movie software recommendation?

[edlomon]

hi,

im curious as to know what you guys/gals would recommend for a video editor?

currently im using the movie maker by Micro$oft and im ripping my hair out making stuff on there.

now i dont have alot of $$$ so something cheap or free would be nice if possible

now i have used primerier from adobe and i like it alot but i dont have 800 to buy it and i just ran out on my 30 day trial

thanks guys

[redwudz]

You didn't mention what kind of video you are editing. This makes a big difference. I'll assume MPEG. For that, two editors you might look into are MPEG-VCR for a basic editor and MPEG Video Wizard for a little more advanced. There are others. Look to 'Tools', Video Editors, Basic or Advanced.

You also didn't mention what type of editing you are doing. If it's just cut and paste, even some freeware ones may work. Cuttermaran is a good basic freeware MPEG editor. Where the advanced editors shine is transitions, moving audio and video around on the timeline and making it easier to come up with professional looking videos. The more advanced they are, the more expensive they become and the steeper the learning curve.

But experiment with a few that have trial versions. Determine what you want to do at what price.

[edlomon]

well really its for anything kind of video use really

mpeg, avi either one is fine

but yes i do cut & paste and i also grab stuff from my digi-cam

but ill check out those links

[guns1inger]

mpeg bites for real editing, and doesn't re-encode as nicely as DV. DV was designed with editing in mind, and is a far better platform. If you have one of those horrible DVD video cameras, or are capturing direct to mpeg becuase you only have 5gb of disk space to work in, then redwudz pretty much covered the bases.

If you have a DV camera, and work in DV (and as you are using WMM, I'll assume this to be the case), you could consider Premiere Elements, a cut-down version of Premiere for the consumer market. It's immediate competition is the Vegas Movie Studio suite, which is a cut down version of Vegas and DVD Architect. Both are reasonably priced, and will allow you to work happily with DV footage. Both have certain restrictions in the ability to use plugins, script actions, and use other video formats, but for these features you need to pay $$$s.

[edlomon]

i have looked at Premiere Elements and im saving for that now and i also thought about vegas movie studio as both looked good to me and has a decent looking price tag for what i wish to do.

[guns1inger]

As a VEgas user, I would favour Vegas Movie Studio, but if you already have Premiere experience and like it . . .

[edlomon]

i like it but i dont have the money to buy it

the elements version i can afford but i never tried that one yet, only the pro version which i get to use for projects at school.

but i have seen the vegas movie studio and i like that too so i might look into that.

do you know if that has a 30-day trial or anything for me to try out?

[guns1inger]

Yep -> http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/products/showproduct.asp?pid=977

[edlomon]

great thanks