Starting a small TV service.

[Michele Coser]

This is something not started from me, but a thing that the president of a co-operative asked me to do.

He wont me to teach (but i'm not sure if i can do, mostly beacuse i don't think i'm the right person that can teach something....) for a group of guys how to shoot and edit various things for a local TV, like news, interviews, documentaries...

However they have a low budget, and they will stick with consumer products. In fact, from what i have understand, the focus is less on the "picture/visual quality" side, and more on the news-information factor (and providing some work for those guys).

He said me that there are 9 groups of (i think) 4-5 guys, located here in the mountain-side of the province. Basically the idea is to equip each group with the necesaries things to do small services for the local tv.

One of the first things i have said is "Less money, less quality...", just to make things clear.

My ideas are:
-Camcorder: somthing like the Panasonic Nv-Gs37 [334 €], or maybe (if they can spend a bit more) the Nv-Gs180 (3ccd) [461 €], anyway something with at least manual controls (even better, with a focus ring)

-Tripod: Velbon Cx686 can do the job, don't think they need a big name like manfrotto. [52 €]
Maybe they shoot all handheld, but if you don't have a tripod when needed...
-Mic: I have a Rode Videomic, wich is powerful and can do almost all the jobs, but maybe they need something more specific for interviews, keeping in mind the super low buget. [110 €]
I prefer an external mic because my experience with my camera, that has now a noise due to various falls.

-Hearphones: not something really pro, just to check if the mic is recording at the right level.

-Editing: I personally use Premiere Elements 1 and Premiere Pro. I have tried almost all the PC NLE and those, as with Sony Vegas Movie Studio are the only i feel comfortable.  The down side is that the PreEl series require a more powerful PC than the others (Vegas, Magix, Pinnacle, Ulead...) [100 €]

-Firewire cable and card [35 €]

I asked the president of the co-operative how they send the services at the local TV (Dvd, MiniDV...); he said me thet they will use internet high-bandwith (and i'm not sure if this is a grat idea), since most of the guys have a DSL connection. I'm pretty ignorant about internet connection so maybe there is a way to send/recieve high quantity of contents with low times.
This, however, says me that they have a computer, but i don't know if it will be powerful enough to edit videos.
And, if the internet send/recieve thing will not be powerful enough, they need something other, like a dvd burner (something that i think they need anyway) or maybe a camcorder with DV in.

Oh, and another consideration: I really don't know if i'm going to teach those guys, but i think they are doing this thing even without me, at least i can help them to use the money on the best way they can.

Any ideas?

EDIT: I was talking with a guy who run a computer shop; he said that if they buy DVD-camcorders, they don't need the fireware cables and cards. I'm not sure if the final quality of those dvd-camcorders is like the minidv ones.

[Sam Heijens]

if you buy a dvd camcorder the image will be further compressed than mini-dv, and if the goal is editing is this not the most suitable medium, because you'lee have to rip them to your hard drive (quality loss) and then you'll re-encode it to go back on dvd (again quality loss). I think the best is to use a minidv camcorder.
I think that it is great to have dv-in on the camcorder, so that you can hand in dv tapes if needed. (what i actually doubt because i don't know any tvstation in my environment which uses dv as standard). But it's better quality than dvd.

for the camcorder, i would ask in the shop if you can see some images from the camera on a television screen, so that you can see what the footage looks like.

aren't there any thing you can borrow from the television studio?