Digital Video for Dummies

This book scores on so many levels I can't recommend it enough for beginners. As somebody who bought their first camcorder and will be making shorts which will involve editing software, I needed a 101 overview.And boy, did this ever fit the bill. Written in a breezy, easy-to-understand style, the book first deals with what you should look for in equipment. It then moves into basic filming techniques but most importantly, the beginner mistakes that are all too common (bad lighting, zooming in during a shot, etc.). Even though I have a basic knowledge of film making, I found these tips extremely helpful.But what really makes this book worth every cent is that it is basically a user's guide for iMovie, Windows Movie Maker and Adobe Premiere. If you're new to editing, you're probably going to start with the super-basic Movie Maker or iMovie, and somewhere down the line move up to the more advanced Adobe.For every editing step it shows how this is done in each respective program--a virtual user's guide, complete with tips and enhancements.It also covers advanced editing tricks, adding audio, lighting tricks, you name it.If you want a primer for beginners, this couldn't be more perfect. It was so interesting and easily readable I read the entire book in one day.

Excellent beginners guide, even though a bit dated. It walked me though the parts of how to put together a decent video.

The "Dummies" folks seem to be able to get it right pretty consistently, and they also seem to be willing to update titles with some frequency -- publish a new edition, that means.When I bought this book, I bought another on the same topic from another publisher and neglected to check the date of publication. Well, it was antique, relatively speaking, so when I picked this one up, suddenly things started to make a lot of sense.Also, the author seems to be able to cover three editing products without a lot of repetition. This is a good, workmanlike job.

Sadly this purchase is a waste of money because the prograammes and equipment bear no relationship to what I already purchased prior to getting the book.

This was a great book. The key word there is 'was.' It's 10 years old and nearly useless. I got it used for a very reasonable price but the content is so out of date it's not worth anything, really.

I have my first digital video camera and, for the first time, the option to edit my long and boring captures. While I am very experienced at editing digital photos, this is an entirely new field for me. It seems to me that this "for dummies" version is still too advanced for me. I need one "for complete morons", apparently. This is a reflection on me, not on the book, which seems to be very thorough.It goes into more detail than I need. I don't capture video with my phone; I don't have capture problems; the odds of my ever needing nightvision videos are nil; I'm not sure I need to know what the NTSC standards are, and on and on.All I really wanted was a step-by-step way to:*use the software that came with my camera to cut out unnecessary areas and restitch the remainter;*suggestions on how to make a video capture flow, more or less seamlessly, despite the editing;*ditto with the soundtrack;*an overview of easy video editing programs that I can upgrade to if I should ever outgrow my camera's software (which doesn't look likely right now.)*workflow suggestions as to how to backup and preserve video (I don't have that much faith that DVD's are still going to be in use a decade from now), so I wanted a general overview of options and suggestions.I got the first four. It was a bit more technical than I wanted, but that may be because I didn't realize the full software/hardware implications, let alone the standards, frame rates, aspect ratios, interlacing, capture cards, or video converters issues--and I've still purposefully avoided the "advanced video editing" chapter. It seems to me that people, not too much brighter than I and with similarly-equipped home computers, have managed to edit their videos w/o knowing all this. Actually, ignorance is bliss sometimes and I'm not sure I want to know. (But if YOU want to know it, it's all here).The issue of archiving and preserving video is not addressed. The author does suggest external hard drives as a way to save space on the internal ones. Maybe we have to endlessly keep updating our captures (super 8 to vhs; vhs to dvd; dvd to ??). I was hoping that some specific strategy to make the process easier and foolproof. It probably isn't fair for me to expect to have this issue addressed in a "for dummies" book, but preserving these memories going forward is the primary reason I shoot movies, and I'd like to think that there is someway that I can ensure that today's babies will be able to see their movies 30 or 40 years from now.

I've just started flagging chapters about getting started - creating a motorcycle service guide dvd on a Mac with a 2013 version of iMovie.This book is well written, meaning that the author doesn't waste my limited daily ration of mental-ram, by trying to "weave humor", or "himself", into a subject I know nothing about. It's more on the technical editing side of film-making.I've just started reading the book. I'll have more of an in-depth opinion later.*************************It's later and this book is essential, written with Mac & iMovie featured before Windows. Easy to cross through whole pages of PC and Adobe Essentials info with a ball-point pen.I toggle between this book and "How to Make Videos that Don't Suck", Steve Stockman which is mostly stage mechanics. So you have it all with these two books, plus Stockman has a website with u-tubes to back up his chapters with post-reader workshop visuals. Get them both.

this is what we needed to understand whats what in digital videoing. Priced this at other locations and this was the best price. arrived early too