Recording Quality Videos

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Tips For Recording High Quality Videos

An article by Todd Simpson


OK. Here's the hard truth. If you want quality vids you have to get far away from Web Cams/Cell Phones/etc.

Sure, you can get "decent' quality with these devices but none of them are really meant to take great images. They are meant to be handy which they are. The best web cam footage I've seen still looks like web cam footage. Web cams use cheap optics, even the "nice" once and have very little lattitude "the range between lightest and darkest pixels". Etc.

So, if you are looking to go beyond web cam footage, what you are looking for then is something with decent glass (lense) and decent sensor to provide HD video. You can always "Down Res" your video and keep most of the quality. But "upressing" usually makes it look like crap. So what to do?

1.) Find a used HDV handycam on ebay. One that shoots full HD 1920x1080. I got one on ebay for $35 U.S. You may have to go a bit higher, maybe $100 or so.

Image:toddhqv1.jpg

Update: Check this thread for an inexpensive good enough camera


2.)MAKE SURE it has "Firewire" on it. That's how you'll connect it. 3.)Get a firewire card for your computer, they are cheap. 4.)Get some decent lights. You can get a couple of decent lights for about $70 US on amazon.com

  • "Softbox" Light Kits are about $30 each, I just got one.

Image:toddhqv2.jpg


So bottom line there it is. user posted image Full HD video with a "real" camera. Most web cams are fine for what they do but they are more honestly seen as plastic toys rather than actual cameras. Even the web cams that do "HD", suffer from the cheap optics and a cheap image sensor ruins the picture quality. Most web cams produce images that look like it's from a web cam. So I'd say if possible try to take the next step, and get a real camera. Your vids will thank you!

Here's an example. I shot this on full hd and down coverted it to 720p just to get quicker upload to youtube. Select 720p when you watch it as they always default to the CRAP setting no matter what user posted image A good camera will deal pretty well with shooting in low light and this is a decent example of that user posted image

You may also be interested in Recording Vids with good lightning

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