How to Edit Your Video Product

How to Edit Your Video Product

So you have done a good job of planning your video product project and you have also recorded it. Now we get on to the editing part of this book. But ensuring that you have a good computer with lots of hard drive space, as well as a good software editing program will help also.

There are plenty of editing programs available which allow you to name each individual clip, either as you bring it in, or when it is in the clip library.

If you can, be generous as to what you import on to your computer. Remember, you can throw anything away that you do not need, and it is much easier than when you import in the first place.

Remember to keep a fast pace during the production of your video, as it keeps the people looking at it interested. If you need to, make sure that your clips are in the right order and rearrange them as needed. Most of the editing software programs allow the user to click and drag their clips in to the right place.

If you can, adjust the amount of footage that you show at the start, and end, of each clip in order to create a smooth transition between your scenes or instructions. If you want, try inserting some black space between each section, and also use a fade transition.

Titles and Captions

As with special effects, the way in which a person uses titles and captions in their video product can either enhance or ruin it. So use them sparingly, and instead let your video and sound tell the story for you.

However, it is important that you make the text large enough to be seen, and then choose a color which can easily be viewed in the background of your video. Also leave it on the screen long enough in order for your viewers to read it.

Music and Sound

Even silent movies used sound. They were often accompanied by background music, which helps to enhance the mood of the film. So by choosing the right sort of music and providing well placed narration, it will help to make your video product even better.

We will now look more closely at other editing issues, in case you are looking to produce a high quality video product.

1. You can decrease the size of the clip. By reducing the resolution, you are then able to reduce the size of the files that you have on your computer.

2. You can compress the video. Today you will find that most video files allow for some form of compression, and it is not far from the techniques used to compress still images. But if you compress them too much, the picture quality will deteriorate.

3. You may decide that you want to drop the frame rate. This is all well and good, but below 15 fps and then the motion in the video starts to appear jerky.

4. If you want, you can stream your video. This means that, unlike normal video files where you need to download them before they are played, you are able to see the video on demand (it plays as it is being downloaded). So what you will need to do is download part of the video to act as a buffer. Then, once it commences playing the video from the buffer, it will continue to download, topping up the buffer as it carries on downloading. But if you do use this, you may need a special server in order to stream your video products from.

However, most video editing programs are geared to the user making web clips, and will enable the user to do at least 3 tasks. Often many of these programs come with a video capture device or camera.

But now let us have a look at the various video file types that are most commonly used on the web today.

1. .avi

This is short for audio/video interleaved. It can use several compression schemes, and is becoming increasingly more popular with those producing video products on the web. You will also find that most digital video cameras shoot in the .avi format.

2. .mov (Quicktime)

These files are based on the Quicktime system. Although it was initially designed for the Mac Platform, it can now be used with most other operating systems via a plug in and helper application. The standard Quicktime player can be downloaded from Apple for free, and it will also provide you with access to many other resources as well. It has some great compression schemes, which often make these files smaller without them losing any of their quality.

3. .mpeg

This format has taken its name for the group which developed it, namely Motion Pictures Expert Group. This remains one of the most important web video files around today because of the range of compression that can be applied to it. Also, unlike .avi and .mov (Quicktime), it has not been developed for any particular operating system.

4. .wmv (Windows Media Video)

This is part of the Microsoft Windows Media Format and is comparatively new. It is an all singing, all dancing media format, but comes with the added bonus of having Microsoft resources backing it up. Not only does it provide better compression technology, but these files can either be downloaded or streamed. There are plenty of other Microsoft resources to go with it, many of which can be downloaded for free.