Getting Started on YouTube - Basic Requirements

First I cover hardware for recording, then system requirements (computer hardware) for editing and processing, followed by editing software.  Lastly I cover online accounts and tools to work with YouTube.

The first and most obvious thing you need in order to get started making YouTube videos is recording equipment.  Unless you are planning to make videos exclusively using software, combining audio, still images, video that has already been filmed, or video that you have created with software, you will need a video recorder.  There are four "levels" of equipment:

• Digital Camcorder
• Pocket Camera
• Webcam & Mic
• Smartphone

Digital camcorders are specifically made for recording videos, and are the best choice for filming.  New ones start around $150, but many are much pricier.

A digital pocket camera is your next best option.  Some cameras, like the Nikon CoolPix series, have very good filming capabilities.

If you have a lower budget, you may already have recording options built-into your computer.  Most laptops these days have built-in webcams and microphones, and this, together with recording software, is all that is needed to record videos from your computer.

Lastly, if none of these are an option, you can use your smartphone, but this is not the best option.  The quality of videos taken with smartphones is usually low, and recording eats up battery life quickly.

Video editing is the most resource intensive task that most people will undertake on their computers.  Video editing uses memory, CPU power, and hard drive space.  Having a good video card also is important, and having a fast hard drive is also a plus.

If you want to upload videos to YouTube, I recommend at least a Quad-core CPU, 4GB of RAM, and a minimum 500GB hard drive.  CPU limits your speed of editing work, and the time spent encoding videos when you export them in finished form to be uploaded to YouTube.  I have a computer with these minimal specs, and it is able to produce HD videos for YouTube just fine, but exporting, and sometimes editing, can be a bit slow.

If your computer is older, slower, or has less space, you can get around these limitations by producing lower-resolution videos, sacrificing the quality of your final product.

For Mac: If you own a Macintosh, you've lucked out, because macs come with iMovie, powerful and easy-to-use movie editing software that will satisfy the needs for just about anyone other than professionals.  iMovie has been around for a while, and newer macs ship with newer, more powerful versions.  For the most part, newer versions are better, although iMovie '08, which shipped from computers around 2007-2009, attracted criticism for removing a lot of features found in earlier versions.

For Windows PCs: Windows versions (except for Windows 2000) ship with Windows Movie Maker, free software for editing movies.  Windows Movie Maker, especially its earlier versions, is bare-bones and less elegant relative to iMovie, but it is usable and is an easy option if you own a PC running Microsoft Windows and want to quickly start making movies.  If Windows Movie Maker is not installed on your computer, you can download it for free as part of the Windows Essential Suite.

For Linux: For linux users, I recommend the free software OpenShot.  OpenShot isn't quite as good as iMovie, but it gets the job done, and it has all the basic features you'd need, and is relatively intuitive and easy to use.

YouTube is integrated with Google, so I recommend, if you don't already have a primary Google account, to create a Google account.  A Google account gives you access to all google products, although you still have to set up separate accounts or profiles for many of them.

The next step is to create a YouTube channel, which you can create through this link when you are logged into your Google account.  Both of these steps are mandatory.

Once you've created a YouTube channel I strongly recommend creating a Google Analytics account if you do not already have one, and linking this with your YouTube channel.  Google Analytics (GA) is a free and powerful tool for analyzing web traffic, and it can be integrated into any website you control, and even some social networking sites and self-publishing platforms (Wizzley included).  GA will give you data on how people come to your YouTube pages, which is slightly different from the built-in YouTube analytics.

Lastly, but more importantly than GA, I recommend setting up a Google Plus profile.  Google Plus is a social network that shares some things in common with Facebook and Twitter.  It is integrated into YouTube's commenting system, and having a profile there is generally a good idea for networking and promoting your videos.