What's the best video editing software?

[leeon]

Hi all,

So what do you guys think is the best video editor software out there which matches these criteria: 1- affordable 2- professional functionality 3- easy to learn

I think it's the question of many novice users like me so thanks for taking the time to answer this important question.

Which of these video editors do you think is the right choice: http://techalook.com/softwares/best-video-editing

[hech54]

Just do a search. Asked and answered HUNDREDS of times.
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/373936-Need-some-help-with-choosing-a-video-editing-program

[LMotlow]

Hi all,

So what do you guys think is the best video editor software out there which matches these criteria: 1- affordable 2- professional functionality 3- easy to learn

I think it's the question of many novice users like me so thanks for taking the time to answer this important question.

You can't have "professional capability" and the other two elements together. Pro software is anything but cheap or easy to learn. No one can recommend anything specific because no one knows what you mean by "edit". No one knows what kind of video you're working with, how it was created, what codecs or other factors were used, whether you want simple cut and join "edits" or something more complicated like restoration/improvement, or what you want for final delivery format. We know nothing about your hardware setup or what part of the world you live in. We don't know if you want to work with lossless media the way pros usually do or if you just want simple push-button automation (which won't give you "professional capability" to begin with). More info, please.

[smrpix]

Start with Sony Movie Studio ($20 at B&H.) If it doesn't meet your needs upgrade to the pro version. Same interface, one learning curve. Free trial here:https://www.videohelp.com/software/Vegas-Movie-Studio

[vkmast]

Start with Sony Movie Studio ($20 at B&H.) If it doesn't meet your needs upgrade to the pro version. Same interface, one learning curve. Free trial here:https://www.videohelp.com/software/Vegas-Movie-Studio

You need to notice here though that the low price quoted seems to apply to the (very) basic Movie Studio 13 version. OTOH, the videohelp.com link gives you Movie Studio 13 Platinum, which is more advanced and recommended anyway. The page does not seem to make a clear distinction between these two programs.
The new GUI of MS/MSP v 13 with the bigger buttons is a bit different from the previous versions and Vegas Pro now, but that's not too much of a problem if you want to upgrade.

[pepegot1]

He is right-pro software is not cheap or easy to learn. A very good and competent program is Corel VideoStudio Pro X8.5. The price is $70.00 for the Ultimate version, which I highly recommend. There is also an excellent forum at: http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewforum.php?f=1 Sony software has a much deeper learning curve than VS and is not as easy to use. VS has improved much over the last couple of versions. You can get a free trail from Corel to see for yourself. Try both Sony and Corel to see for yourself (the best judge of all.)

[PuzZLeR]

The number one criteria for me is an editor's ability to smart-render (or similar expression) given a video format, otherwise it's useless. Nothing is more annoying with an editor when it insists on (re-)encoding your video and audio streams unnecessarily, especially if it's only cuts and joins. This just adds time and kills quality.

Re-encoding is inevitable among the few frames near the cuts and joins among non-intra-frame formats, and impossible without it on other more complex situations (such as filters) - I get it - but an editor should be intelligent enough to determine which frames don't need any (re-)encoding.

Having said that, it is necessary then to use different editors if you use a good variety of formats, such as for lossless/DV/MPEG-2/MPEG-4/etc., since some editors do better in one format over another.

A starting point question is, what format do you wish to edit?

[sum_guy]

There are always the old standby free editors, NCH Video Pad Editor (Free for non-commercial use), Aviutl (Extremely powerful), Virtualdub etc.

[budwzr]

The number one criteria for me is an editor's ability to smart-render (or similar expression) given a video format, otherwise it's useless.

In the Sony product, smart render only occurs using Mpeg-2 codec. Aka MXF. So you'll need to your source material in Mpeg-2 or MXF format.

[PuzZLeR]

There are always the old standby free editors, NCH Video Pad Editor (Free for non-commercial use), Aviutl (Extremely powerful), Virtualdub etc.

Lately, my editor is indeed VirtualDub + AviSynth for my lossless streams, since much of it is from VHS and it all goes together with my filtering, and Audacity for the audio. It's a bit more work for setup, and needs some demuxing and remuxing, but very reliable and effective. My edits aren't complicated, just cuts, joins, crops, and cross-fades with certain scenes.

For anybody interested:
For when only needing simple smart-rendering with VirtualDub, just use Direct Stream (Video->Direct stream copy).
For smart-rendering audio with Audacity, make sure all Dithering is disabled. (Edit->Preferences->Quality->Dither->None (but set your sampling correct)).

[PuzZLeR]

The number one criteria for me is an editor's ability to smart-render (or similar expression) given a video format, otherwise it's useless.

In the Sony product, smart render only occurs using Mpeg-2 codec. Aka MXF. So you'll need to your source material in Mpeg-2 or MXF format.

You mean it re-renders everything else, including DV, and lossless (like HuffYUV)?

(Re-rendering lossless wouldn't be such a bad thing assuming the color space is correct, however it would be unnecessarily more time consuming.)

As per MPEG-2, Womble handles it very nicely.

[poisondeathray]

The number one criteria for me is an editor's ability to smart-render (or similar expression) given a video format, otherwise it's useless.

In the Sony product, smart render only occurs using Mpeg-2 codec. Aka MXF. So you'll need to your source material in Mpeg-2 or MXF format.

You mean it re-renders everything else, including DV, and lossless (like HuffYUV)?

(Re-rendering lossless wouldn't be such a bad thing assuming the color space is correct, however it would be unnecessarily more time consuming.)

DV smart renders, some types of mpeg2 like xdcam , hdv - some types of AVCHD, and some types of lossless codecs smart render (it can be "finicky" , you have to match the settings precisely for MPEG2 and AVCHD - ie. it can be difficult to "convince" it to work)

But lossless YUV codecs aren't handled as YUV in vegas, so they aren't really lossless (no compression lossess but there is a colorspace conversion)

[PuzZLeR]

Thanks for the update. I was looking at new editors, but I simply don't trust them. I believe many of their devs are short-sighted among many things.

VirtualDub+AviSynth+Audacity does involve more pre and post work, but I have confidence in the reliability and effectiveness of them. I know they're not doing anything wonky under the hood.

And is it just me, or has VideoStudio gotten quite awkward since 2012-ish? I've been using this editor for years before, but haven't updated now in a couple of years.

DV smart renders, some types of mpeg2 like xdcam , hdv - some types of AVCHD, and some types of lossless codecs smart render (it can be "finicky" , you have to match the settings precisely for MPEG2 and AVCHD - ie. it can be difficult to "convince" it to work)

If DV doesn't smart render with this editor then it's not worth its salt. But as for the rest, it sounds like too much pain for me.

But lossless YUV codecs aren't handled as YUV in vegas, so they aren't really lossless (no compression lossess but there is a colorspace conversion)

RGB conversions aren't necessarily really "lossy" either, but yes, can have other issues. What I like about VirtualDub is that you can play with this with Fast recompress and Normal recompress as you know, which in my opinion is a much more lucid render - at least you know what's going on.

[poisondeathray]

DV smart renders, some types of mpeg2 like xdcam , hdv - some types of AVCHD, and some types of lossless codecs smart render (it can be "finicky" , you have to match the settings precisely for MPEG2 and AVCHD - ie. it can be difficult to "convince" it to work)

If DV doesn't smart render with this editor then it's not worth its salt. But as for the rest, it sounds like too much pain for me.

DV smart renders without problems - it's the other formats that can have a many different variations which can give it problems .

But lossless YUV codecs aren't handled as YUV in vegas, so they aren't really lossless (no compression lossess but there is a colorspace conversion)

RGB conversions aren't necessarily really "lossy" either, but yes, can have other issues. What I like about VirtualDub is that you can play with this with Fast recompress and Normal recompress as you know, which in my opinion is a much more lucid render - at least you know what's going on.

RGB <=> YUV is always lossy . They are non overlapping color models (some values have no representation), and you have rounding errors

The one exception is a special lossless transform where conversion to RGB is actually stored as YUV (it's not a true conversion to RGB)

[PuzZLeR]

DV smart renders, some types of mpeg2 like xdcam , hdv - some types of AVCHD, and some types of lossless codecs smart render (it can be "finicky" , you have to match the settings precisely for MPEG2 and AVCHD - ie. it can be difficult to "convince" it to work)

If DV doesn't smart render with this editor then it's not worth its salt. But as for the rest, it sounds like too much pain for me.

DV smart renders without problems - it's the other formats that can have a many different variations which can give it problems .

RGB <=> YUV is always lossy . They are non overlapping color models (some values have no representation), and you have rounding errors

Yes, didn't say there weren't issues with this conversion. Visually among the passive user it's not a big deal though, but, honestly, my point being is that I believe an RGB conversion is IMO a naïveness or laziness on the part of its devs, which contributes to my lack of confidence/trust with using many editors.

As for the other formats (outside of DV or lossless), meh, even more so, there are other editors I can play with. I do appreciate the info though.

[poisondeathray]

Visually it can be a big deal and in real life situation - because the conversion in vegas clips Y <16, Y>235 for lossless YUV intermediates such as huffyuv, lagarith, ut video codec etc... It uses the "computer RGB" conversion for those, not the "studio RGB" conversion which would preserve those.

(BTW I'm not "vegas" hating, it occurs in many other editors too)

[PuzZLeR]

Visually it can be a big deal and in real life situation - because the conversion in vegas clips Y <16, Y>235 for lossless YUV intermediates such as huffyuv, lagarith, ut video codec etc... It uses the "computer RGB" conversion for those, not the "studio RGB" conversion which would preserve those.

(BTW I'm not "vegas" hating, it occurs in many other editors too)

I haven't used Vegas, so haven't seen this visual. Maybe the other conversions I've seen were better done.

And as for badly done, yes it occurs in many editors, and has been for some time. I heard somewhere that several films from the late 90s era had some washed out colors as a result of this.

[TreeTops]

Vegas can do Studio RGB.....Here's the info from Sony...

"The Studio RGB range is more limited than the Computer RGB range. Your computer shows colors in the range from 0 (black) to 255 (white), but video formats and TVs show a range only from 16 to 235. Video shot on a video camera will likely already be in this range, but computer graphics brought in from paint programs or generated from the Vegas Pro media generators may have colors outside of the video standard range and you may get inferior and unexpected results when you (or your viewers) view the video on a TV. The Computer RGB to Studio RGB preset converts from computer color to studio color in a controlled manner so that your video will look nice on a TV. If you are using computer-generated content in something going out to video, you need to apply the Computer to Studio preset, and if you are using video-sourced material for streaming output, you may want to apply the Studio to Computer preset. Keep in mind that many consumer video cameras produce black levels below 16, and frequently white levels above 235, so if you stretch and clamp these you’ll get crushed blacks and whites. So you may skip it in those cases or create a slightly less aggressive filter tuned to your camera."

[poisondeathray]

Vegas can do Studio RGB.....Here's the info from Sony...

"The Studio RGB range is more limited than the Computer RGB range. Your computer shows colors in the range from 0 (black) to 255 (white), but video formats and TVs show a range only from 16 to 235. Video shot on a video camera will likely already be in this range, but computer graphics brought in from paint programs or generated from the Vegas Pro media generators may have colors outside of the video standard range and you may get inferior and unexpected results when you (or your viewers) view the video on a TV. The Computer RGB to Studio RGB preset converts from computer color to studio color in a controlled manner so that your video will look nice on a TV. If you are using computer-generated content in something going out to video, you need to apply the Computer to Studio preset, and if you are using video-sourced material for streaming output, you may want to apply the Studio to Computer preset. Keep in mind that many consumer video cameras produce black levels below 16, and frequently white levels above 235, so if you stretch and clamp these you’ll get crushed blacks and whites. So you may skip it in those cases or create a slightly less aggressive filter tuned to your camera."

Yes it can - with native camera formats, such as DV, AVCHD, XDCam, XAVC, etc.. They get studio RGB treatment by default - which is good in terms of preserving <16 , >235. But for lossless YUV codecs (such as lagarith in yuv mode, huffyuv, ut video in yuv mode etc..) - they get computer RGB treatment, thus they are not "lossless" in vegas - not only because of the YUV to RGB loss, but also because of the clipping (the latter is easily visible even to regular "joe public")

You cannot "recover" those after it has been clipped - those values are gone. Studio to RGB or Computer to RGB preset won't help.

[pandy]

The one exception is a special lossless transform where conversion to RGB is actually stored as YUV (it's not a true conversion to RGB)

Or YCoCg-R.

[kabarovsky]

I've tried several applications from the most simplest like Windows Movie Maker to some more sophisticated like Camstasia Studio, Vegas and Adobe Premiere. The last one is #1 for me.