Glossary

CCD - "Charged-Coupled-Device" The bit in the camcorder that picks up the picture like film. Most camcorders have one but more professional ones have 3 CCDs - a special prism in the camara splits the image into its red, green and blue parts which makes for much better colour in the final recorded picture.

Compressor - A piece of electrical equipment typically used in recording vocals. The human has a large dynamic range - the difference between the loudest and quietest parts. The compressor reduces this range so the quietest parts sound as loud as the loudest. It's a bit of a trick - just listen to a Celine Dion record for example.

Digital Camcorders - The most common consumer format is "Mini-Dv" These cameras give you a very clean and detailed looking picture, which in turn makes the final edited video look a whole lot better. There are professional formats around - DV-Cam, DVCPro of similar quality and the broadcast ones - Beat SX and digital Beta.

Editing - The process where the best pictures and sound are put in the best order

Getting the sound right - The human ear is better at spotting bad sound than bad pictures. Sound is as important as the pictures. Getting the sound right needs careful placement of good microphones and in an ideal scenario, a totally separate person to oversee this. If we are hired to do a video we will use at least three microphones such as the Rode NT3 and Audio Technica 835B. A hand held or tie clip microphone is essential when conducting an interview.

Licenses - These are needed in order to put music onto your video, and includes the music played at a disco. It costs about £35 per wedding video booking for 30-60minutes of music.

Lighting - You need more light than the eye can see, and then some more... The more light the better. Low light results in poor picture quality and difficulties in focusing. Weddings are notoriously badly lit and we welcome the day we are allowed to erect a discreet light.

Microphones - As well as good knowledge, good microphones costing over £100 each are needed to get good sound. Our radio microphone kit cost £349 for one tiny microphone. We generally use free frequencies, but should there ever be a clash with another operator, we can easily use channel 69 frequencies.

Mini-Dv - A digital video recording format which is infinitely better than Hi8 or S-VHS, but not quite as good as broadcast formats.

Mixer - An electronic piece of equipment used to mix the sound of many microphones and music together at the same time.

Non-linear editing - Analagy - like writing a letter on an old-fashioned type-writer compared to a word processor. Editing caried out on a PC after all the shots are digitised. Basically at any time during the edit, you can change something you've already done.

Sequencer - An electronic piece of equipment like a computer to remotely play something like a sound module or keyboard. Most pop music over the last twenty years is "sequenced" It's an automated playback.

Sound Module - An electronic piece of equipment usually used with a computer or sequencer which has lots of sounds stored in it, like a home keyboard but without the keys.