Video editing software advice

[Scott88]

Hey,

I am looking to get some new video editing software for various video making, mainly from theme parks though, I was wondering if there is any patricular software that anyone could recommend to me?

There seems to be so many choices of software to pick from, but I've no idea which would be the best for editing to music without it getting too over complicated.

Any suggestions would be really helpful, thanks!

 

[jayjay]

For very simple editing with music, Windows Movie Maker is perfectly fine (I'd imagine whatever free stuff Apple bundles in would work too). I use Sony Vegas personally. It gives you more control over everything without being too overbearing or expensive. I'm not an expert on this sort of stuff though, so don't take my word for it (A Kid will be good for this sort of info).

 

[Scott88]

It's not the first time someone has recommend Sony Vegas, might have to look into it.

Thanks for the reply, anymore ideas would be really welcome.

 

[Hixee]

From my experience with Premiere Pro (which is quite a lot) and Sony Vegas (which is barely any) those two are pretty much the best 'full on' editors.

The reason I use Premiere over Song Vegas is none other than the fact that all the Adobe software talk to each other beautifully. Drag a composition with lots of layers/layer styles from Photoshop to After Effects? Sure, converted into a timeline in seconds. Full layer transparency and layer styles and everything. Then want to take your composition from After Effects in Premiere Pro? Not a problem, in a matter of seconds all effects and colour corrections are imported and ready to be edited. It's just the most slick system when working with multiple programs. I use Photoshop and After Effects, so to me the obvious choice of video editor was Premiere Pro.

Sony Vegas and Premiere definitely seem to come up a lot when these things are mentioned, and they've both got quite a good reputation behind them, so I think at the end of the day it just depends on which one you prefer using. Download the trials of each one and see which you prefer, there's no right or wrong answer.

 

[Ethan]

I use Sony Vegas Pro 11 and it's fab <3

 

[furie]

The new Live Movie maker thing is annoying, but better than Movie Maker.

The biggest issue with Movie Maker is that you're very limited on, well, everything.

It's great for very simply dumping on a new soundtrack and adding in clips (with very simple - will always look like Movie Maker - titles).

However, if you want to mix (in bits and bobs) sound here and there, you need to render, then cut and re-render, cut and re-render. It also crashes and is generally ****.

Sony Vegas is the next step up. It's very similar to Movie Maker in that it's very clear what your progression is. You can start to knock together much more complex edits very rapidly and without any real need to learn anything.

With a little play and practice, titling becomes complex (as in you can create complex titles) and adding in simple effects like picture in picture, combining videos, etc is easy to make happen. I edit all my videos in Sony Vegas, and when I'm stuck on how to do something, there are loads of YouTube videos out there that explain it to you and they tend to be very simple to do, but the complex stuff is hard to find.

So Vegas is simple for simple and simple for complex, but complex to find the complex :lol:

Adobe Premier is fantastic, but you actually do need to learn to use it. You trade off massively powerful editing ability for having to use your brain. Photoshop is the same. Once you know what you're doing and how to do it, the tools are fantastic, but you can't just sit there and go "I'll now make a video".

So it all depends on how much effort you want to put in, and how important the final results are to you. If you look at Hixee's videos, they're very "MTV", mainly because they're put together in that fashion. Mine are much simpler because they're "doing a job". I'm not creating art

Plug

Erm, using Vegas to add in "effects" to enhance the video:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qbsrj-cz244[/youtube]

Using it to produce a "rounded" video with audio mixes, "advanced" text, etc:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oJQuXPIvoA[/youtube]

 

[Hixee]

So it all depends on how much effort you want to put in, and how important the final results are to you. If you look at Hixee's videos, they're very "MTV", mainly because they're put together in that fashion. Mine are much simpler because they're "doing a job". I'm not creating art

I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not, but thanks! :lol:

 

[furie]

It is because it means that they're very "professional" looking

 

[ECG]

furie's post is quite accurate, but there's a fairly powerful tool that's very simple to use between Movie Maker & Vegas called Corel Videostudio Pro. It uses the simplest graphical interface to do just about anything that Vegas does & it's dirt cheap. Although Vegas isn't that hard & you can find instructional videos on youtube to do many things with it, there's no need for such with Videostudio. It's really that easy to use.
You can also download a trail version of Corel Videostudio Pro to try before making any decisions.
So it's really all about how much you want to spend, how much you want to use your brain & how complex your videos are going to be.
Adobe Premier > Sony Vegas > Corel Videostudio > Microsoft Movie Maker

 

[Scott88]

Thanks for the advice it has been very helpful, there is so many different choices but I didn't really know which to look at and which would be over complicated but I've certainly got a much better idea of which to look into buying now.

Sony Vegas is certainly looking the most likely out of them all.

 

[Hixee]

It is because it means that they're very "professional" looking

Haha, well thanks! Not quite got the 'lol' factor yours have thought. I'd totally forgotten how good that Tribute one was. :lol:

 

[peep]

furie's post is quite accurate, but there's a fairly powerful tool that's very simple to use between Movie Maker & Vegas called Corel Videostudio Pro. It uses the simplest graphical interface to do just about anything that Vegas does & it's dirt cheap. Although Vegas isn't that hard & you can find instructional videos on youtube to do many things with it, there's no need for such with Videostudio. It's really that easy to use.
You can also download a trail version of Corel Videostudio Pro to try before making any decisions.
So it's really all about how much you want to spend, how much you want to use your brain & how complex your videos are going to be.
Adobe Premier > Sony Vegas > Corel Videostudio > Microsoft Movie Maker

I used to use Videostudio for everything and then I noticed that after a while they'd start doing odd things, basically they seem to know when the next one is coming out so they put in a bug to kill something useful when it's due for release. So I don't recommend that one anymore despite it's amazing interface and simplicity (makes Vegas look complicated).

I use Premiere Elements now (because I'm cheap and can't be arsed to actually pay for software) and that deals with most things I need to deal with, if a little limited in some areas.