Camcorders generate piles of terrific raw footage, all meaningless until edited. Non-linear desktop editing and the Hi-8 camcorder will create a potent antidote to 500 channels of the usual crap.
Non-linear editing delivers the "cut and paste" attributes of word processing to video; once footage is digitized onto the computer's hard disk, you have random access to any frame and instant playback of edits.
D/Vision software, with its easy and "cinematic" user interface, a cheap platform (PCs '386 and up), and the requisite editing/audio/graphics tools, is the best of the current inexpensive desktop non-linear systems. Even better: It's pure fun. Last spring, under a deadline to edit The Losers Club, a 15-minute documentary I shot in Hi-8, I began an offline edit at a studio equipped with D/Vision Pro. After digitizing an hour of original footage, I started playing with D/Vision's capabilities; my low-tech edit sequence of 70 well-thumbed index cards ballooned to 175 separate edits, many of them audio tweaks. The only glitch in my D/Vision run was trying to produce the high-quality output, supposedly comparable to 3/4 inch video. Of course, working with an experienced editor added value to The Losers Club, whether it had been off-lined on clunky videotape or hard disk, but I'm hooked on non-linear. I can't wait to use D/Vision again. - Nancy Kalow
D/Vision Pro 2.1: US$3,950 (software only). TouchVision Systems: +1 (312) 989 2160.
STREET CRED
VoyeurOpen the Men's Room Door, HAL
Will the Real Bill Gates Please Stand Up?
Worth Its Weightlessness in Gold
E-mail Grunt Worker
