Couple of Questions re footage.

[Lensmeister]

Hi all,

I have footage I have shot myself of a party at home. it was shot on a Panasonic NV-GS17 DV camcorder.

I am pmporting the footage on to my laptop with WinDV and the Laptop is a Windows XP Home.

Software available to me is thus:
Windows Movie Maker, MGI Videowave III, Proshow Gold and Perfect Photo and Video editor. On my desktop I have converXtoDVD (old version).


Now the problems:

1. The footage is a little dark, what can I use to brighen it up so theat it's clearer?
2. What can I use to "Zoom" in to the scene to see it. i.e. the cake is on the table at the other end of the room and I want to use software to "zoom" in to see the cake.
3. If I do manage to "zoom" in how canI make sure the image stays sharp?

Thanks for the helps guys

[aedipuss]

what is the intended output format? increasing brightness will not sharpen video. what you are calling zoom may be had by cropping but if done more than a little it will not look good.

an editing program is what you really are looking for. maybe something like vegas movie studio, one of those that you have would work but i'm not familiar with any of them.

[Lensmeister]

Eventually it'll go on a DVD to show them the party etc.