Selecting Software for Movie Editing

[rcpeters]

I have the Capture Card and Software (Prolink PlayView PVR & Cyberlink PowerVCRII. My project is to produce 30 minute travelogues on DVD starting with clips from my VHS tapes. Now I am looking for software like WinProducer, which looks great but I can't fully test it with the trial version, only get an idea of how it works. I am downloading Video Editor 5.0 right now to try that out. I have already tried Fancy Movie, Muvee, Power Director, Video Studio7, Media Studio Pro and Movie Factory. I am passing on all of them for various reasons.

I would like to produce in not more than three steps: #1 Capture (in mpg2) and #2 Edit/Produce and #3 Convert/Burn DVD. During the second step, I would like to cut/trim/join clips with source sound tracks, add in background music and adjust volumes on both tracks and then create titles and transistions.

I am seaching for really good software for Step #2 and on this forum I have read good reasons to eliminate those that lose audio sync, degrade the original image quality, save only in proprietary formats and what ever else makes this job too time consuming to be of any value.

Suggestions? Links? Success Stories?

Thanks, Russ
Win2000, AGP, P4 computer

[OneThirty8]

Sonic Foundry's Video Factory (haven't used it, but have messed around with their higher end software which this is basically a stripped-down version of) can probably do what you need. I'm almost 100% certain that it will let you burn SVCD, and it costs less than $100. If you want more features, want pro stuff, etc, then check out Vegas (also by Sonic Foundry), Adobe Premiere, Avid XPressDV(mucho dinero, but worth every penny if you're serious about video editing)... I'm pretty sure that the newest version of all of the above (with the possible exception of Avid) will let you burn SVCD right from within the program, or at least let you export as MPEG-2. Worse comes to worse, any of those will give you decent to excellent quality and you can export to a format you can convert easilly with TMPGEnc and burn SVCD with Nero or VCDEasy or something.

[mtgoat]

http://www.sonicfoundry.com/products/showproduct.asp?PID=808

http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/main.html