You ve survived the initial shock of your boss s request to produce a new video for the LasVegas Hardware Hype and Vaporware Show. And after carefully studying Chapter 2, you gatheredthe equipment, shot some video, and captured it to disk. You feel pretty good about the results.But the deadline is coming up fast, and you need to put some time into the project at home over theweekend.

Can you work on streaming media at home? You bet. Streaming media is simple enough that evenhome computers can perform most of the basic production tasks. This is particularly true withaudio, since most home computers come with a sound card already installed and basic editingsoftware. Video is more demanding. But if you re a computer hobbyist comfortable with adding newcards to your PC and learning new software, streaming video is within your reach.

Let s imagine you have rendered a video at work and now you need to encode it over theweekend. You ve burned the video to a CD and taken it home. Your home machine meets the hardwareand software requirements for capturing and encoding discussed in Chapter 2. (See Table 2.4. By the way, youdon t need a video capture card if all you re doing is encoding.) You ve downloaded and installedone or more of the free encoders. (See the section on encoders in Chapter 1.) If you relucky, your boss says it s okay to install your editing software on your home computer. (We candream, can t we?)

You re almost ready. First, we need...