History is filled with tales of media, cable, and other companies that have sunk (and often lost) hundreds of millions of dollars producing expensive broadcast content. But times have changed. Grassroots producers of video content on the Web can easily create compelling, professional-looking content while investing only a few thousand dollars into the tools required.

At Ziff Davis Media, parent of PC Magazine, Annaliza Savage is series producer of the popular show Cranky Geeks, a 30-minute weekly videocast hosted by John C. Dvorak that streams live on the Web on Thursdays at 11 a.m. Pacific time (2 p.m. eastern). Episodes are archived for download at any time at www.crankygeeks.com. We asked Annaliza about the mechanics of delivering the show.

How is Cranky Geeks produced? What tools are used for each step

AS: We designed our studio to take elements found in a large studio and reproduce them in a low-cost way. We use three Sony HRD-FX-1 cameras. Since one is stationary—on the show host, John—we need only two camera operators.

The cameras feed into a NewTek TriCaster board, and these run about $5,000. It works as a TD [technical director] board. The TriCaster lets us cut between multiple cameras filming in real time and add in video clips, photos, and guest titles. We prepare the titles and graphics beforehand, as part of preproduction work. The TriCaster also streams a version of the show live on the Web.

The TriCaster feeds into a Sony deck that records the show onto MiniDV. We then take the digital video into Final Cut Pro software to edit and export to various file formats—such as H.264—that we put links to on our Web site. We use Soren­son Squeeze and iSquint to compress and encode video in different formats [iSquint formats video iPod content]. We also use Sorenson to create Flash clips of various parts of each show.

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When we've completed versions of our show in various formats, we upload them to Limelight, a third-party company that streams the episodes from its servers. In the end, the content lives on Limelight's servers.

How can people begin doing grassroots shows that still have good production qualities?

AS: The first thing is to focus on content, not gimmicks. Smart, funny content wins. If it's compelling, people will watch it. Also, remember that you don't have to have a three-camera setup. You don't have to buy a TriCaster. And you can use iMovie instead of Final Cut Pro.

You could easily produce a show like Rocketboom with one camera, a tripod, inexpensive editing and graphics software, and a good microphone. A good graphics animation program, such as Motion [found in Final Cut Studio], and time spent editing make it look polished.

One big tip: Go out and get a good lavalier microphone for a hundred bucks. Don't use the camera microphone. People will put up with some compromised picture quality, but they won't put up with bad sound. And, if you're doing interviews, use a tripod.

Finally, concentrate on preproduction. It doesn't cost much for a professional-looking set, and good preproduction can enable you to use engaging graphics, inserted video clips, and other, more diverse approaches to content.