Remember the torment of sitting through yet another slide show as Dad brutalized captive guests with scenes from last summer's beach trip? Every single shot he took was jammed into that projector, no matter how poorly cropped or focused it was.|CR||CR||CR||CR||B:1|1/12^With one of those awful I'm-getting-too-old epiphanies, I realized that I've been inflicting the exact same pain on my guests. Only the means of torture has changed. Today, they're forced to suffer through my videotapes.|CR||CR||CR||CR||B:1|2/12 ^Every scrap of footage is intact; every time I accidentally pushed the start button and filmed two minutes of floor tile; every shaky sequence of passing scenery. Had I not been asked to write about VideoDirector, all my long-suffering friends would have had to buy it for me. I can't live without it now.|CR||CR||CR||B:1|3/12^VideoDirector is an elegant product because it gives you the means to edit tapes with your computer without consuming your hard drive in the process. Since you aren't actually capturing video, the computer simply functions as a control center to aid in the editing process, miraculously compiling choice material from those teeming tapes into well-paced episodes.|CR||B:1|4/12^I had already tried video editing with my camcorder and VCR; a good VCR can pause and resume quickly, but controlling the camcorder is much more difficult, especially when you're trying to tweeze a two- or three-second scene out of a sequence.|CR||CR||CR||CR||B:1|5/12^Fortunately, some camcorders have a special jack built in that allows them to be controlled by another machine, such as a computer. All You Need is LANC (Local Application Control), a Sony-developed technology also referred to as Control-L.|CR||CR||CR||CR||B:1|6/12^A LANC jack can be found on all Sony camcorders, as well as on 8-millimeter camcorders from several other manufacturers; the jack is indicated by a "broken-L" symbol.|CR||CR||CR||CR||CR||B:1|7/12^Essentially, LANC is a two-way communications system that lets the remote machine control fast winds and varying-speed playback, while the camcorder sends the machine tape-position or time-code information.|CR||CR||CR||CR||B:1|8/12^ In other words, the right computer program can find a specific tape location and play only the segment you want, allowing you to dub a video of selected segments. Welcome to VideoDirector. Future releases of the product will be targeted to work with other remote control camera systems, but for now a LANC-compatible system is required.|CR||CR||B:1|9/12 ^Because it doesn't rely on fancy computer hardware, VideoDirector works with Windows or a Macintosh in much the same way. The Windows version allows you to add titles and animation to your tapes if you have a video encoder card; you can also add sound to the finished product if you wire the setup through your sound card.|CR||CR||B:1|10/12 ^With a Macintosh, a QuickTime-compatible digitizer lets you incorporate special video effects into your final edit. I haven't tried the titles and animation features yet -- that's the subject of another project -- but it's a good idea to practice the basics first and add more as you learn the system.|CR||CR||CR||B:1|11/12^I'm also trying to get my Dad to come over for a video show, but he's been ducking the invitation. I think he fears I'm plotting revenge for all those boring slide shows.|CR||CR||CR|To print these instructions go to the txt directory and find the file named video.txt.|CR||CR||B:1|12/12|CR||CR|
