation of available media will be everything

you need for your HD video.

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