What Software to use? Music Video editing...?

[BrAiNDaMaGe]

Hey all!

Up to now my Experience on DV-Editing has been somewhat limited - I have a
pretty ok DV-Camcorder, a Firewire card and some Pinnacle Software (that
came with the Card) - it has done me just fine so far, as all I have been
editing were home-vids etc..

..As I have lately decided to broaden my editing-horizons, however, I can
see that it isn't going to work out for me unless I get some more flexible
software...

Here is what I would like to do:
A couple of my friends also own DV-Camcorders (which have specs similar to
mine) - we all want to film yet another freind's band (with all three
camcorders) at one of their live-gigs where they will be making a
multi-track recording of the show (on A-DAT - but that is nothing to do with
me..) - once they have mixed the sound in their studio they would give me
the entire sound-track on a single DAT-Tape which I would then copy to WAV
via my soundcard's digital-in socket. Right - so the scenario is I have one
WAV file - and three seperate video streams - now I want to make a video
that I can set to skip from one camcorder to the next FAIRLY EASILY! (Of
course not realtime, but it would be good if I could just position the AVIs
once (so they are all in sync) and then start to create a storyboard with
picture-fades and titles etc which my editing-computer would then render
overnight or whatever...

I hope someone has done this before (or something similar) and will be able
to tell me what software is best to get for this... my budget for the
software isn't huge - but still - I am prepared to start saving up - the gig
will be around May so there is still some time

Please let me know what you think is best - oh yeah - and I use a PC - not a
MAC

Thanks for any advice!
BrAiN.

[curryman]

mediastudio pro from ulead can do this for you, but be warned is quite pricey,
it has more than one video/audio track(actually it has quite a few, can't remember exact amount)
with a little, no alot of patience you'll get your desired effect and very rewarding it is aswell

[dennis1202]

You did not cite a budget but if money is a secondary concern:

Sonic Foundry (now Sony Media) publishes Vegas (video) and Soundforge (Audio)

Some audio editing is capable within Vegas alone but more horsepower/features are in SoundForge for Audio editing. Your band guys could even do their mixing in there. From within Vegas you can select the sound track, pop a window to sSoundforge, edit the sound and plop it back in Vegas still in sync, unless you added timebeats in Soundforge. Cool. Each will accomodate multiple tracks (many, many).

Together they are right around $1000 (maybe a bit more under Sony's ownership). There are higher end extensions (Vegas + DVD, etc) They also have a "ScreenBlast" series of "lite" versions but how deep they get into either video or audio editing I do not know. Pricing for the Screenblast stuff is about $69.00 each pkg. A link to Sony is http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/products/default.asp

If your total budget is in the under $100 range, stick with your (working) Pinnacle solution and give Goldwave (Audio editor; link: www.goldwave.com) a try. I think they provide a try before you buy version as does Vegas/Soundforge, at least they used to prior to Sony. Goldwave is in the region of under $40

TMpegEnc is affordable and powerful for video editing. A bit of a learning curve to master by most round here swear by it.

Pinnacle is fairly proprietary and may only let the capture card you have work with their software. Be advised.

All pricing I cited is US dollars. I work for none of these concerns and profit in no way from their sales, etc, etc.

[Gritz]

Seems like you could do all this with Adobe Premeire 7.0?

[donpedro]

Best way to do it is with some software with more than one Video Track. It will be easier to switch from video1 to video2 and so on. Of course... those are more expensive. You need to do little research on each product to see if it works for you. Most of them ara available for dowload as trial versions.

[jpvideo]

i have done something similar to that using adobe premiere. the multiple video tracks makes it real easy. just lay one layer of video on top of each other and then....cut here cut there and you are done. everything should be in sync

[housepig]

I'll second the Vegas recommendation - one way to do it is like this:

- insert 3 video tracks.
- add video from your three cameras.
- add the sound file.
- make sure they are in sync.

- resize your videos so they will all fit on the screen at once.
- insert a new audio track and arm it. plug a mic into your computer.

- hit record, and watch the preview window - when you see a shot you like, say "one", "two" or "three" depending on the shot, and insert a marker point.

after you go through the video, split at markers, insert a new video track, drag and drop your video segments according to the instructions you put in your new audio track as you watched.... bingo! a quick rough cut.