Want to know how to make a video?

We're hoping to see some video submissions in O-R Flix soon. Not that we don't appreciate all the photos (we do), but we'd be excited to see some moving images from our readers. And what better thing to film than fireworks?

For those of you taking short mpg videos with a digital camera using memory, you won't need much help. Just hook the camera up to your computer with a USB or Firewire cable and drag the movie files onto your machine. Edit them if you want or upload them raw to our system. However, if you're running off a camera that uses miniDV cassettes, its a little more complex. Read on.

If you've never uploaded a home movie off cassette to your computer before, its not too hard...well, it depends on a lot of things, truthfully. First, I'm definitely a PC person but I have to be up front here; you Mac users are going to have an easier time of getting your movies up. You'll need a video camera (obviously) and a means of connecting it your computer. This means a firewire cable if both your Mac and your camera are new enough to support that (if they were made in the last 8 years or so, they almost certainly are; check your user manuals), or if you're working with older equipment, AV cables and a video capture card. If you don't know what a video capture card is, you probably don't have one. Google it; prices aren't too bad and setup is fairly easy.

The last thing you need is software, and this is where Mac makes it easy. If your Mac was made any time this millennium, it has some version of iMovie on it. Again, Google is your friend; search for tutorials on how to use the various features of your version of iMovie. We aren't expecting Citizen Kane here, so if you feel intimidated by all the fancy titles, transitions, and effects, just skip them! Remember to convert your video to a format supported by our site (popular formats such as avi, mp4, mov, mpg, and wmv are all supported but dv is not) and to keep the size below 30 mb. These options are also easily available in iMovie.

As I said, Windows users are going to have it a little harder. The steps are basically the same but the software is hit or miss. There is no iMovie for Windows and the alternatives are frankly less user friendly most of the time, not to mention more expensive. Different PC vendors like HP and Dell will typically include proprietary video software on all but their most basic machines. You can give that a try but the features are typically lacking and/or the controls are far from intuitive. You can also look into paying for a better program, but the price is normal pretty steep by the time you're looking at something worthwhile (and I use the description worthwhile based on my needs; you will also find that the best programs have a lot of features you will never want or need). Still, with a little effort most Windows users will be able to find something they are comfortable with and can start uploading video too!

Linux users will undoubtedly have some open source programs they can toy with; if you're using Linux to begin with you're probably pretty tech savvy and don't need my help.

Once you feel daring enough to try out a movie and get it uploaded, don't forget to help us out by providing a title and description for it so we know what we're watching. We're chomping at the bit to see what some of you might have to offer us in the way of original video content.