recommedation for editing OTHER than premiere

[saggitarius]

I would like some opinions on some editing programs OTHER than Premiere.

I have a bunch of MPEG2 files that I have captured from various sources (Super 8, VHS and MiniDV) and want to cut out specific clips and then put them all back together with different transitions, voice overs (narration) and also have text appear on some clips as well. I have tried Premiere Pro 7.0, but when I would begin compiling my clips into the timeline, the colours would go all out of whack on both the preview and the editing windows. See original thread https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?p=1688253 for more information.

I uninstalled that version and then installed 6.5, but I kept getting errors on that one too, so out it went.

What other programs could I use that are of a similar nature to Premiere? I had Ulead VideoStudio installed before, but I didn't like that I couldn't place the clips exactly where I wanted to (the first clip always snapped to the beginning when I wanted a five second black screen with a title on it and then have the first clip fade in) Premiere Elements is out of the question because my processor doesn't support SSE2.

TIA

[byteguy]

Personally, I use EditStudio from PureMotion and it works fine with my MPEG2 source files (just watch your field order on the output). It's an easy program to get in to, has a HUGE amount of power once you learn (and turn off some of the "helper" settings), and has a great forum for support. Also, they offer a free-trial.

[SLK001]

Sounds like you need to learn AVISynth. It will do all of the effects that you mentioned.

[Marvingj]

Try Sony Vegas, its pretty cool...

[saggitarius]

Sounds like you need to learn AVISynth. It will do all of the effects that you mentioned.

Where is the best place to learn this program. I have used it before, but only using pre-authored scripts to do specific tasks like de-telecine when I was ripping DVD to SVCD. Is there a book that could be ordered online? I have seen one for VirtualDub at Amazon. And, I am having difficulty grasping how AviSynth could do this the way that a program such as Premiere does. In Premiere, I would view the clip, then mark my in and out points before adding it to the timeline. Some clips I have are well over 30 minutes long, but I only want to extract a small portion of this for my video. Many times there are several small clips I would like to extract from the larger one.

As for the other two mentioned, I am going to check if there are perhaps trial versions of these programs before I commit to either. I have heard good things about Vegas, so I might go for that one first.

Thanks

[guns1inger]

Mpeg is not designed for editing, so most editors struggle with it. Even Vegas doesn't like it much, although it will work with it. However it decompresses it to the timeline, so you have to re-encode it - something else that mpeg doesn't like much.

Womble Mpeg Wizard is an editor designed purely for mpeg editing. It has a range of effects, transitions and titles, and will only re-encode the parts that change, not the whole thing.

I use Vegas for most of my work, but I use Womble for editing mpeg footage.

[SLK001]

There is no book that I know of. Basic AVISynth usage can be learned by reading most of the stickies at http://forum.doom9.org/forumdisplay.php?f=33 and by perusing the documents that come with the program. What you want to do is basic editing stuff that uses the internal filters of the program, so you won't have to learn and external plugins (but you will want to expand your capability with AVISynth by incorporating some of the many excellent plugins available).

Here's and example script for what you want to do:

mpeg2source=("Your_Path\yourvideo.d2v")

clip1=trim(500,600)
clip2=trim(800,900)
clip3=trim(2000,3000)

clip0=BlankClip(clip1,length=30)

output=clip0+fadeio(clip1)+fadeio(clip2)+fadeio(clip3)

converttoyv12(output)

This is untested code created "off the hip", so it may have a syntax error or two. But this is the general idea.

For the record, I have both Premiere and After Effects. For what I do, I have pretty much tossed Premiere into the trash bin. After Effects is used very little. I know how to use both programs, but I find that the output from AVISynth is superior to the output of Premiere.

[SLK001]

You can also use DISSOLVE to get some overlap in the joining of your clips (one is fading out while the other is fading in).

[saggitarius]

Mpeg is not designed for editing, so most editors struggle with it.

So I was wrong in converting my AVI files to DVD compliant MPEG2? All my caps were DV Type 1 (even my VHS and 8mm ones, I used AV/DV passthru on my camcorder to cap them) when I originally did them, then did some colour and noise reduction with vdub. The files that came out of THAT were HUGE, mostly 25 Gigs for clips that were maybe 1/2 hour or less. I fed these bloated files to TMPEGEnc and used the DVD specs to make the mpegs. I now have about 45 gigs of these files on another HDD on my machine. Is the suggestion to scrap all these and go back to the AVI files? If so, I think I need to look at what codecs I can use to get them a bit smaller, I don't have a couple of terrabytes of disc space to work with!

[SLK001]

Use the HUFFYUV codec to reduce the size of the output from VirtualDub. But 25GB is too much for 1/2 hour of video, even without any compression. It should be closer to 15GB. With HUFFYUV, is would be approximately 6GB.

I don't have a couple of terrabytes of disc space to work with!

This is the nature of this profession/hobby. I have 666GB of storage and it still isn't enough... I'm thinking of upgrading to over 1TB of storage.

If you have to use MPEG2 as your intermediate format (for size reasons), then make your first encode at a very high bitrate (MAX your encoder out). This will minimize quality loss on your final product.

[Relayerman]

A full-featured editor for doing all of what you want is Serif's MoviePlus5

wwww.serif.com

I use it exclusively if edits are more complex than just removing frames or sections. You can have multiple video tracks (picture in picture, for example), multiple audio tracks, transitions, add text, add stills, envelopes, etc. Its pretty decent. Their inlcuded DVD authoring tool is lame, though, so I use TMPG DVD Author 2 for authoring.

Serif's published price may be too expensive for some, but they might give you a discount if you talk to them or ask if they have any specials. They are pretty flexible and their support is great. They actually read their forum posts and act quickly on just about everything.

I personally tried MoviePlus 4 because I have been using their Desktop Publishing app for years and it was so good. MoviePlus 5 is a step above MoviePLus 4, but you may get version 4 for cheap and it would still do what you want.

Relayerman

[saggitarius]

This is the nature of this profession/hobby. I have 666GB of storage and it still isn't enough... I'm thinking of upgrading to over 1TB of storage.

I know, I already have 560 G of storage on my system as well, but then again, alot of that is music and other stuff. I really should do some cleaning.......some day.

If you have to use MPEG2 as your intermediate format (for size reasons), then make your first encode at a very high bitrate (MAX your encoder out). This will minimize quality loss on your final product.

When I encoded my clips, I used TMPEGEnc at the DVD settings, using 95 percent quality settings and 2000/8000 min/max for the bitrate. That should be sufficient enough (?)

I will check my settings on vdub. I can definitely say that I didn't use the huffyuv codec, I am not sure which codec I did use, I think I just left it as default, so it was probably the MJPEG codec (?) Compression on that one is........ almost none?

I downloaded a trial version of the editone v5 today and messed a bit with it. I like it so far. Has a sort of Premiere-ish feel to it. I just don't know about the near $200 price tag. I am going to look into some other ones also mentioned here. I did also notice it uses AVIsynth for something, as it installed it during the installation process. AVIsynth is some freaking wicked video processing tool, just so much to learn and so little (available to me) time!

Thanks again everyone for the comments, keep em coming if you have em!

[Rudyard]

saggitarious,

Im not an expert and do this for fun, but if you used 2000min/8000max that means you used a variable bitrate as opposed to a constant bitrate, which means that if this is an intermediate format some parts of your vid will be as low as 2000mb/s and then you will reencode that for the final encode.

I think the earlier poster was recomending maxing out your encoder using a CBR (constant bit rate) so that whatever part of your vid you need to reencode for the final product is coming from a maximum bitrate (in turn quality) MPEG2 source.

As for ULEAD videostudio, if the snapping to the beginning is the only issue, insert a blank black picture into the timeline first and then use the crossfade transition to fade into your first clip.

Personally I use Sony Vegas and find it very comfortable to use.

[guns1inger]

if you are editing then re-encoding then you should be encoding CBR at 15,000 kbps the first time around.

Huffyuv and Lagarith are both great lossless compressors, however the results will be at least twice the size of your DV files.

[thecoalman]

So I was wrong in converting my AVI files to DVD compliant MPEG2? All my caps were DV Type 1 (even my VHS and 8mm ones, I used AV/DV passthru on my camcorder to cap them) when I originally did them, then did some colour and noise reduction with vdub. The files that came out of THAT were HUGE, mostly 25 Gigs for clips that were maybe 1/2 hour or less.

I'd suggest going back and recapturing to DV-AVI. Edit and output as DV-AVI. If you're going to MPEG only do it once after you've done your filtering and editing.

The Ulead products are another alternative that won't reencode MPEG if you want to stick with your current files.

[saggitarius]

Wow, all this stuff is real informative.

All original files WERE encoded as DV-AVi, even the 8mm and vhs stuff, using AV/DV passthru on my MiniDV camcorder. So, coalman, are you suggesting that I just cap all my vids to DV-AVI, which ends up to be roughly 13 G per hour of tape? Or are you suggesting that I determine PRECISELY which portions of which clips I intend to use (be it 30 seconds or 30 minutes) and leave these as DV-AVI for my project.

I think my dillemma is the fact that I don't know exactly how I want my final product to look right yet. I need to comb thru all my footage to detremine how I want to proceed. It is mostly footage of my kids when they were very young and also some current stuff as well. I was thinking of doing something like a documentary. I already have an idea with some of my daughters stuff, I have a bunch of different clips when we were feeding her, so I was going to say something like, "well she liked to eat.... and eat.... and eat... and eat..... and all that eating led to....(clip of me making a face as I change her diaper)" and just different things such as that.

I guess I need to invest in some more storage, perhaps a 500G internal. I don;t have much more room in my case!

[guns1inger]

Get an external drive. They may not be the best for capture, but they are certainly fast enough for editing and rendering. Cap to an internal drive, then shift to the external for editing. And the price premium for external drives is now so small that it isn't really an issue.

[thecoalman]

All original files WERE encoded as DV-AVi, even the 8mm and vhs stuff, using AV/DV passthru on my MiniDV camcorder. So, coalman, are you suggesting that I just cap all my vids to DV-AVI, which ends up to be roughly 13 G per hour of tape? Or are you suggesting that I determine PRECISELY which portions of which clips I intend to use (be it 30 seconds or 30 minutes) and leave these as DV-AVI for my project.

You use them as source files for final encoding to MPEG. An example work flow using Ulead would be to capture, create a new project. there you can cut, filter, edit, transitions or whatever the case may be. Export as MPEG once.

The DV-AVI files can be deleted when you done if you wish. However I would keep them for future projects.