Experienced, but starting over fresh, need advice.

[overloaded_ide]

I posted this under Newbie because I have forgot alot of what I knew and software/hardware has probably gotten alot better over the last year or so. Nothing is new that I have, software is outdated over a year if new versions have came out. Anything that would help me with this would also help a newbie I think.

What I want to do.
Live in woods, video tape bears, author profesional DVD on PC, burn and print disks.
What I have, amature basic stuff, old software, very little money.

Ok, that sounds bad and it is, but not that bad really. Remote living and offline is true, Bears were a joke, but they are there

First I have no DV Camcorder, I may be able to use a VHS-C or OLD VHS one. So Probably need to buy a DV camcorder. What might be a really good one at a low price for shooting both reasonable close ups and with zoom for a decent distance. Needs to be good in average normal lighting indoors and out.

I need to put that footage onto a computer. If DV I geuss I just need a firewire port and cable to connect the camera and computer. What's a good freeware program today for this? I never could get DVIO to work rigth before and problems with some others. I got rid of the camera I had then cause I did not like it anyway but never got another one.

If Analog footage, I have an ATI AIW card (7500 I think) and it was working perfect if I can get the sound hiss and thumps corrected on the computer. Never a dropped frame, audio was always in sync fine with captures. Lately only DVD's I've authored were VHS backups captured direct to MP2 then authored just to be able to watch them, nothing fancy.

The computer I plan to use, if the sound card is not a problem, is an Iwill XP333 with AMD1700CPU.
Probably 1gig or more ram. This system was fine in the past. I just blew up my Barton 2500 system, either bad PS or I blew the mother board or both. If I fix it I may use that one.
I will have plenty of gigs storage on 4 drives ranging from 80gig to 160gig each, all Maxtors.
WD has given me problems so I won't use them in this system.

I have two good burners installed. A 2X Toshiba for reading and back up if needed, and an NEC 1300 or something, forgot the model number. Both burn great on the media I been using. Old printable Riteks I bought tons of year or two ago 4X I think.

Since I will be running on a sinewave power inverter and batteries, I just bought a 19" Acer LCD monitor to save space and power for this system. I don't want a laptop though unless it's a second system because I may want to swap hard drives and such.

I just bought 2 IP4200 printers and modded one for printing disks to take with me, and the other is a spare for at home.

Based on the above, what's probably my best options for the best results for the least money.
No software can require an internet connection at anytime because there will never be one. That rules out Pegasys DVD Author unless they did away with that crap or I use my old version of about 1.5 or so. I thought about DVD-lab again, haven't looked at any new versions though.

Good freeware would be nice since I am very low on funds and need alot of stuff.
What's the newest and best software I should download for doing about everything I will need to do. And I will need to do about everything. I am not looking for a one click solution, that would be nice but does not exist, I expect I will need 7 or more programs and thats fine.

If all goes well, but when does it ever, I expect to leave in about 2-3weeks, after that time I have what I have and will not be able to get anything else till about Sept and then it's to late other than re-working the raw footage which I will do all winter anyway for a second DVD.

So I geuss the first priority is get the best raw footage to begin with since that's a one shot deal.
I will need to make some DVD's at that time and they should be the best I can make if posible to have everything to do them right. If not then for the first batch I geuss I could get by with lower quality if I have to just to have something right then for the people around the area that will want them, freebies for friends before I come home.

Since I will be about 3 months in the woods if all goes well then I will have nothing to do or side track me other than my DVD project. And I mean deep woods!
Like Giligans Island, no lights, no tv, no phone, no frig, building generators and frigerators out of rocks and trees.
Well actaully I will take the frig and generator with me, also lots of food and clothes etc...

[redwudz]

If you are able to obtain a DV camcorder that would be the easiest. You would need a Firewire card and a Firewire cable. With that you can use WinDV to transfer the DV to the computer and edit with VirtualDub or VDMod. Then you can frameserve that to an encoder after editing and filtering. You would have to author the MPEG-2 to DVD and burn next. This can all be done with freeware if need be.

I you only have a VHS camcorder, your AIW card should do well enough. If you can save the video out as a AVI, maybe PicVideo or Huffy, you can convert that to MPEG-2 with an encoder, then author it to DVD and burn.

Most all of this can be done with freeware. It might take a little longer and take a little more studying, but it is do-able.

When you get your setup finalized, let us know, and we should be able to give you more specific information.

Sounds like a fun adventure, let us know how it goes.

[RabidDog]

you will be able to answer the age-old question
Do bears shout in the woods?

bring lots of books.. never throw away any footage..have fun
And remember.. the IRS are watching you