Christmas is coming...do something more with your camcorder

Most of us have video cameras these days.  Most of us take endless “footage” of kids opening Christmas presents, birthdays and other family events.  Most of the time that footage just sits there are a pile of accumulating tapes that fall out of the camera bag or are stuck in  a drawer somewhere.

Why not take the next step and create a short video on a CD or DVD  to mail to family members or post on the web?  If you’re a far away from home in some remote and dusty place I bet the folks back home would love to see your moving mug in your special Christmas locale.

LifeHacker has a short primer on video editing that will get you started.  It’s all much easier than you may think and you probably own everything you need to get started:

• Digital Video Camera – look to see if your tapes say DV on them.
• Decently powerful PC –  Contrary to the Lifehacker guys, you don’t need anything real powerful; I used to edit video on a Pentium III laptop.  Just remember that the slower the computer the longer it takes to make video.
• A firewire card – Your computer may have this built in, if not pick up a cheap adapter card for $20–40. 
• Windows MovieMaker – built-in to Windows XP (if you’ve installed Service Pack 2, which you should have  )

You don’t have to be great at movie-making to make something your family will this is great.  Why not give it a try?  Read more to learn more.