Free editing sotware that's better than iMovie and easy to use?

[Karel Bata]

• I use Premiere and After Effects on a PC, but my daughter's got a 2 year old Mac laptop and wants to edit something for her art course.
  
  iMovie is pretty good at what it does, but is there something a little more professional available for free? Or very cheap?
  
  Many thanks! 8)

[terryj]

Final Cut Express can be purchased via www.apple.com/education
at a reasonable price.

[Karel Bata]

Thanks Terry. Found it http://store.apple.com/us_edu_21023/product/MB279Z/A Stiil, it's $179. But it would set her off in the right direction. Bummer that there's no upgrade route! If you buy the full package one day you've burnt $179!

I'm surprised there aren't more free/cheap packages available.Or maybe you guys feel I should have searched around a bit more? Fact is, I've come across cheap packages (and had them thrown in with hardware) for my PC, but closer inspection shows they don't cut the mustard. I thought that asking in a forum someone could quickly say "£I know what's right for you!"

FC Express, would you happen to know - are you tied to only using that on one machine? Or can you use it on multiple ones - like a laptop and desktop at the same time? I'm very tempted...

[edDV]

Thanks Terry. Found it http://store.apple.com/us_edu_21023/product/MB279Z/A Stiil, it's $179. But it would set her off in the right direction. Bummer that there's no upgrade route! If you buy the full package one day you've burnt $179!

I'm surprised there aren't more free/cheap packages available.Or maybe you guys feel I should have searched around a bit more? Fact is, I've come across cheap packages (and had them thrown in with hardware) for my PC, but closer inspection shows they don't cut the mustard. I thought that asking in a forum someone could quickly say "£I know what's right for you!"

FC Express, would you happen to know - are you tied to only using that on one machine? Or can you use it on multiple ones - like a laptop and desktop at the same time? I'm very tempted...

There are few "free" edit options for the Mac. That is Windows or Linux territory. The whole point of the Mac is to "buy" into ($ and concept) their limited way of doing things. For video editing they offer the iMovie consumer package and the Final Cut professional oriented package. FCE is good enough for the vast majority so long as you stick to the approved camcorder import formats (e.g. DV, HDV, ACVHD, XDCAM, etc.) and use their approved digital intermediate formats (Apple Intermediate Codec or ProRes422) or uncompressed under Quicktime.

Third party suppliers tend to be high end. For example.

Adobe Premiere and After Effects
AVID Media Composer

There are geekish cutters
http://fancinematoday.com/2009/04/16/4-free-video-editing-programs-for-mac/

And older legacy or specialty programs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_editing_software

[Karel Bata]

Cheers!

I was always sceptical of the Mac vs PC debate being framed as the Rebels vs the Empire, and this kind of proves it. That said, FCE does look very tempting, but the lack of an upgrade path really sucks.

Any one know if you can use it on a laptop and desktop at the same time without having to keep uninstalling it?

[edDV]

Cheers!

I was always sceptical of the Mac vs PC debate being framed as the Rebels vs the Empire, and this kind of proves it. That said, FCE does look very tempting, but the lack of an upgrade path really sucks.

Final Cut Pro only comes as part of the full $999 Final Cut Studio Package. Maybe your daughter qualifies for the academic discount. It would be rare that an "art student" would need to upgrade to FCP. FCP is targeted at production houses editing uncompressed. You will get an "upgrade" discount when FCE 4 goes to FCE 5.

Be aware that Final Cut had its origins from the original Premiere design team so the concepts are similar. You can again buy Premiere for the Mac (based on CS4, requires Intel based Mac).

[rumplestiltskin]

IIRC, the Apple software doesn't require an uninstallation to put it on two computers. It might, however, be network-aware and might complain when launched if it's already -running- (as opposed to just installed) on another Mac on your LAN.

[Karel Bata]

Cheers!

[terryj]

Rumple is correct...FCE 4.0.4 is network aware,
and two computers on the same LAN will
cause one to "knock" the other out.
Simply Turn off networking on one,
and problem is solved.

Also, although I pointed out the educational pricing
of FCE, there are alwyas good deals to be found on FCE:

Here is one.

Here is another.

And a few people who I service Macs for like their FCE install,
they say it is " a step up from iMovie" and that for what they do
(corporate presentations, school game highlight reels) it's
all they need ( not needing the full blown FC Studio).

For students, I would think it would be perfect, until they
landed an editing gig with a Studio ( TV/Film) then they
would need FCP.

[Karel Bata]

Many thanks. 8)

[sunsetandgower]

If you are using imovie 9 - ick. My suggestion would be to find a copy of ilife 6 on ebay, and install imovie 6HD. It's a completely different program than the "upgrade".

[Karel Bata]

You're saying it's better? Will it run on a recent (2 years) Mac laptop without displacing anything already there?

[rumplestiltskin]

If you already own (and have installed) any later version of iMovie, iMovieHD (v6) was a free download from Apple for those who hated the newer versions. Unfortunately, they removed the download page.

[edDV]

iMovieHD (v6) works with HDV or DV source but not directly with AVCHD or broadcast MPeg2 TS/TP files without external conversion to HDV. It is a simple NLE editor but nowhere close to the capability of Final Cut Express.

[Whuntmore]

• I use Premiere and After Effects on a PC, but my daughter's got a 2 year old Mac laptop and wants to edit something for her art course.
  
  iMovie is pretty good at what it does, but is there something a little more professional available for free? Or very cheap?
  
  Many thanks! 8)

I'm kinda in the same boat here. For Free Software, I really wish you could get Virtual dub for Mac. There is also Squared 5 for Mac and Win (http://www.squared5.com/) But I haven't used it that much. I think that's just a converter.

As far as upgrading goes, There isn't any step up from iMovie per say - It's a Pro-sumer jump to FCE. There are some plug-ins I've tried, and some I haven't. I have some Gee Three (http://www.geethree.com/) plug-ins for iMovie 06 HD, and they work pretty good. Not cheap though. It does 'upgrade' your iMovie somewhat. And not just transitions, but effects and stabilization. But like I said, they ain't cheap. At that point, Final Cut Express is almost cheaper then this route.

I have FCE 3.5 HD, and you can buy an upgrade to FCE 4.x. it's $99 Can. So, you can upgrade at this point, but you would have to have gotten FCE 3.5 first, which was like $400. So $175 isn't so bad. FCE 3.5 didn't displace anything, but from what I'm hearing my upgrade to FCE 4.x might. But I don't think it will displace any of the iMovie apps. iMovie '06 didn't displace iMovie '08. I can use them separately.

I have an iMac running Leopard with iLife 08. It came out in spring or late '07. So mine is also (over) 2 years old. I have no problems running FCE. (I hate iMovie '08, and I downloaded iMovie 06 when it was available. Much better to use.) But I'm not sure about your macbook. How much RAM does it have? Is it a Macbook Pro, or just a Macbook? You might want to check FCE hardware specs.

I use iMovie 06 to capture and rough edit, but for some reason when I export it over to FCE 3.5 (or import...) I lose the sound. Just goes beep, beep... I've ordered FCE 4.x as an upgrade. I don't know if it will have the same problems.

If you do buy FCE, some people recommend capturing in iMovie '08, and then importing it to FCE, or you could just learn to do everything from FCE.

[rumplestiltskin]

I was helping a client burn a bunch of videos to iDVD and we found QT Sync. It lets you combine a number of videos and lets you set in/out points for each video. Nowhere near as convenient as iMovie but it is free.

MPEG Streamclip will also let you edit I/O points (multiple times per clip) but then you'll have to combine the clips in a separate step.

All in all, iMovieHD (v6.0.x) is the easiest to use with the most power (and it is free if you own a Mac).

FCE and FCP actually prefer AIC (Apple Intermediate Codec) and will work best with that or DV (although other formats will work but grudgingly, at best).