It's easy to shoot hours of video of your kids or your latest vacation, but where's that footage now? Are the camcorder tapes still stacked next to the computer, waiting for that fantasy weekend "when I've got time to sit down and just do it"?

You're not alone. It turns out that even with the best of intentions, many people don't get around to importing the video onto their computers and editing movies. As a result, companies are releasing more camcorder models that record directly to DVDs that can play back on a consumer DVD player, no editing required.

But dumping your raw footage to disc is just like the days of watching 8- millimeter film: When Dad hauled the projector and screen out of the closet, you knew you were in for a long series of visual flubs and accidents punctuated by a few minutes of worthwhile footage here and there.

It doesn't have to be that way. Editing video is fun, and your audience will appreciate seeing only the good scenes. The trick is to break the editing into smaller components so that it's not so intimidating; devote part of a weekend to each step, and in a few weeks you'll have edited movies. Here's a strategy for working through the backlog.

• Digitize the footage: For the best quality, I recommend shooting with a camcorder that stores video on MiniDV tapes. To edit it on the computer, the footage must be digitized and saved to your hard disk. Keep in mind, however, that digital video occupies a lot of disk space: one MiniDV tape holds about an hour of video, which takes up approximately 13 gigabytes (GB) of storage. You may need to buy an external hard drive. Fortunately, disk storage is incredibly cheap these days; a quick scan of dealmac.com comes up with a few 300 GB drives for less than $200.

To determine how much disk space you'll need, download the freeware Hollywood Calculator (www.happypixelstudios.com/hwcalc/), which does the calculation for you. Or, add up the number of tapes you need to digitize and multiply that by 13; then, to account for video files that your editing software creates for extras such as titles or transitions, multiply the result by half.

The great thing about importing is that you can start capturing a tape and then go do something else for an hour. iMovie HD will grab all the footage and split out each scene on the Clips pane, or you can manually choose which sections to import; Final Cut Express HD and Final Cut Pro offer more advanced methods of capturing.

• Trash the junk: In your editing software, delete any clips you know won't ever be used, such as when you left the camera running (yep, everyone does it). Resist the temptation to start editing individual scenes — at this stage you're just cutting away the obvious deadwood.

• Assemble a rough cut: In iMovie HD, drag clips from the Clips pane to the timeline in the approximate order you want them to appear in the movie. (In Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro, clips are stored in the Browser window.) Again, don't get hung up on editing the clips (even though you'll want to). It's just too easy to get sidetracked.

Remember that you can place clips in any order in your movie. A spectacular sunset from the first day of your vacation can end up as the final image of your movie and no one will be the wiser.

• Start editing: OK, now you can dig into editing the clips themselves. Remove footage that's obviously useless, and start thinking about the pace and final length of the movie. This step is likely to take the longest, so you might want set aside blocks of time for it.

At this point you may want to start adding background music or other additional audio.

• Tighten and refine: Want to be a better filmmaker than Peter Jackson? Trim your scenes to the bare minimums and try not to be self-indulgent. Feel free to linger where you need to (you child will no doubt take her first steps on her own schedule), but exercise restraint and ask yourself if you really need 10 minutes of driving in the car vs. a nice 30-second burst of roadside adventure shot through a bug-caked windshield.

Only after you've tightened should you start applying transitions between scenes, special effects and title sequences. This is the hardest part for me, because I always want to create titles early on; and I always regret it later when I have to re-create the title.

• Wrap up: Last, apply any final trimming and polishing. The end result should be a movie that's considerably shorter than the footage you started with, and much more entertaining for your audience to watch.

At this point you can export the movie to the Web, to a DVD (using iDVD or other software), or record it back to a blank tape in your camcorder.

See, the process isn't that intimidating at all. Just remember to approach the process as a series of discrete steps, and it won't seem like a monolithic endeavor.

Jeff Carlson and Glenn Fleishman write the Practical Mac column for Personal Technology and about technology in general for The Seattle Times and other publications. Send questions to carlsoncolumn@mac.com. More Practical Mac columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists.

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