Grounding Your Electronic Equipment

Heavy-duty electronic equipment, such as video editing system hardware, should always be grounded. This means using three-prong AC cables plugged into a grounded (three-prong) outlet.

Audio Equipment

If you’re in a hurry to get started editing, you can make do with a pair of earbuds or your computer speakers, but if you’re serious about audio, you’ll need to plan on upgrading your audio environment.

Unlike computer video monitors, built-in computer speakers are generally terrible. At the very least, you’ll want to add a pair of good quality external computer speakers. But bear in mind that at the low end, most add-on speakers are designed for music with lots of bass boosting that isn’t ideal for editing dialogue. You can also use the type of speakers that come with a home stereo system, by sending the audio from your computer or mixer through the Video/Auxiliary input on your stereo.

There are several manufacturers of professional grade, self-powered speakers made specially for editing systems. These can be a bit pricey, but are definitely more suited to the task of editing than home stereo or computer speakers.

If you have more serious sound editing in mind—for example, if you plan to edit and mix 5.1 surround sound—you’ll need some additional hardware. A surround sound audio interface, 6-channel (or greater) mixing board (Figure 11.8), and at least six speakers are needed to play back each stream of audio separately. Bear in mind that most people opt to hire a special audio mixer (a person, not the hardware) to do the surround sound mix for them.

Figure 11.8

An audio mixing board, like this 12-channel FireWire-based mixer from Mackie, can connect audio from various sources (computer, VTRs, and so on) and send it out to various devices (speakers, computer, VTRs) in different configurations. In addition, mixing boards allow for on-the- fly adjustment of levels, balance and EQ.