In computer news this week:

Lights - camera - action - making movies on your pc !

As computer technology evolves, it appears that more and more traditional technologies are going to be replaced by computer. At the end of last year I bought an inexpensive Intel Pocket PC Camera - $ 140 - that takes up to 200 very good quality pictures. I've never had a camera that takes so many pictures. Now I take 2 or 3 pictures of the same scene, to make sure I get it right. Then I just download the pictures to my pc, review and edit them, enhance them, and then save them in computer format. Then I empty the camera memory and head out taking pictures again. . I think this cheap digital camera technology is a real threat to Kodak and the others.

I was playing with the software that came with my camera, I noticed that there was actually movie editing software that came with it. I knew the camera can actually take 10 10 second movies when you're in the field, but it doesn't record sound when it's detached from your computer . However, when you have the camera attached to your computer in your office, you can record sound and make movies limited only by your hard disk space. And you can make some really nice movies, suitable for home, office, or even presentations.

First you go out and shoot pictures of the subject you want to make a movie of. Then you open the software program that comes with the Intel Pocket PC Camera, and select the build a movie selection. This puts you into a movie creation and editing program, with a lot of choices. Now it's up to your imagination how you want to create and edit your movie. You look over your pictures, and you create a storyboard of how you want everything to fit in; which picture goes first, etc.

You point and click on the pictures you've taken that you want to appear in your movie, and you can rearrange them if you get them in the wrong order. For each picture, you can select how long you want it to appear on the screen, how you want it to change to the next picture - fade out, dissolve, or cut - and you can even add text to the pictures. Once you have everything in logical order and edited, you select to preview the movie, and you watch it and decide if you want to change anything.

Now, if you want to get extra fancy, you can even make new video recordings of action sequences related to your movie, and insert them in the movie you're building. This would let you say, have a couple opening title shots, then a little movie, then more pictures, on and on. You're the producer and director - you decide.

You keep viewing and editing, and the program keeps saving your work in different stages, in a windows .avi format. Then when you're finished, you tell the program to build the final movie. Now you have your finished product, a real action movie with full color, video quality and sound that you created yourself, on your computer.

Now what to do with it. You can invite friends over and show it to them. You can email it to your friends, clients, or relatives. As the native format is windows, virtually any windows computer will be able to run the movie.

The only problem I've run into is the file size - a one minute movie can be a couple megabytes in size. This means you can't fit it on a floppy disk, and if you email it to someone it's going to take awhile, unless they have a dsl or cable connection. It also means it's way too big to go on a web page. But next week I'll talk about other options and a different program you can use to solve these problems.

I have a very short movie on my website - mtamicro.com - if you want to see what I'm talking about.

For Raw Bytes, this is Frank Delaney

POB 222 Spangle, Wa 99031 (509)245-3736 Email: fdspokane@mtamicro.com