hey All im a newbie to videography so if i ask something nuts just be patient- I recently purchased my FIRST video camera a cheap jvc grd30us minidv-its small and i like it but when i use the night alive in darkness or dusk the frame rate drops so bad that if i move the camera i get streaks if anyone has any ideas what to do about it please let me know...

Second is i plan to try to shoot shorts, and short movies and im curious if theres a easy way to do chromakey or something to experiment with to take a video of a person cut out background and drop video onto another video background--if that makes sense....

3rd this camera doesnt have a external mike but its my first one is there a program that i can use to strip sound from a video i know i can add sound but dont know bout if i can remove it to add my own

any help is appreciated also whats know about lp and sp recording modes?

thanx
Nicholas

Welcome!

In low light cameras try to brighten the picture by increasing the shudder speed, but any movement results in the streaking you're seeing. Most camcorders don't very well in low light, and you just have to deal with the streaking and grainy picture, an exception to this is Sony's VX2000 which does quite well in low light (but it still needs some!), but it is also costs quite a bit more.

As for the chromakeying, the program After Effects is one of the main ones for this but I think you need the production version of it to do this and it isn't cheap. Maybe someone else knows of a cheaper solution.

And stripping sound shouldn't be a problem. I believe even the most basic video editing programs should have this feature. All the ones that I've used have had it: Studio DV, Adobe Premiere 6.0, Final Cut Express, iMovie

LP allows you to record for a longer period of time on a cassette but makes it more prone to dropping frames and having glitches. I'd stick with the SP mode.

Cheers,
Brian