I produce several kinds of video productions. My music performance series, AcousticMusicTV is shot on-site and in the studio. I also produce a lot of basic videos for my World of Maps editable clip art map products that are sold online. These are mostly How To and informational videos produced using ScreenFlow on a Mac.

I host most of my video productions on free web based hosting platforms like YouTube, MetaCafe, Blip.TV, and Revver. These sites are easy to deal with and give you a global reach.

The quality of the video on these sites is always a challenge, but is getting better. One of the main reasons it sometimes looks poor is that it goes up at 320 x 480 pixels but gets enlarged when it gets played and becomes distorted.

I also do a lot of computer based screen capture video using an amazing program called Screenflow by varasoftware. This video often looks really good, possibly because it is higher res and saved in quicktime .mov format. This program is great at producing easy videos.

I shoot with a Panasonic 3CCD MiniDV tape camera with an external mic import, I like the MiniDV cameras though they are being phased out for the HD cameras with internal hard drives. The general recommendation is to stay in one world or the other, you can have trouble if you mix between MiniDV and Hi Def, just pick one.

I also now have a Flip camera and it seems to be pretty good for such a small little package. I will be using it for casual remote videos.

I edit most of my material in Final Cut Express. It has a bit of a learning curve but is an excellent program. For the screen capture software I edit right in Screenflow. Very simple, very direct.

Video made easy is my goal and I will adding as much information as I can on making clips.

Flip Video Ultra Series Camcorder, 60-Minutes (Black)