Video editing software

Jettin' Fool · 12-09-2006, 02:20 PM

I just bought a "bullet" camera for my boat and I plan on doing some runs soon with video. I would like to add music and all the rest of the editing options.

Is there a package that is easy to use and do you have any recommendations for me to check out?

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

JF

STGRule · 12-09-2006, 02:55 PM

I use Adobe Premiere Elements. Not too expensive and I got it bundled with Photoshop Elements so it's easy to mix in stills to the video. Pretty easy to use.

fishinpox · 12-09-2006, 03:10 PM

I use Pinnacle Studio 10+ and could not be more happy with it. Easy to use and does way more than I'll probably ever know.

Rank Amateur · 12-09-2006, 10:54 PM

I have both of the above and they do a great job. I actually use the Pinnacle software more, but I believe the the Adobe program is better. I just started with the Pinnacle first and have had a hard time breaking away. Understand that making a movie and then burning it are two different things. I have run into several snags trying to get DVD's to burn right and then when you do, they don't always play on everybodies players.

I was using a hi-8 camera with a helmet cam for kayaking, that's why I got the Pinnacle program that came with the converter to digital that I needed. If you have a digital camcorder, you will be a lot happier.

Both of the above programs use similar formats.

skybuster · 12-10-2006, 09:49 AM

I use Adobe, windows movie maker, and now Nero.

I am just learning the Nero capture and editing system and it seems like it is pretty simple to understand.

Windows movie maker is a very simple system to use and is good for sharing. Most computers these days have windows media player installed on them so they can easily play the wmv files. With the other systems they may save the files as avi or mpeg formats, which can cause other users problems if they aren't too video savvy.

If you are going to be downloading a lot of video to your computer I would suggest that you add some memory as well. It's no fun to get about an hour into an hour and a half video, only to have the system freeze up because your video capture just ate all your memory. I added a 250 GB hard drive that is dedicated for video capture and storage only.

Rank Amateur · 12-10-2006, 09:56 AM

Ditto the need for a extra hard drive. I added a 160GB external and it is not big enough sometimes. It's good for individual projects but after multiple projects you have to free up some room.

skybuster · 12-10-2006, 09:57 AM

RA is right about burning to DVD. Some computers claim to burn to DVD, but they are really burning in a data type file that won't play on a normal DVD player. For instance, most DVD players won't recognize or play a wmv file from a DVD.

I just bought a Sony external DVD burner that came with the Nero 7 software. This software allows you to capture video and audio, edit the video, and burn to pretty much any format you want. It will burn the DVD's into MPEG format so that they will play on most DVD players (at least they play on all my laptops and 2 DVD players in my house).

The burn process takes a lot longer to make a DVD this way, but they seem to be a much more universal format. The Sony external DVD burner was $99.00 at Best Buy and came with the Nero software. I would consider it a decent option for anyone wanting to make DVD's out of home movies.

Jettin' Fool · 12-10-2006, 03:53 PM

I have been reading up on reviews and the Pinnacle Studio 10+ software has numerous bad reviews of consistent computer crashing. I have seen this review on not one but several different sites.

Adobe is in the lead at this point.

JF

Rank Amateur · 12-10-2006, 07:25 PM

I've had a couple of lock ups in Pinnacle, usually early on in a project though, so it didn't mess me up too bad. What is really frustrating is when you get all the way to the end of a long burn and then it ejects the disk with a error message.

Adobe is a good product from what I've heard too, some day I will dust mine off and work with it.

lentz · 12-10-2006, 09:31 PM

Around my house we use the Windows Movie Maker. It's easy to use and as somebody else mentioned, its easy to send via e-mail.

lor · 12-10-2006, 11:40 PM

As alot of people have said, the adobe elements is a pretty good entry level solution that should work if you want to burn a DVD. The bundle package with photoshop is nice should the need for incorpating picture
ever come up.

Window Movie maker can do editting, but the last time I checked, it doesn't write out a DVD. I've never used NERO except for copying DVD's,
so I have no comment on its editting capabilities.

The advice on disk space is right on. Assuming your camera is miniDV, digital video is 13GB's/hour. So a second harddrive is nice. The software packages will also consume some space when video edits are rendered.

Concerning DVD's, remember there are two formats DVD+R and DVD-R.
A computer should play all, but depending on when a player was purchased it may play one or both of these formats.

The amount of time it takes to create a DVD is really depending on the encoding scheme used, a rule of thumb is generall 1.5-3X the length of the video, it can also be much longer. If you have a choice, use a 1 pass encoding to complete the fastest. Also since DVD encoding is such a CPU intensive process, unless is a 5 minute video. I tend to start all encoding jobs before I go to bed and check the disk in the morning.