Recommended Video Editing Software

[Crushdepth]

Anyone got any suggestions on video editing software?

My work wants me to produce a short video training guide on breeding grouper - they bought a fairly normal consumer video camera (I think Hitachi?) and are currently off somewhere taking some footage of various steps in the process. I haven't messed with video much before but I'm sure I'll be needing to extract footage from various clips and to string them back together in some sort of order with a voice over, possibly with subtitles.

Is there anything out there that is good, intuitive and preferably (but not essentially) open source?

Thanks.

[bubba]

You didn't say which platform you were using, but if you are using a Macintosh, it comes with iMovie already installed. That's probably everything you would need for a short training film as you described, and it's free. And very intuitive and easy to use.

[Crushdepth]

I'm using windows XP at work and Vista at home. I have Ubuntu dual boot on my laptop but I'm not terribly competent with it yet. Don't have access to a mac, but thanks anyway!

Edited May 8, 2008 by Crushdepth

[The Vulcan]

Both Vista and XP come with Windows Movie Maker - very easy to use. Shoot the video, drop it on your desktop, drag in the clips and modify as you like. You can adjust length of clips, add sound and effects (fade in - fade out, subtitles, captions etc)

For a little more flexibility try Cyberlink Power Director - somewhat more complicated but produces some nice effects

Hope this helps

[bubba]

Forgot to include the link, just in case:

http://www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/

[JimsKnight]

Sony Vegas isn't bad, good for editing, plenty of guides on how to use it on youtube as well

[tominbkk]

I concur with vulcan. Windoze Movie Maker and Cyberlink Powerdirector both do pretty much what anyone needs for standard movies - soundtracks, voice overlays, transitions, special effects, titles, etc. WMM is freely available with XP and Vista, while you are supposed to pay for Cyberlink PD. I use PD mostly because my video camera has .mod output which I need to edit in PD, unless I convert it.

At any rate, they are both easy to learn and are really quite powerful programs. The next step up is adobe premeire/premeire elements, which has a huge learning curve over these programs.

[edwardandtubs]

Sony Vegas isn't bad, good for editing, plenty of guides on how to use it on youtube as well

I tried it out but it doesn't support mpg files, which is what my SONY camera produces.

[Crushdepth]

Ok thanks, I'll give the movie maker a go. I might post the draft video back here for some criticism when its ready, too.

[freitag1]

Easy... the best for Mac is Final Cut and the best for Pc is Adobe Premiere. As we speak about PCs here forget about Sony Vegas, Ulead or Pinnacle Studio. They are no match to the latest Adobe Premiere but be warned.. for some users Adobe Premiere causes some problems on their computer (especially if you have a Realtek soundcard).

I disagree that Adobe Premiere has a huge learning curve. It is really straight forward and especially the latest version CS3 has made amazing improvements in usability. If you just want to use basic features Elements will do.

Edited May 10, 2008 by freitag1

[Crushdepth]

Ok so I took a look at Windows Movie Maker. It looks quite handy except that it has one serious limitation - very little flexibility in saving your movie. You can't specify the frame size you want it encoded at, change the frame rate or control the compression unless you use one of about four pre-canned options. So, I guess I'll have to have a look at adobe premiere, or maybe just look at re-encoding the final product with virtualdub/divx or auto gordian knot.

I'm amazed at how easy it is to embed a youtube video in a website though, that's cool.

[learnthaipodcast]

I second freitag1s recommendation. Final Cut and Adobe Premiere are unbeatable when it comes to usability and features. We started with Adobe Premiere Elements and then upgraded to the real deal Adobe Premiere (even though we would love to have Final Cut but our Macs are too old).

Download the Premiere Elements trial version from Adobe.com and see if it suits your needs. It can already do most editing tasks a home user would want and I think it is less than 100$ right now.

Edited June 7, 2008 by learnthaipodcast