Videography-induced G.A.S. - Sony HDR-UX5 HD camcorder

While I didn't get many Christmas gifts directly related to music, somehow I managed to find a good deal on an HD camcorder during some of the post-Christmas sales, so I kinda bought myself a gift. :) While I've never done much with video production outside of work, with my interests in both digital photography and audio recording, it feels like videography should be somewhat natural (although I've pretty much acknowledged that the time investment in good video work is probably equivalent to the amount of time I'd spend on photo editing times the amount of time I'd spend on audio editing... net, a considerable time investment).

So my weapon of choice is a Sony HDR-UX5 HD camcorder...

While there are far more feature-laden camcorders out there, this one had several good points (in addition to a remarkably low price)... HD 1080i & 5-channel surround support, easy integration with the other Sony components (TV, receiver, PS3) in the home theater, and simple software for pulling video clips from the DVD down to PC for editing.

This, of course, meant a few upgrades to the studio PC to turn it into a video editing machine... I added a second GB of RAM, picked up a Seagate FreeAgent 1TB external hard drive, and installed Adobe Premiere Elements.

While I haven't read the manuals for anything yet, I've managed to figure out how to record videos, do basic editing, and get them uploaded to YouTube (which means I probably won't be reading the manuals anytime soon). This means, of course, that you can expect to see some of the blog posts accompanied with videos in the not-so-distant future. Ah, the transition from BLOG to VLOG...

--B