Hi y'all! OK, so i have decided that i'd like to make a video for the first release of a song i have produced for a local musician. I have read some articles on Sony Vegas, and Sony Movie Maker, but i also see that there is a video track in X2 producer... So, i am looking for information on my best approach and perhaps an outline of the basic process. It's weird finding myself without a clue as to how to proceed, when for years music production has always been second nature. for example, I will be adding my own clips to stock 'public domain' clips, so i know i have to get a camera that can do good quality 60fps, but i don't know if i will want to do sync to the music, nor do i know exactly how to go about that if i do. Can someone who has done some of this please provide some pointers? I am most interested in how that 'video track' stuff is to be utilized in Sonar, the syncing question, and best software at this time. Thanks.

Sonar is not something you would use to create a video.  You could score or sweeten audio for a video,  but not create one. 

I would suggest finding someone studing film/video production in school looking for projects. 

Like Jimbo mentioned, Sonar isn't really the thing for doing video, but it works well for scoring music and sound to video. If you have a video, you can use it, or better, a proxy of it, so that you can create music that is synchronized to that video. However, you'd then export the your music and take it into Vegas so that you can produce the final finished video there.

Now, if you already have your music produced and recorded, you simply take that as audio directly into Vegas, and produce your video from there.

I'm a long time Vegas user.

so i know i have to get a camera that can do good quality 60fps

I would just get a camera that does HD video.  


You can't edit video on Sonar. I would recommend Sony Vegas Movie Studio for a low cost editing system. I believe its around $125-150. If money is not an object, Sony Vegas (the full-blown version) is good at around $500.

Hi
I would use Vegas - we decided to make our first videos for our last CD and ended up making four - I had never done this before - I found Vegas pretty intuitive and reasonably easy to use. 
Obviously made quite a few mistakes, especially with composition of the videos and the quality of the camera we used which meant I had to use loads of effects to hide as much as possible the poor picture quality, but overall they did their job.
One thing I found though is that you do need quite a powerful computer otherwise the rendering can take for ever.
Hope this helps
Nigel

Nigel is right: the computer power needed for video compared to audio is another story. I run an extra machine for that reason.... cheers Michael

I use Adobe Premiere.

Here, here about computer specs. My lapper struggles with HD footage and sony vegas.

Great information. Thanks all!.......... ...... I have been playing around with Sony 'movie maker' but i don't see how to do any mixing of video clips, so i will get Sony Vegas as per your suggestions...... ...Does Vegas come with plenty of video effect 'plugins', and does anyone know a good source of video effects, maybe even free ones?... ...When it comes to syncing picture to music, do you simply 'slip' the video clips during editing until satisfied with sync?... .. ...Thanks.

I can recommend Sony Vegas (I have Platinum 10 - not Pro).  This was the first thing I did with it - just for fun.  My source was a Logitech HD Webcam. As you can see I am miming the parts to an existing recording I did in Sonar.  There is a ton of good demos and tutorials on YouTube for the product - I put this together over a weekend.  One caveat - it can take  1/2 hour to render a 5 minute video depending on your card.


http://www.youtube.com/wa...dded&v=qEuZiC9GpWg


For a really great example using Sony Vegas Pro, check out Richie Castellanos Bohemian Rhapsody video - he is recording the actual takes as he puts the song together - the whole project took him about a week.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Iiy_YfpVn0




Cheers


Grif