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Chapter 11 Editing and Enhancing Your Videos 139

Technology.” These specs ensure the best quality playback on the YouTube site—
after YouTube converts your file to its own Flash format, of course.

Note

Videos all converted and edited? Learn how to upload your videos in
Chapter 13, “Uploading Your Videos to YouTube.”

The Big Picture

Unless you want the raw look and feel of an unedited webcam video, you’ll proba-
bly need to do some editing of the video you shoot with your camcorder or web-
cam. This necessitates the use of a video-editing program on a personal computer.

Although you can use a free program such as Windows Movie Maker or Apple
iMovie, or a high-end program such as Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 or Apple Final Cut
Studio, most video creators get the best results from a low-cost program such as
Adobe Premiere Elements or Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD. These programs let you
do sophisticated editing and add pro-level special effects and transitions; the results
are close to what you see on local newscasts and network television programs. The
key is to pick a program that offers the features you need, with an easy-to-use inter-
face, and then to learn all the ins and outs of that program.

Of course, just because a video-editing program can do all sorts of fancy stuff does-
n’t mean that you need to use every one of the program’s bells and whistles. Most
videos benefit from minimal editing; too many special effects draw attention to
themselves. The key is to edit your video to tell a logical, straightforward story,
using available effects to move the story forward rather than to impress the viewer
with how sophisticated you are.