I'm excited to announce that the entire first chapter of my latest book is now available as a free downloadable PDF file. "iMovie HD 6 & iDVD 6 for Mac OS X: Visual QuickStart Guide," in addition to having an absurdly long title, is the latest edition of my guide for getting up and running with the latest versions of Apple's digital video tools. The book now features full-color illustrations and screenshots, which make the examples pop and enable me to demonstrate color-specific aspects such as a camcorder's color temperature settings.

Chapter 1, "The Digital Camcorder," contains valuable information on buying a camcorder, including which features to look for (and avoid). You'll learn about different video recording formats such as standard-definition (SD) and high-definition video (HDV), image interlacing, and more. The PDF is, naturally, full color and weighs in at about 700K.