So you have a camcorder and visions of being the next Spielberg. But how do you progress from shooting so-so footage to showing your own finished movie? Digital Video For Dummies, 4th Edition gives you the know-how and the show-how! Find out how to shoot and edit great movies, using iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, or Adobe Premiere Elements to add the finishing touches like special effects and your own soundtrack. With the latest information and lots of illustrations and screen shots, this friendly guide walks you through:

• Getting your computer ready to work with digital video (complete with information about FireWire)
• Choosing a camcorder, including features to look for and features that are useless
• Digitizing old VHS videotapes to preserve memories
• Purchasing other movie making gear, including audio and lighting equipment
• Shooting better video, with tips on lighting, panning, using the zoom, and recording better audio
• Creating your own sound effects such as footsteps, bones breaking, fire, thunder, insects buzzing, and more
• Capturing digital video using iMovie, Windows Movie Marker, or Premiere Elements
• Editing, including understanding timecode, organizing and previewing clips, and assembling clips in Storyboard and Timeline
• Adding transitions, titles, and special effects
• Importing and integrating video from phones and digital cameras
• Using audio rubberbands in iMovie, Premiere Elements, and other editing programs
• Adding narration, importing and working with CD audio, and adding a music soundtrack

Keith Underdahl has extensive professional video production experience developing kiosk and marketing videos for Ages Software. Realizing that you’ll want to polish and premiere your movie, he includes information on:

• More advanced video editing, including animating video clips, improving light and color, compositing video (bluescreen or greenscreen), and more
• 13 categories of video effects, ranging from blur and sharpen to transform
• Working with still photos and graphics
• Sharing your video online using QuickTime (/QT), RealMedia (.RM), or Windows Media Video (.WMV)
• Making tapes or burning DVDs in 9 steps

With a handy cheat sheet of keyboard shortcuts, a chart comparing 10 video editing programs, a glossary, and more, with this guide you’ll soon be saying “Lights, camera, action” and producing your own movie attraction.

The book is very much based on Apple's "iMovie" and Pinnacle's "Studio 8". You'll skip around a bit because of the 2 different programs it explains, but you're really just getting 2 books in one if you ever decide to dabble in the 'other' program. If you're using a video editing program other than these, you may want to pick a different book.

Well organized and "dumb-ed down" enough for the beginner. The projects and included clips on CD Rom keep it interesting. I learned about many tips that I plan to use all the time in my projects now. Good work Underdahl!

Based on what I've seen in this book, I would definitely check out the Adobe Premiere Dummies book by the same author if I decide to move up to that program. I'm confident that I would not be disappointed.

15 of 16 found the following review helpful:


Nice Primer  Apr 13, 2006 By J. Hahn
I wish I had bought this book initially.
I was pretty new to digital video. I had lots of questions about transferring, capturing analog, audio, and so far this book has answered them. It would have saved time to buy it first.
I'm using the digital video for a vidcast.

7 of 8 found the following review helpful:


It is the one  Mar 22, 2007 By C. Nguyen
If you're new to video editing, it is the one for you. It'S a good start

6 of 7 found the following review helpful:


Very useful and reasonably up to date  Mar 18, 2007 By Geoffrey Brown
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.

2 of 2 found the following review helpful:


This Dummies book really is only for staying dumb  Aug 06, 2008 By rolly
I found this book really did not provide much technical detail at all and was very disappointing. If you have even a basic knowledge of simple home electronics then you, like me, may be really unhappy with this. Of course, the title says it's "For Dummies" so I guess I should have payed attention to the warning, but instead I wasted my money.

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