What's the Best Movie Making Software?

I would have thought it would be Adobe Premiere but I found it too complicated to handle, right up front where it asked about presets. I went to an Adobe forum and got laughed at and told I should get some professional equipment and the correct sort of data and get some education before I tried using such a wonderful piece of gear as Adobe.

What a bunch of whackers, I thought, and veered right off Adobe straightaway.

So now I use Nero when I want to make a movie.

ALL my movies are made from my little digital camera .avi files. I just want a few nice transitions now and then, the ability to cut and join, of course, and the ability to put in sound tracks here and there, play with the sound a bit.

They're just little things to burn to DVD and let the wife and kids see how smart I am and how amusing they are in their daily play.

That's all.

I like to put in some of the cellphone movies and stills, too.

And it should be as slick and easy as possible, of course, that's the point. Zoom up and down along the timeline or whatever, view what's happening, what you've made.

I've tried a couple of other things. Windows movie maker. Ulead movie maker. And even more.

But I haven't found a place I'm happy with yet.

So it is time I asked the experts.

What should I be using for my humble efforts?

Any clues?

regards,

ab

 

You Might want to try Pinnacle's Studio 12. It's a Pay Program. It is almost like Nero, But with More Toys. You May Never be totally Happy with any 1 Program.

 

I consider myself a newbie in this area, but I have had good luck with Sony Vegas. Little bit of a learning curve, but despite going in blind, was eventually able to do everything I wanted to do with it within a total of about 5 hours over a couple of days.

 

I use TMPGEnc Express and TMPG DVD Author. They are not free but have free trial editions.

I couldn't have asked for anything simpler.

 

You wont get much more simple and straight forward for jobs like this than Nero and I've tried everything mentioned except for TMPGEnc Express and TMPG DVD Author. Is there something you cant specifically do in Nero abrogard, that you wish you could? Nero wont read cellphone files but most the others dont either, you need to convert the file to something friendlier first.

 

Thanks for all the suggestions, guys, I'll work through them.

I forget what first turned me off Nero so I went back there just now to check and I found that when I go into 'make movie' I can drag video clips (from the digital camera) into there and it'll open the first frame and show them, but it won't play them.

The marker moves across the slide as though it is playing them but the picture just stays there on the first frame, like a still.

So I don't know what I didn't like at first, but I do know what I don't like now.

Anyone got any idea what the cure for this is? Reinstall?

ab

 

Adobe Premiere Elements is quite good also.

 

spam edited by ddp

 

hello everybody. this is gonna be my first posting im excited

@abrogard: as far as i can read out of ur posting, u r kind of beginner-advanced in video editing, right?
and i can fully understand ur problem ...until now i almost used every single programm downloadable coz i was never really satisified..
what i can tell u is that i would recommend u: MAGIX Movie Edit Pro
im still usin' it and it is probably the best for u, as it has plenty of features and its easy to use (which is from capital importance )

i think they have trail versions on their website...i found a video too
check it if u like..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oMSKgeGPMs

bye bye

 

Well thanks for that, pachelbel, I downloaded the trial and have begun trialling it.

It passed the first test, no problem. I fed it one of my cellphone movies - that's in .3gp format - and one of my canon digital camera movies - that's in canon's .avi format.

And I told it to string 'em together and make an avi file.

And it did. No problem. And I ran the .avi and it's cool.

So there's more testing to do but right there it's ahead of everything else I know about.

regards,

ab

 

good to here, that u like my recommendation . seriously, its a pretty cool tool..im happy with it.

 

Ok here s a question on a related subject would anyone be willing to recommend a software thats great for DVD authoring and encoding. I dont like Nero anymore although i did use it for over 5 yrs admittedly its just that i want to start making more professional looking menus like in the factory released original DVD's . or atleast something more flexible than nero. I tried Ulead DVD Movie factory 6 plus for quite a while. But it suddenly started malfunctioning in that it would still be at 4% after a whole nights encoding. I really enjoyed its menu making functions. Also i want something that allows me to put in subtitles for my avi's and what not. which nero doesnt allow u to do. Any suggestions would be welcome!

 

Try Magix.

 

Thanks Abrogard ,
I did try it a day or so ago but i got the feeling its more for video editing rather than encoding .. its not holiday vids i wanna edit neither do i wanna make home vids unto dvd's // i wanna encode tv episodes and movies onto dvds .. kind of what nero vision and ulead dvd movie factory is used for .. just with more menu making functions and the option to add subtitles. keep the suggestions coming though thanks!

 

My recommendation is the same:

I use TMPGEnc Express and TMPG DVD Author. They are not free but have free trial editions.

I couldn't have asked for anything simpler.

 

editing and format conversion.. adjust framerate from different sources etc .. avidemux .. to build a dvd from the resulting mpeg .. dvd-author .. command line and very cool sleek and fast when you get the hang of it.. making menus is an artform tho, so not for beginners..

2 excellent freeware apps that all this payware seems to be built on top of.. especially the dvd-author engine. These take a little reading the wikis and experimenting to get the best from.. I make multi episode multi language disks with animated menus.. just by editing an xml file XD

 

@abrogard,

I tried Adobe Premiere Pro for the first time and it is rather daunting at first. It took me a good 30 minutes to figure out how to crop video It took me about an hour to get comfortable with it, but I still can't do anything other than the most basic editing.

From what I gather it is similar to Sony Vegas only Vegas is easier to pick up. I used to use Vegas a lot and I loved it. If you own the software, you might as well learn to use it. If not stick with what you like.

 

I watch the boss edit wedding videos and the like with Magix .. I haven't used it.. looks a bit dodgy to me like most windoze payware... He gets good results.

The trial is probably worth a look.. if you like it pm me. I have a full one here unused and never registered. Came preinstalled on a vista media center pc XD

 

I'd like to go the way you suggest, Varnull, with freeware or open source stuff, much my preferred option. But I think there's a bit of a learning curve isn't there? And maybe you've got to be a bit smarter than I am . Despite my lofty hopes and ambitions I always finish up taking the easy way out, just so's I can get something done now instead of next year.

that's why I gave up on Premiere, great though it is supposed to be. If it can't explain itself to me in half and hour ( half a minute? ) it's no use to me.

The experts devoted to such as Premiere always claim people such as I with that attitude are much in the wrong and culpably lazy and stupid and we really should get to night school and study or something.

But I reckon computing is about getting things done. The programmer does the worrying and writes a prog that hides all the hassles from you and enables you to do magic things.

Which actual dvd author prog are you referring to? And where do we get it?

 

i'd recommend ulead dvdmoviefactory and womble mpeg video wizard dvd