Video editing software

[Grendels]

Here is a question for some of you. My current editing software went Blam, and won't load anymore. I am sure that if I un-install and then re-install it, I can get it to work, but I would like better. What is your recommendations as to good software? The company I got the program from doesn't really do support, more like an official harassment policy. So tell me if you know, what is the best editing software out there? Keep in mind I am not an apple fan. For me it is a PC or nothing.

 

[Grendels]

I did figure out how to load by poking around in it's install folder, so I don't need advice there, I would still like to find out what all of you think is the best video editing software.

 

[DreamKnight]

Adobe Premier kicks ass. That's what I use with Adobe After Effects for Composites. Their cheaper version is Elements which I heard is good to. Just a water down version of Premier.

The other one I used for a bit was Sony Vegas but I mostly use Premier now since CS4.

I'm talking PC here. I have no love for Apple (or any of it's products) and rarely see me use one unless I need to. Some of the post editing bays I sometimes rent out for client projects are Mac networked so I have no choice but Premier on PC/Mac are the same so it doesn't effect me much. I do use Final Cut sometimes when on a Mac for editing.

Premier wins it out for me over Vegas or Final Cut.

 

[Grendels]

I am using premier elements. You should read the comments about it over on Adobe's forum. Nothing nice at all. From the looks of it, this company needs to change their ways, or they will lose a lot of business.

The earlier versions were great, not buggy at all, but from the comments, version 7 and 8 are horrible. Crash all the time, and the official fixes cripple your computer. They want you to turn off hardware acceleration in your video card. If that is causing their software to crash they have issues.

Up until this crash the only problem I had found with it is that occasionally it would lose a second or two of sound. Watch my youtube videos and you can see it on a few of them.

From the research I did today, people are ranking the software in this order:

• Cyberlink Power director
• Corel video studio
• Adobe premier elements 8
• Sony Vegas movie studio

None of this is professional software. Roxio and Nero products creep in occasionally. Most of these reviews are not up to date, there are newer versions of these software packages out there.

Here are the links I used to come to this conclusion:

http://www.myeasydata.com/video-editing-software.html
http://video-editing-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

And don't forget to go to Amazon.com for reviews. Some of the user reviews over there are outstanding.

 

[DreamKnight]

I am using premier elements. You should read the comments about it over on Adobe's forum. Nothing nice at all. From the looks of it, this company needs to change their ways, or they will lose a lot of business.

The earlier versions were great, not buggy at all, but from the comments, version 7 and 8 are horrible. Crash all the time, and the official fixes cripple your computer. They want you to turn off hardware acceleration in your video card. If that is causing their software to crash they have issues.

Is that the latest version? (v8 to CS5) I'm not too sure about elements. I can't use it because it doesn't have some things I need so I can only tell ya what I heard about it from other people. I never read reviews on Elements because I never needed to. lol

Premier has it's ups and downs too but I figure how to get around them until they fix it.

The earlier versions were great, not buggy at all, but from the comments, version 7 and 8 are horrible. Crash all the time, and the official fixes cripple your computer.

Adobe is like that. We've (the coldfusion/flash community) been trying to deal with them for years like this against their awesome but shitty flex product. (awesome that the Flex concept is pretty powerful. Shitty because it relies on Flash too much). That fight doesn't affect me much since I'm a coder and a designer so I don't need to rely on flex to build good UI's. They spent all their energy on the professional end of stuff more so you won't see much attention to their home user end products.

For the odd black outs (I was wondering what that was) is all your clips connected together? No black video or empty space between them?

Otherwise, check out Sony Vegas then. I have no clue about Cyberlink other than I stay away from them and I didn't even know Corel was still around honestly.

 

[Grendels]

I downloaded a few free trials, I will post reviews later tonight.

 

[DreamKnight]

I downloaded a few free trials, I will post reviews later tonight.

Good deal!

 

[Grendels]

Not going to get it done tonight, I decided to actually put together the same movie using the four different software packages, and make a video outlining all four. As you can imagine that took a lot of time.

 

[DreamKnight]

Not going to get it done tonight, I decided to actually put together the same movie using the four different software packages, and make a video outlining all four. As you can imagine that took a lot of time.

I bet. All good! I'll watch it when you get it up!

 

[Grendels]

I have the introduction up:

Introduction to video editing software review

And the videos made with each product. I would love comments about each video clip as to clarity, compression artifacts, choppy grainy and anything else you can find. I tried to add music soundtracks where I could and do a few effects here and there. I will post the conclusion later tonight.

Elements 8:

An experiment in Scorch using elements 8

Vegas Movie studio HD platinum 10:

Experiment in scorch: Vegas movie 10 platinum

Movie edit pro 16 by Magix:

Scorch using Movie Edit pro 16 by Magix

And Cyberlink power director:

an experiment in scorch: Powerdirector style

 

[Grendels]

Of course my editing software went blam again, so no update tonight even though I have all the video shot. I just have to find something better.

 

[Quaralane]

Definitely differences in the processing from the different versions.
Me, I'm afraid I'll have to stick with what I can get for free and keep experimenting.

On a side note, the scorch experiment would have likely gone better in a less windy environment.
Most of that plastic melt likely came from having to hold your flame on to keep the glue burning

 

[DreamKnight]

Of course my editing software went blam again, so no update tonight even though I have all the video shot. I just have to find something better.

You know, if elements pop like that and it won't open back again, check your processes and stop all the ones that is associated with it. The once for Premier should be the same for Elements I think:

processcordinationserver.exe
ImporterProcessServer.exe

I had the same problem with Premier crashing for a bit and that's how I got it going again. It stopped crashing though after the last couple of updates.

 

[Grendels]

Q: The glue I was using is 15 years old, so I really didn't expect it to work. I will give it another try once I buy some new glue. I was not going to post that video until I decided to try and evaluate the different software packages. Which of the free ones are you using?

DK: What I usually do to get it started again is log off and log back in. Works every time so far. I will have to take a look at the processes some time.

Here is the final two parts:

Conclusion to video editing software part 1

conclusion video editing part 2

I will post a follow up later next week, I am going to play with the different packages some more.

 

[AKE]

I have Elements and it was a royal pain to get everything figured out. It took 6 hours to figure out one thing, then another 6 for the next thing, etc. One you find all the hoops you need to jump thru to do what you want it works o.k.

Yes, Elements will often not shut down when you close. Ctrl+alt+delete and stop the application. Elements.exe I think.

Most important, and annoying, is to be sure when starting a project that you match the video source to the project. So if it's 720p video set it to 720 at the beginning. If you don't you get the black borders around the video and it takes 10 times longer to render at the end. Also if you set it wrong there is no way to change it afterward. You have to trash and redo everything.

Personally I think Adobe just makes $700 copies of Photoshop and gave up on everything else. The leftover bone and grissle is save and repackaged as all their other software.

 

[Grendels]

I have Elements and it was a royal pain to get everything figured out. It took 6 hours to figure out one thing, then another 6 for the next thing, etc. One you find all the hoops you need to jump thru to do what you want it works o.k.

Yes, Elements will often not shut down when you close. Ctrl+alt+delete and stop the application. Elements.exe I think.

Most important, and not annoying, is to be sure when starting a project that you match the video source to the project. So if it's 720p video set it to 720 at the beginning. If you don't you get the black borders around the video and it takes 10 times longer to render at the end. Also if you set it wrong there is no way to change it afterward. You have to trash and redo everything.

Personally I think Adobe just makes $700 copies of Photoshop and gave up on everything else. The leftover bone and grissle is save and repackaged as all their other software.

Funny thing, with elements, I used the same format as the input video and I still got that black box around the outside edge. I didn't notice it until you pointed it out. I now have to go back and look at all of the other videos and see if they did it too.

I agree with your statement about Adobe. They are focused on the high end products and let the low end sit and fester. But, I think someone over there is a little bit concerned. (Not much, but a little bit.) The reason I say this is that I was asked to take a quality control survey a week ago, when I was looking for a fix on one issue with their product.

Maybe in the future we will see some improvement!!

 

[DreamKnight]

I agree with your statement about Adobe. They are focused on the high end products and let the low end sit and fester.

That. And also

But, I think someone over there is a little bit concerned. (Not much, but a little bit.) The reason I say this is that I was asked to take a quality control survey a week ago, when I was looking for a fix on one issue with their product.

They always been on queue with their high end products/audience. But when it comes to the middle and low end, they leave that to the devices of the end user. But a lot of things aren't going right over there and I believe they are doing some changing around on staff.

The problem that adobe has right now is that there are SOooooo many departments because they have so many products, it's hard for them to keep things organized and focused. They cover Graphics, video/audio productions, content accessing, server side programing and rich online media to name a few.

I experienced their support in all the spectrum and the mid/low end products is dismal. High end stuff, they are all over it. But they are a company pushing progress (if you can kinda forget about flash for a moment in that statement lol) and a lot of their resource lies there too. The need to shift some of the focus down a bit.

They also need to start working in their technology to HTML5 as well. They are just all over the place and need to start managing their company better.

 

[Quaralane]

Q: The glue I was using is 15 years old, so I really didn't expect it to work. I will give it another try once I buy some new glue. I was not going to post that video until I decided to try and evaluate the different software packages. Which of the free ones are you using?

Wax, Video Edit Master and the one that came with my new HDD, Muvee.
Video Edit Master's what I've used to put together the last couple of videos, and it works okay for joining them.

Wax seems to have some of what I'd like to be able to do, but I haven't really figured it out yet
Muvee I'm not sure about because I haven't really tried it yet

 

[Grendels]

I took a look at Wax, and it won't work for me. My Sony CX150 records in AVCHD and that is a format not supported by Wax. It also isn't the easiest one to use at all.....The interface is confusing. And it appears to have almost no features.

 

[Quaralane]

Wasn't crazy about Wax, either. Although I may use it to create some smaller "interlude" files.
Muvee seems to be easy enough. I'll explore it more and let you guys know