A job I wanted to bid on required "three "HD/SDI 1920X1080 Broadcast Quality Digital cameras". But, what really is "broadcast quality"? The answer was important because a videographer with one level of camera might cost $500 or less, while one with a much better camera could easly be >$1,000.

Whatever the budget, it’s important for talent (actors, interviewees, or other speakers in the video) to look good. This means advance attention to clothing and make-up. We’ll assume for purposes of this article that the talent just needs to look natural, and that special effects make-up and dramatic or period costumes are not required.

Most people these days are at least occasional eBay users and we are no exception. One common recommendation is to allow international shipments, and I typically do this when selling expensive equipment in order to reach as many potential buyers as possible. In the past, I’ve had very few problems and can point to sales that would not have happened if I hadn’t been willing to sell internationally. Another recommendation is to be as specific as possible on terms and conditions such as timing of payments, shipping methods, who pays costs like packaging, shipping and import duties, and returns and refunds. I personally like to avoid too much “fine print” but last summer, I learned its the value.

"Got to tighten the budget" is something we hear a lot these days. Unfortunately, it's true. People are trying to do more with less. We all would like to have Donald James narrate our next commercial, PR piece, or documentary, but often the budget won't allow it.

If you can't afford a top-name voice-over, or even a local voice professional, what else can you do? As audio professionals, we don't advocate the use of non-professionals, but it's the real world and sometimes the money just isn't there. As an audio engineer, I'm not in the habit of recommending this, but if this is the situation, then I'm still an advocate of the best audio possible.

I started in the video business in 2002, a year when digital editing had been firmly entrenched for some time, the Sony PD-150 had made low-end professional standard definition shooting affordable, Apple Computer was struggling but viable, and all recording happened on some form of tape. Video equipment was starting to reach a point where technical obsolescence often occurred before physical obsolescence. Newer cameras often recorded in new formats, so an expensive deck could become obsolete along with the camera it accompanied.

“Can anyone tell me how to get rid of the "Halo" around a person when using the green screen and shooting with HD cameras? The halo surrounds the talent on camera - who, at the moment, are not portraying angels.” The question was posted on TIVA-DC’s iForum conference in December. It promoted such a flurry of interesting and helpful responses that I thought I’d summarize and add a little perspective for those who weren't privy to the original emails.

When you're young, you're full of vim and vigor and want everyone to hear that last piece you composed or played or chose for your latest project. Even if you don't play an instrument, when you are first starting out you can have a tendency to boost the volume or conspicuously place your music selection in a way that it's noticed. Hell, it's your choice, and you're proud. Very few people rock out to the sound of a soft Brahms concerto. Which in a very round about way leads us to the first and most important point. The film or video is the king and the music is not. If you have a compelling need to always give music top billing, become a record producer. When music is placed in a film, it should support the film and make it better or stronger. If you notice the music and forget the film, you've done a poor job of choosing and/or mixing the music.

OK folks, I have to admit I was kind of pushed into this one by my wife Jacquie. But to be fair, my little brain was a blank slate as far as good ideas for an article. She then told me of a few audio mistakes made by her editors and asked if I could write something basic that might help them.

Most video editors are so "into" their craft, they jump right in to all things video. But their mind is usually on the eye candy. They can get the audio basically in and out of the project, but don't know enough or have the tools to do any real audio manipulation.

We do enough dance recitals in the late spring that the work pays for a good chunk of a video camera each year. This year was no exception. I read the hype, went to a couple of seminars, talked to people, did some research and decided this was the year to foray into DSLR video – this year’s camera investment, the Canon 7D.

Ok, it's sliding toward spring and all men and women's thoughts turn to, mmmph, new gear? Maybe that's overdoing it a bit, but not by much. You'll have that freshly issued check from your tax returns, and you can’t help but have thoughts. Why not let that kitchen remodel wait a bit longer. Hell, it's been put off for years and everything still works fine. This might be a great time to get rid of old, out-of-date gear and get some new, current stuff – just what the business needs to forge ahead in the upcoming recovery. Not so fast folks. Spending lots of money is not always the best answer.

Having authored several commercial instructional DVDs, I view the ability to master DVDs for replication as a basic requirement of my business. Therefore, when a client asked if I could do that for him, my answer was “of course.”

The last time I submitted a DVD to a replicator, several years ago, everyone required a DLT master. A few replicators would work off of a DVD for simple projects, but copy protection features like CSS and Macrovision definitely required a DLT.

Let's start with some common audio numbers. We see 44.1, 48, 96 and 192 sample rates all of the time. We also see recordings as 16 and 24 bits. A few years ago we never ran into those numbers. We worked with tape to record audio. Things stayed in an analog medium.

So I'm wandering around the house the other night after finishing some work, and I'm, no kidding, trying to come up with topics for this article. My wife is upstairs at one of our video editing stations and yells down for me to come up and listen to something. I went up and she had a video of our Governor Martin O'Malley speaking in front of a group of union folks. She said, "listen to this." The source was a DVD with a stereo audio track. When played over a stereo system, the apparent volume was workable but the sound of the material was very strange -- my wife called it "irritating to my ears." When she panned everything back to center to create a mono signal, the volume dropped to almost unusably low levels. What she was experiencing here was phase cancellation, a kicked-around term now very relevant to her finishing her project.

To meet today's production demands for quality at the best possible price, digital video cameras need to cram as much information into as small a package as possible to allow it to be recorded quickly onto a tape, card or drive with limited space. Later in the production process, these same processes are used to fit more information into a limited space cable TV or broadcast pipeline, or over an internet web space.

Compressing video almost always involves tradeoffs in quality, and what works in one situation is often inadequate in others. Today’s media professionals need a working understanding of compression in order to make intelligent choices around equipment, software, work processes, and delivery of our finished product.

All of us in this business of video and audio not only invest a lot of time, but also a lot of money in our equipment. With advancing technology, we're always pressured to buy the newest and latest piece of gear. Purchasing wisely and cautiously, followed by effective maintenance, will help assure years of trouble-free, reliable operation, as well as the best possible sale price when we're ready to move on (which can still be disappointing). Whether it's a Casio or a Steinway, if it's not maintained, it will fall apart. This idea might be simple, but it has far reaching impact.