Yesterday I wrote an article about making home movies. I received a very interesting letter from Jeremy (thanks Jeremy) and he led me to another great site for you to use. This site seems to have about as much as the PC Magazine article had in it. If you do not get the magazine, please visit this site.

The site does do a lot of different things as well. If you visit the site, scroll to the bottom and you will see seven tutorials. It focuses more on how to’s in getting video into your computer, electronic hookups and various ways to capture video and stills from that video.

If you use the PC Magazine article and this web site together, I think you will have a PhD. in videography! The other point Jeremy made is this and I will quote it. He said, “But I would caution you about recommending Pinnacle Studio. I’ve used it off and on for years, but eventually had to dump it because of sync problems in longer productions (over an hour). If you buzz through Pinnacle’s support forums you’ve find dozens of posts about this issue.”

Jeremy may be right about Pinnacle and the over one hour movies, but my article is about making home movies. Can home movies go over an hour? They certainly can, but if they do, who will watch them? Also, Pinnacle 9 has fixed a lot of problems of previous versions. I have dumped one hour plus of video on my computer and used Pinnacle to edit it. That is what all this is about, editing video.

If you shoot one hour of video as I did on vacation in beautiful Colorado, you should dump that onto your computer and edit it. The editing process is cutting down the video. To make a good video, you will take an hour worth of video and probably pare it down to 10-15 minutes worth of finished video. You add titles, music, transitions and the like. You then burn that finished product to DVD. You can do other things, but this is the most common method.

Therefore, I disagree with Jeremy on this point, but I appreciate his point of view. Do you have any stories about Pinnacle 8 or 9? I would like to hear your great stories as well as your nightmares. Please write and I will share your wisdom in an upcoming column. Also, do you or anyone you know want a GMail account? I have quite a few to give away. If you want one, just ask. Take care of your self and happy videoing!