I have searched for several days for answers all over and do not have an answer.

We are a high school footbal team and I need advice on cameras and software.
we record each game ourself and i put them on dvd for each coach, also we trade film with other teams. Sat or Sunday i will edit to put only offensive plays together and defensive plays to make it quicker to watch with the team in meetings. I will cut each clip a little short to show only the play.

Camera: We have a couple of handycams that work fine 5 years old, but we would like a little better quality.
HD camera or not. We do not have a blueray or hd dvd player for the team, and we make copies after the game for each coach to take home. None have a blueray (except me).
Is it ok to capture on HD camera then put on regular dvd's or will that be pointless.

Software and computer: I have Pinnacle studio 10.8 plus in which i will edit video with, but am curious if i need an upgrade to 11 or a different program. I know if we go HD i will have to upgrade, but will we need to if we plan to put it on regular dvd's non HD format

We are running: XP professional SP2 Pentium 4, 3 ghz, only 512 of ram


I also will take all games and make a highlight film at the end of the year and periodically for colleges on an individual player. I will add music and I only need effects such as spotlight (which i have with pinnacle) and slow motion, maybe zoom. That's it. i really don't care about color correction and really special effects.

Thank you so much in advance. i will try to post a video on youtube that shows what i have done in the past.

You'll get a big jump in quality going to HD but you'll find there's a learning curve. Even "SD-DVD" will look a LOT better once you get the process worked out. Far from being pointless, it's a perfectly acceptable workflow which gives much better end results.

You're a little shy on Computer horsepower. BUT you can (if you go HDV instead of AVCHD) downconvert from the camera. AVCHD can be downconverted in the computer - Sony Picture Motion Browser has some downconvert options built in. Once downconverted, you're back to working with files like you're already dealing with... and wouldn't need the horsepower. But once you see the quality from HD, you'll probably want to upgrade so you can produce BluRay - that can wait though.

Your best bet is to pick one of the newer HDV or AVCHD cams, add it to your arsenal and get to know the workflow on a non "mission critical" basis til you work the kinks out. You'll find the better video quality gives you incentive to do that, but it still takes a bit of time to get the hang of everything. Once you've got the workflow down, replace/upgrade the remaining cams.

Lee,
keep in mind that tomorrow Pinnacle will release Studio 12...
And, at least on paper, it seems to introduce many interesting news...