CNET Do-It-Yourself Home Video Projects: 24 Cool Things You Didn't Know You Could Do! [Paperback]

Troy Dreier (Author)

Book Description

Series: Cnet Do-It-Yourself | Publication Date: August 20, 2007

Inside CNET Do-It-Yourself Home Video Projects you'll find 24 self-contained projects, step-by-step instructions, a list of tools needed at the beginning of each project, and hundreds of clear photos and screenshots.

Part I: Filming

1: Make a Video Birth Announcement and Record Your Kids Growing Up

2: Create a Family Newscast

3: Create a Video Valentine

4: Create a Vacation Movie Your Guests Will Really Enjoy

5: Record a Party

6: Make a Music Video

7: Shoot Your Own Script

8: Create a Video Family Album

Part II: Editing

9: Create a Dramatic Slideshow

10: Add Terrific Titles and Creative Credits

11: Giants Attack: Create a Monster Movie

12: Create a Dream Sequence

13: Shooting Sports Events

14: Create an Interactive DVD Game

15: Create a Time-Lapse Video

16: Create Fantastic Audio for Your Movie

17: Create a Stop-Motion Movie

18: Create a Video Holiday Letter

19: Create Hollywood-Style DVD Menus

Part III: Multimedia

20: Connect Your TV and PC to Make a Digital Movie Theater

21: Save Your Favorite TV Shows

22: Share Your Videos

23: Create a Video Podcast

24: Create an Archive That Will Last for Years

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Produce studio-quality videos at home

Now you can get the most out of your home video equipment and video phone with the fun and practical projects packed inside this easy-to-follow guide. Produced in conjunction with CNET.com, the place you go for the latest in tech and consumer electronics, this book shows you how to create all kinds of videos and special effects. You'll also find out how to enhance, edit, store, and share your movies.

Inside, you'll find 24 self-contained projects, step-by-step instructions, a list of tools needed at the beginning of each project, and hundreds of clear photos and screenshots. With CNET Do-It-Yourself Home Video Projects, you'll be able to create your own professional-quality videos.

• Create a video family album
• Shoot sporting events
• Produce time-lapse and stop-motion movies
• Add green screen effects, narration, and music
• Design Hollywood-style DVD menus
• Share your videos online
• Archive videos for the long-term
• And much more

About the Author

Troy Dreier (Jersey City, NJ) is a professional freelance writer specializing in consumer technology. He has covered video editing titles regularly for CNET for several years. Other publication credits include PC Magazine, Laptop Magazine, PDAStreet, Intranet Journal, and Buy Magazine. Before Troy was a fulltime freelancer, he was a staff editor at PC Magazine where he was responsible for several product sections of the ZDNet Web site.

Product Details

• Paperback: 229 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill/TAB Electronics; 1 edition (August 20, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071489339
• ISBN-13: 978-0071489331
• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 8.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,339,813 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars cnet do-it-yourself home video projects (cnet do-it-yourself), October 12, 2007

By 

K. Michael Ferranti "kmferranti" (new york city, new york, usa) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: CNET Do-It-Yourself Home Video Projects: 24 Cool Things You Didn't Know You Could Do! (Paperback)

Exceptional, Very Useful "Do-It-Yourself" Book !!!! I found the book easy to follow and understand with organized projects, making video taking of family and vacations easier than it has been in the past. The book chapters are an easy read and made me want to expand my video project capability. The book is filled with easy step-by-step "key points" with photos to help along. Most of all, the book was extremely practical for the whole family, whether to shoot great vacation footage or a birth announcement. Some of the other great features of the book was how to stream video to your computer and my favorite was how to archive your videos, for long standing memories. Being that I love shooting video on vacation and of my family, this book is an amazing and well put together, asset to the CNET Do-It-Yourself books. Easy for amateurs and professionals, as well !!

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Book tries to be all things to all people and ends up confusing, April 9, 2009

By 

Serious Work - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: CNET Do-It-Yourself Home Video Projects: 24 Cool Things You Didn't Know You Could Do! (Paperback)

This book could have been 1/3 the size and price if it didn't focus in descriptions of how to use different video programs. If they extracted the Premiere Elements copy and made a video book just on that program it would be much smaller and less costly ... but I found that it spends so much time telling you how to use iMovie (apple), Ulead and a bunch of other programs you probably don't use that the process gets confusing and learning more difficult. There is some 'basic' movie making ideas you can use regardless of the softeware or camera, but even though the authors lean a little towards Premiere Elements they try to be all things to all people and destroy the learning process. I found myself liking some fo the features on other software I wasn't using and felt a lot of it wasted my time due to this conflicting confusion.

Don't get me wrong - there is a lot of good ideas on what kind of movies you can do, how to prepare and shoot them and put the DVD together. I just wish there was a similar book available that devoted itself to one software instead of about 5 of them. Five different books would be much better than one book trying to cover all the programs.

No color illustrations .. just B&W .. and some of them quite dark. For what you get, I feel the price is too high. Next to nothing on high def.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not so great, February 11, 2009

By 

Consumer Reports (Atlanta, ga) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: CNET Do-It-Yourself Home Video Projects: 24 Cool Things You Didn't Know You Could Do! (Paperback)

This book specifically shows you how to do some (not very useful) home video projects. It may have some tips that prove to be useful but otherwise have not gotten much out of it. bought it for $5 and can say it really wasn't worth it. If your looking for a good book on digital video pick up The little digital video book (second edition), by Michael Rubin. It is a great book with tons of useful stuff.