What's so bad about VSCD and what should I use instead?

[techoguy]

Hi all,
I've been reading over a few topics here and trying to get a better idea of what NLE software is best to use for me.

I'm new to editing but want to do more than a lot of the basic editors provide (like Windows Movie Maker).
Some key things I'm looking for are:

• Chroma Key
• Support Alpha Channel in PNG, GIF, and Videos
• Basic Movements of objects
• Masking and cropping objects
• Easier to create unique effects and copy them to new objects as needed
• Support 4K video

Basically, I want to make a general template that holds all the effects and texts such that I can easily drop new video and quickly edit texts fields for new videos with all the same general effects. ideally I want a tool that allows me to do that. I expect it to take a lot of work to make the first video, then very little time for all the new videos.

At this point I don't really want to spend too much money so I've been looking at free versions to at least test out. I'll consider paid versions if I think it's really worth it, I just have a hard time knowing if the tool is really worth it because of all their unique learning curves.

I've noticed Lightworks and Blender but the free version of Lightworks is limited and seemed pretty hard to get off the ground and Blender seemed to be more animation than a video editor (I could be wrong).

So like most I found VSCD and have been testing it. But now I read on this site that many of the knowledgeable users on this site seem to hate or frown upon the use of VSCD. That seems to be clear with the lack of responses to and threads regarding VSCD.

So firstly, I was curious what is so bad about VSCD compared to other options? It seems to be so much more powerful than other free tools and even some sub $100 solutions. I definitely wouldn't suggest it's use for someone just trying to put some videos together with some simple texts but it allows a lot of custom effects.
I've only been playing with it for a day or so and created this:

https://youtu.be/jwb3Qgm3Ddo

Now this is only something I was playing with to see what I can do with it so the graphics are crap and it doesn't make much sense but all the animation (or simply movements) was done in VSCD.
one thing I loved about VSCD is the ability to create curves along time that adjust effects like zoom, fade, rotation (that's how the yellow thing is rotating), etc.
But I'm not here to sale anyone on VSCD, because there are things I don't like either, like you can't copy a set of effects from one object to another (can only copy one effect at a time), and the lack of tutorials, support, etc. Overall the work flow is slow and redundant when making changes.

If I shouldn't use VSCD what other software should I really spend some time to learn? at this point I would like to try and stay below $200 and I really prefer solutions that have a trial period to be able to test it. Oh, and I have looked at Sony solutions and it seemed that I would need Vegas Pro which cost substantially more which made me pass on it.

Lightworks is on the top of my list right now (especially because they are having a 50% sale for the outright version) but before I dove into another solution sense they all have a high learning curve, I was hoping to hear opinions from the experts here.

Thanks in advance for any advice given!

[smrpix]

Check out the free trials of Premiere Pro and Sony Vegas Pro. You'll end up buying Vegas Movie Studio, Pro's little brother. I don't see anything in your requirements movie studio can't do.

[techoguy]

Check out the free trials of Premiere Pro and Sony Vegas Pro. You'll end up buying Vegas Movie Studio, Pro's little brother. I don't see anything in your requirements movie studio can't do.

Thanks for the quick reply!
by any chance can you elaborate on why I should try those over lightworks, blender, and VSCD? I'm just trying to understand what makes these different/better than others.

I originally took Sony Movie Studio 13 Suite off my list because on the comparison page http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/moviestudiopp/compare it shows that only the Vegas Pro has "4k project support (up to 4096x4096)". Of course I couldn't find what the Movie Studio version could actually support or export.
Looking at it again, the Movie Studio Suite is on Amazon for less than $100, so that looks like something i'll definitely look at again.

[smrpix]

by any chance can you elaborate on why I should try those over lightworks, blender, and VSCD? I'm just trying to understand what makes these different/better than others.

I would encourage you to try ALL of them and see what makes the most sense to you. Ultimately you are the one that will have to use it on a daily basis. Take the time to understand how each of them work, how stable they are, what their lmitations are, which workflow you're most comfortable with.