Recommend software to make music vids?

[absinthecarolinas]

I've done plenty of audio and video encoding, but I'm now interested in trying my hand at music videos. The way I instinctively think to do this is by writing a script, but that seems like a terribly complicated way to create a 3-to-5-minute video of clips that change every couple of seconds. Not to mention that syncing sound and video seems nightmarish that way.

Is there some particular piece of software that's useful for aligning many different short clips together with a piece of music. I've been reading through some threads here and I see Vegas mentioned a lot. I've used Vegas before, but it's been a good while.

Also, I do most of my encoding to XviD, but I'll of course want to create small, streamable clips here. What's a good codec, and do I need any particular software to use it. (I generally just encode to XviD using VirtualDub). I ask because I downloaded Windows Media Encoder, but it just crashes at the start of an encode (it is free, isn't it?).

Again, let me stress -- my main concern is finding something to assemble clips and make sure they're in sync with particular 'moments' in the music. As far as editing or enhancing the clips themselves, or the final video, I can always do that with AviSynth.

-abs

[guns1inger]

Any good NLE will do this - Vegas, Premiere Pro, Avid
But that is just the start. There is matching and grading, visual effects, motion tracking, velocity envelopes. Pretty much you name it, you need it. Some clips use kit as far up the ladder as Inferno to do this.

Syncing is actually the simple part because you have the audio track as your base line. So long as you have that on all you key pieces of film, you can screw it up.

Bare in mind though, most clips today cost hundreds of thousands, if not millions, with full crews and large post-production requirements. The days of a single camera shot are over.

[absinthecarolinas]

Keep in mind, I don't plan on creating professional-grade videos here . I'm just assembling preexisting clips (like from a TV show, or DVD source) and adding a music track. No cameras are involved.

-abs

[guns1inger]

Back to my first line then - any good NLE will do

Sony did a stunt for the release of Vegas 5 where they shot a concert on DV, dumped the footage (multi-cams) to a laptop with Vegas and edited the footage while flying from the concert the launch, and put the edited concert footage up on the big screen when they got there. The whole stunt took something like 2 hours. BJ_M can correct any factual errors, but that's the gist of the gig. I use Vegas and think it's pretty good. It would easily do what you are trying to do here.

[absinthecarolinas]

Ok, sounds cool. I'll give Vegas a try.

thx! -abs