Recommendations for functionally similar alternative to Movie Maker?

[fvisagie]

Dear All,

For the kind of work I'm doing Windows Movie Maker is functionally just about perfect, but unfortunately some reliability issues remain even after spending lots of time looking for fixes and/or improvements. I was wondering if anybody knows of a functionally similar non-linear editor I might try as alternative?

The Movie Maker functions which are important to me are:

• inputs and outputs DV AVI
  accepts various other input formats, including JPG stills and audio clips
  preserves DV DATECODEs in output
  works with large combined input size (> 90 GB)
  writes large output DV AVI (>36 GB)
  automatically creates clips from input video using time codes
  organises clips into custom folders
  provides timeline editor
  supports frame-level video navigation and editing
  provides both clip and timeline preview
  supports additional sound track
  supports audio volume adjustment and mute
  provides basic video effects like fade in/out
  provides basic transitions like fade and dissolve
  provides basic titles and subtitles
  provides basic paired scrolling credits

I am really wishing for a magical answer here, please don't disappoint!

Thanks much in advance,
Francois

[guns1inger]

There is nothing that is free unless you want to try Linux.

At the cheap end of the scale you have

VideoStudio
Vegas Movie Studio
Premiere Elements

[fvisagie]

Thanks for the reply, guns1inger. Linux is not an option, unfortunately.

I'll look into evaluating your other suggestions in due course. Can any of the three you suggest anchor overlaid hardsubs to clip positions?

I use AviSynth for other tasks and its underlying abilities technically seem up to the task, except it doesn't provide a GUI of course. Have you had favourable experiences with any of the front ends for it?

[Gavino]

I use AviSynth for other tasks and its underlying abilities technically seem up to the task, except it doesn't provide a GUI of course. Have you had favourable experiences with any of the front ends for it?

I find the combination of AvsP and Avisynth extremely powerful and easy to use.
Once you've tried it, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it.

[rallymax]

have you tried Windows 7's next interation of it to see if it is better. Win7 also as "Windows DVD Maker" which is a handy tool to simply make DVDs with menus.

(windows 7 is a free trial until july '10)

[ZQX]

You might want to have a look at VidToDisc. Maybe VideoPad? Not sure if they fulfill all your requirements however. I think VidToDisc comes close, but I don't think it has titling?

EDIT: Magix Movie Edit Pro 15 Plus will do everything you require, but it's not free (very reasonably priced, however!)

[fvisagie]

Hi All,

Many thanks for your responses and suggestions. I hope to try them all out soon.

In the meantime, warn everybody off WMM . Patience and careful working can get you around the crashes/hangs, but you have no control over how it messes up your project. After working a while it starts creating cuts, boundaries and durations at weird intervals that don't correspond with frame boundaries. This creates terrible soundtrack artifacts. No way of predicting and now way of detecting, save wading through your whole project examining each scene transition. Overlaid titles sometimes also create soundtrack clicks at their start and end.

Kind regards,
Francois

[Bjs]

http://videospin.com/default.asp