What is the best editor from this list?

[DVMaster]

What do you think is the best to worst editor from this list?

Adobe Premiere Pro
Avid Xpress Pro
Canopus EDIUS
CyberLink PowerDirector
Discreet Combustion
Pinnacle Liquid Edition
Pinnacle Studio 9

[The village idiot]

You have a very wide range of prices, but are missing some noteable players, one being Sony's Vegas Video.

Are you looking to rate the editors, or suggests on which one to buy?

[SearchQuality]

It depends on your intention and your requirement. Do you want to simply capture some taped clips and back them up on a DVD or at the other end do you want to produce a nearly professional movie with special effects multiple level menus, chapters etc.? Besides, you are missing some important players such as Ulead, Sonic and Intervideo products and DVDLab. If you can elaborate on your needs then I think I can give some answers that will help.

[DVMaster]

I forgot about Vegas. I'm just curious to what people are working with. I'm searching for something that can product professional quality and great effects but can be taught rather quickly. I myself have used Studio 9 and Ulead Video Studio and are looking for the next best thing without upgrading in the near future.

[guns1inger]

While Combustion has a simple editing facility builtin, it is not an editor. It is designed for compositing and effects work.

I have used Vegas 4 with AC3, Ulead Media Studio Pro 6.5 and Premiere Pro. My preference depends on what I am doing.

For DV work, I prefer Vegas. The mainconcept encoder seems to handle interlaced source much better than most, including tmpgenc. The transitions are quick to set up and modify, and the audio handling, especially for multi-channel, is great. For something that needs to be done quick, it's Vegas for me.

If it is a larger, more complex project, I would favour Premiere Pro for the editing, then go back to Vegas for audio. Once the mix is done, render it out as a standalone ac3 track, and mux it later.

I haven't used Media Studio Pro 7, and stopped using 6.5 a while ago. I liked it at the time, but once I started using Vegas 4, it wasn't really needed any more.

Anyways, my 2 cents.

[SearchQuality]

As I mentioned before the package depends on the requirement. I prefer packages that can capture with minimum frame loss and that report the number of frames lost during capturing. For this purpose probably Pinnacle and Premier are quite good. For overall ease of use Ulead Movie Factory, Sonic MyDVD are preferable. For meticulous clip editing Intervideo's Winproducer is unbeatable. I have seen a friend of mine using Avid Xpress, it is quite powerfull and perhaps too sophisticated for amateurs. I think also performance plays an important role. Sonic MyDVD and Ulead have good performance. Pinnacle although it is one of the best on the market has unfortunately poor performance and crashes occasionally. These are my preferences based on my experience until now.

[Bstansbury]

Your list does not include Ulead VideoStudio and IMHO it is one of the best since it can do it all. I mean it can do everything from detecting your camcorder, DV transfer, edit, effects, digital stills, audio, voiceover, filters, transitions,titles, scenes, MPEG encoding to -1, or -2, DVD, SVCD, VCD, and then burn the disk for your after detecting your burner. Not bad fo $49 plus you only have to learn and master one product.

Do a search in the DV forum for Ulead VideoStudio and you'll find plenty of comments, pro and con.

[J3M]

A loaded question, to say the least.

As others have stated, it all depends on what you want to do. I'll add, however, that picking your software of choice also has a lot to do with how much time you want to invest learning.

Personally, I use Studio 8 for DV capturing. Combined with Hollywood FX for special FX, SmartSound, etc., I've produced some really nice footage. As a matter of fact, I've got a friend who works for a local TV station. He's seen some of my vacation footage DVD's and commented on how professional they looked. Pretty big compliment seeing that's what he does for a living. Granted, I spent a lot of time working with Studio and my footage to get it just right. Anyway, I then use DVD Lab for DVD authoring. Very easy to use, yet as powerful as they get. I use Photoshop to create my DVD menus.

For capturing VHS footage I use ATI's MMC software. I've tried VirtualDub for this as well, but prefer MMC.

I'll also note, that from my personal experience, no one package does everything perfect. Most package deals will do "good enough", but for me that's not enough. So therefore I think it best to use what you find works best given the source and the desired result (ie, DVD, VCD, PC, etc.). Takes a lot of hours of playing around with various software and making up your own mind. Personal tastes vary, ya know!

[godslave]

Gunslinger in what order are you moving the audio and video between the programs so that you dont loss quality.

[SearchQuality]

I use Photoshop to create my DVD menus.

Dear J3M. Which feature are you using in Photoshop to create your menus? Can you please give me some hints? Thanks.

[tWoSour]

Avid Xpress Pro or Final Cut Pro.....only ways to go if you want "the best"