David Rotan: Hi! I am David Rotan, Video Production Manager with Monkeysee.

com, and I am showing how to capture video into your editing program. A lot of computers come with basic video editing software already installed when you buy your computer, such as Windows Movie Maker, and all Macs usually come with iMovie HD, which is what I will be showing you today. To get started, you are going to want to have your video camera that you shot the project on. This particular camera is a MiniDV format, it takes the small tapes, and almost all cameras are the same when it comes to plugging it into your computer. They usually have a small input in the front or the back of the camera for FireWire, and this one has it here in the front, it's a small four pin FireWire, what's called four pin FireWire, and you plug it into the front of the camera and then find the input on your particular computer, whatever you are using. Some cameras might use USB, so you will just want to familiarize yourself with your particular camera model that you are using and your computer that you are using as well. So now that we have our video camera connected to our computer through our WireFire, and we have the tape and the camera, we make sure that the camera is set to the VTR or VCR mode, you don't want it set to camera, switch it to VTR mode or playback mode it might be called. And then through the FireWire, the editing program that you are using, in this case, iMovie HD, should automatically control your camera. Down here there is a little switch on this particular editing program that has a little picture of a camera. I am going to click that to make sure that it says camera connected here in the screen. Then I am going to come down here and use the tool bar, there is a play button and when I hit Play, it's going to begin to play the tape. Now I can use these control to scroll back through, we want to give ourselves a little time to cut and edit, so that it doesn't start and exactly on the sinnets. We are going to do that in our editing program, so that there is a not a lot of dead space before the expert starts to talk, but you don't want to do that while capturing, you want to give yourself enough room to give and take, you might want to put in a fade or a dissolve there, so you need a few seconds before he actually starts talking. So I am going to hit the play button, and I hit the spacebar and it's capturing. Now you will see over here on the side its capturing all the clips that I am putting into the program, clip 1, clip 2, clip 3, all the way on down. Now when we come to the point we have it all, and I am done, I have captured it all, I am going to hit the spacebar again, and it stops capturing, okay.

Now the video is still playing, because I haven't done anything down here in the control bar, but it has stopped capturing. Now here we go with another clip, it's the video is still playing and I am going to hit the spacebar, and now I am talking there, and its capturing that, again, we see that happening right there. And that's how you capture video into your editing program.

Now again, I am using iMovie, so all programs will be slightly different, but that's a general concept. You are hooking up your camera with a FireWire, you are controlling your camera in the VCR, VTR playback mode through your program with a control bar here that looks very much like the controls on your camera, and you are capturing clips wherever you want to start it and stop it, with in and out points and it's coming into this preview window.