The best program for editing?

[FredAstair]

Hi there.

I'm totally newbie at this whole movie editing thing.
The case is, i want to edit in some snowboard recordings i have made, but i want to be using the best program from the start, so i don't have to learn another program after a while.
I've heard Sony Vegas Pro is good, but some say Adobe Premiere Pro + Adobe After Effects is really pro.

What do all you hardcore editors use?
The prize doesn't matter.

Cheers

[filmboss80]

You're about the 8000th person to ask the unanswerable question. "Best" is relative. It depends on your source format, your targeted final output, your work style (meaning, which work area interface best suits you), your budget, your computer system capabilities, etc.

The products you mentioned are very good. "Hardcore editors" could mean a lot of things. Are you talking about Hollywood-level, broadcast television compliant, home DVD distribution, YouTube upload...what?

[FredAstair]

Yeah, you are right.

Final output is just a nice looking video, maybe for a DVD.
Nothing totally hollywood level thing, just home editing.

In future, i dream about making something like this:
http://vimeo.com/1447460?pg=embed&sec=1447460

But for now, i just need to cut together and add some music and simple effects.

[tmw]

What is your source material?

[FredAstair]

Well it is recorded with a Mini-DV camcorder.

[Seeker47]

You're about the 8000th person to ask the unanswerable question. "Best" is relative. It depends on your source format, your targeted final output, your work style (meaning, which work area interface best suits you), your budget, your computer system capabilities, etc.

The products you mentioned are very good. "Hardcore editors" could mean a lot of things. Are you talking about Hollywood-level, broadcast television compliant, home DVD distribution, YouTube upload...what?

All good points. I have the trial version of VideoRedo at the moment. But it seems like it is intended for use only on the .MPG format. My use of it has been very limited so far -- mainly to repair some bad .MPG files -- but it did reject a couple other video file formats I tried to load. So, I'm thinking the only option there might be to convert such files to MPG first, which may well have some drawbacks. It sounds reasonable to this video editing beginner that there would not be any one program that can edit any or most video formats, and do so well.

One thing that I would find very useful is if there was some kind of at-a-glance chart listing all the prevalent video formats, and which of the editing programs commonly discussed here is appropriate for editing each type of video. Ditto for demux / remux, and video repair. Then we'd have a concise roadmap of our available options. (We can then sort out the simpler from the intermediate or advanced level programs, and price levels, on our own.)

[P.S.: VLC can repair some .AVI files that have bad indexes. Just found that out.]

[lwhistler]

I use Windows Movie Maker and like it a lot.

[pepegot1]

Video Studio 12 is probably what you need. Leave the hi-powered stuff to the Pros. It produces very nice results. I use it and VideoRedo for the edits.

[edDV]

It might take you a couple or more years to become reasonably proficient with Premiere Pro CS3 and After Effects. Maybe 5 years to be job competitive.

[guns1inger]

If you just want to do home videos then I second VideoStudio as a good starting point. It handles most formats and produces good results.

If you are starting out with an eye to going somewhere with it you might consider Vegas Movie Studio or Premiere Elements. Both are cut down versions of their big brothers. You can progress up to Vegas Pro or Premiere Pro down the track without having the same learning curve.

After Effects is a higher end effects and motion graphics package, and at this stage probably more of a distraction than something you really need.

[PuzZLeR]

Let me also recommend VideoStudio.

-Very easy to learn and start using - even for full productions on the first day.
-Very inexpensive for a well rounded package - only about $100 (you can even try it for free).
-Has a great forum for any support.
-Can work with many different formats (input and output) - even mixed within your production.
-Can pretty much do it all, even much of what that sample video you posted demonstrates.
-It works.

This is where I got my start in this hobby. VS is certainly not meant to be "the best", but it's the "jack of all trades, master of none" edit software and IMO perfect for the newbie.

If your hobby progresses, then you can move on, or even invest in, more expensive or more advanced stuff, but at least VS should give you a good start, and establish a proper initial learning curve.

[zoobie]

agreed...try all the free demos first
I saw VS 11 on ebay.uk for 30 quid...even cheaper in the USA @ U$36
you can freely update to 11.5, the latest

[stiltman]

OK, I'll be the only one to recommend AvidFree (can still be found on the net even though they don't offer it anymore on avid.com) It's a cut down version of Avid Xpress Pro/Newscutter.

If you're going the TV route, it's almost a must have. Then again you'll also want to think about Edius too

Grassvalley is starting to push hard


Forgot to mention, both have VERY steep learning curves

[FredAstair]

Thanks you all for your advice.
I will start with VideoStudio, sounds like it's pretty easy Thanks!

[lordsmurf]

As a person with DV as source, I think you should look into Adobe Premiere Elements, the consumer software for making nice DVDs from DV footage. Easy to use, well-priced at under $100.

It's an entry-level version of the professional Adobe Premiere CS3, which is what I use.

[slacker]

The latest versions from Adobe are Adobe CS4 Premiere Pro which, I might add, is well worth the upgrade. The scaled down version is called Adobe Premiere Elements 7. Here is the link for the free 30-day full working trial download...

http://www.adobe.com/products/premiereel/?promoid=121DJGSC_P_US_FP2_PRE_MN&tt=P_US_FP2_PRE_MN

I have both Adobe CS4 Premiere Pro and Sony Vegas Pro. I found the learning curve less steep with Sony Vegas Pro, and both packages ultimately yield the same quality video. The scaled down version of Vegas Pro is Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum Edition version 9.0b. Here is the link for their trial download...

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/download/trials/moviestudiope

No offense to anyone but I personally found Ulead's (now Corel) VideoStudio and MediaStudio Pro products total crap compared to Premiere and Vegas.

Good luck!

[lordsmurf]

CS4 mostly added some workflow improvements that I don't need at this time. I don't see a whole lot added in terms of features. CS3 was years in the making, while CS4 was maybe a year worth of updates/upgrades.

[slacker]

lordsmurf,

I agree with your CS3/CS4 compare generally. But for the bug fixes alone...
I think Adobe has the most posts and largest discussion forum on the planet devoted to issues and problems with their software, with Premiere Pro claiming their fair share. I"ve never seen so many unhappy campers in my life with regard to software. Simply amazing.

So I figure the CS4 upgrade was completely necessary for them... A ton of fixes.
(Although still a ton of outstanding fixes or improvements to go.)

Someone in an Adobe forum recently wrote 'Adobe has created a whole new market with hundreds of companies making workarounds.' Because their software is so goddamn inefficient and buggy.

But when it works it's awesome.

Mark

[PuzZLeR]

You're about the 8000th person to ask the unanswerable question. "Best" is relative.

I agree it's a very subjective question that has also been beaten to death. And alot of other attributes play a role in the choice as well.

But I will say that we need to rehash on such "what's the best editor" threads, like this one, every once in a while. Things change. I've been editing video for years (hobby-wise for the most part) and still benefit from this. If I stuck with VideoStudio forever (which I was using primarily for MPEG-2) I would have never taken advantage of wonderful MPEG functions that newer entries like TMPGEnc MPEG Editor, VideoReDo and Womble provide - just from reading posts about them.

As a person with DV as source, I think you should look into Adobe Premiere Elements, the consumer software for making nice DVDs from DV footage. Easy to use, well-priced at under $100.

It's an entry-level version of the professional Adobe Premiere CS3, which is what I use.

OK, I'll be the only one to recommend AvidFree (can still be found on the net even though they don't offer it anymore on avid.com) It's a cut down version of Avid Xpress Pro/Newscutter.

I will say that VS is all you need for DV if you're a newbie hobbyist. However, it's posts like these that keep one eye open for me as well since I'm still exploring DV.

[zoobie]

better get used to it...especially after Christmas
doesn't sony moviestudio come with the superior cinepak codec...
or is that just pro?

[slacker]

Vegas family comparison page

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/moviestudiope/compare

[slacker]

I TAKE IT ALL BACK!

Now that I've used Premiere Pro CS4 for awhile...
IT SUCKS BIG TIME IN EVERY WAY!

Go over to http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b6da6f/ to find out just how much.

Sony Vegas or... NOTHING?
It may not have all the features of Premiere Pro (most of which are superfluous),
but it works and works and works...

Mark