Photo by Dimitri N. (Flickr)

There are plenty of resources you can find online for anything from ideas for your experiments to editing your video. Planet SciCast’s has an excellent handbook on their website for producing videos. The following information is extracted from there.

Credits: Planet SciCast

Equipment

The best type of camera is… whatever you’ve already got. Most schools have a camera of some sort kicking around, or perhaps you can borrow something from your local authority.Otherwise, ranges and models change so quickly it’s hard to give solid recommendations. You may also like to know about editing software, and accessories that may be useful.

Camera

SD-card cameras - These new-fangled things have suddenly appeared in the wake of YouTube, and they might be the perfect thing for SciCast. Small, light, and from around £100/£150, their main advantage is that getting your video out of them is dead easy. You yank out the memory card and bung it in a card reader, just like a stills camera. Recent versions of editing software should handle the result just fi ne. Even some mobile phones work like this – notably Nokia’s N95, which includes an excellent video camera.

Their drawbacks? Sound tends to be poor, and only the top-of-the-range models have a microphone input. Cameras like these also tend to be spectacularly poor in low light – which typically means in a lab, after school in winter. Nevertheless, you can’t beat the convenience.

miniDV cameras

Tape! Now there’s a blast from the past. But tape is robust, reliable, and cheap, so miniDV (or just ‘DV’) cameras are still used professionally. As a result, you can spend thousands of pounds on a broadcast-quality DV camera… or a couple of hundred quid on something more domestic.

You get what you pay for, more-or-less. Starting from £200 you’ll get something pretty basic, but choose carefully and you might fi nd a microphone input – look particularly at Canon and JVC models. From about £400 you’ll start seeing ‘3CCD’ models that offer better picture quality, particularly indoors – Panasonic have some excellent 3CCD models.

Getting pictures out of miniDV cameras involves FireWire, which, confusingly, is also called ‘iLink’ and ‘IEEE1394’ (snappy!). You’ll need a FireWire cable and a computer with a FireWire socket. Mac users are sorted – almost all Macs have appropriate sockets, so you just need the cable. Many laptop PCs do, too, especially Sony and HP models. For other laptops or desktop PCs, you’ll need an expansion card, which shouldn’t cost more than about £30.

Once you’ve got a physical connection sorted, transferring miniDV over FireWire is extremely reliable.

DVD cameras

Lots of people already have these, and there are some good models. But if you’re buying new, go with miniDV or SD-card. The convenience of recording onto DVD sounds attractive, but the compromises are severe, and the video format on DVD discs isn’t easy to edit. The discs are fragile and expensive, and the cameras tend to be cheap, with very poor low-light performance.

You can still get good results out of them, but there are much better options.

HDD cameras

These are a bit like miniDV cameras, but they record onto a tiny hard drive, embedded in the camera. You then pull the video off using a USB cable. More convenient than miniDV, perhaps, but you either need huge hard drives to archive your video, or you throw one film away to make room for the next.

Interesting, but it’s probably better value to get FireWire working and go with miniDV.

High-definition cameras

There are several ‘high-def’ formats, from the miniDV-derived ‘HDV’ to harddrive or DVD-based ‘AVCHD’ cameras. All will tax your computer more – there’s typically four times as much processing required for everything – and you’ll barely notice the difference when you see your film on the website.

If you’re tempted anyway, be aware that you’ll need very recent software to edit AVCHD. HDV is easier to work with, and is often used for broadcast work so the range of cameras heads up to stratospheric prices. It still uses FireWire for transferring video, though.

Editing Your Video

Mac users

You have it easy, since Apple’s iMovie will have come with your Mac. It’s a terrific piece of software, but there are limitations – if you fi nd yourself outgrowing it, look at Apple’s Final Cut Express (£130, education discounts available). It’s more complex, but much more capable.

For handling sound and music, you’ll also have GarageBand, which is excellent. With recent versions you can drag your edited fi lm in and use the included loops to write a musical score, then export the whole thing directly. Genius.

Windows users

Microsoft’s free Windows Movie Maker will at least get you started – it has a reputation for being slow and crashy, but we’ve found it quite workable.Other options include Corel/Ulead Video Studio (from around £45), Pinnacle Studio (from £35) and Sony Vegas Movie Studio (from £55). Our pick is probably Adobe Premiere Elements (£70, education discounts available).

For music, your options are the eJay series (cheap!), Sony’s Acid Music Studio (£35), and Steinberg’s Sequel (£75). The latter can produce excellent results, but it’s very taxing on your computer.