Get the best digitizing setup you can. The higher the quality of your initial footage, the better it will look when it's compressed for the web.

Traditional video cards convert the analog signals from videotape into the digital information of computers. Some quality loss occurs during the digitizing process (like when you copy an audio or video tape).

Digital Video (DV) cameras store footage digitally, like compact discs or DATs, and DV offers zero quality loss during transfer, but to get the most out of this technology you need a direct digital input from your camera or deck to your computer - "Firewire" or "i.LINK" or "IEEE-1394" (those are different names for the same technology). If you don't have Firewire, you have to digitize analog-style.

With Firewire, going from DV to your hard drive is like copying files from one disk to another. The data being copied just happens to be video. It isn't truly "uncompressed", some compression occurs within the camera when you're recording, but there isn't any additional compression and that's why it's so popular for home use as well as broadcast television and digital film productions. Also, with a single connection and a single cable you can move audio, video, and timecode back and forth between the camera and the computer.

With a DV camera, a computer with Firewire, and gobs of hard disk space (none of which is uncommon or cost-prohibitive anymore), all you need is the software - and maybe an extra monitor (read on).

On your computer screen, DV footage will play back at a lower resolution. That's because the camera has compressed the DV footage internally, and to play DV footage at full-screen and full-speed you need to use a hardware decompressor. The decompressor doesn't come with most Firewire-equipped computers; however, a decompressor is built into every DV camera and deck. To see your footage in all its glory while you edit, you also need a tv set connected to your DV camera (or deck) which is, in turn, plugged into your computer. The process doesn't involve re-recording to video or anything, and doesn't add any wear or tear to your camera, all it's doing is routing a signal through the camera on its way to the bigger tv monitor. You can effectively edit without doing this extra step, but if you're preparing for tv broadcast, or if you rent your DV equipment, this is important to note.

If you want to digitize your analog source video, edit it online, then transfer it back to video tape, many low-end to mid-range video digitizing cards have both inputs and outputs. The end result will probably be pretty decent - not necessarily professional, but in some cases pretty close to online quality. (With video, "online" refers to the final high quality edit, as opposed to "offline" which refers to digitizing at a lower quality for a rough cut and then using the cut list as a guide for the "final" or "online" cut.)