WHICH MOVIE EDITING SOFTWARE IS THE BEST

I AM LOOKING TO BUY MOVIE EDITING SOFTWARE FOR PROS AND VIDEO CARD WHICH WOULD YOU ADVISE ME TO BUY

 

This is not a bad place to start
http://www.adobe.com/products/premiereel/main.html

 

I have heard good reviews about Studio Plus version 10. You can find it here http://pcworld.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php?masterid=12432623

Also, dont type in all caps...its against forum rules.

 

Well "Pinnacle Studio 9/10" Definately Is NOT Professinal Editing Software...It is a Consuper Level home editing Program with no Truely Profesinal Features.....

Yes "Adobe Premier Pro" is a Good One and So is "Sony Vegas Video 6" and so is "Canopus Edius" and "AVID Express DV".....

One very Good Video editing Program that Rivals many Much more expensixe editing Programs But is about 1/10th the Price of the other apps and has Many Professinal Features is called "MagiX Movie Edit Pro v10" which is only a $50 program but it can Do much of what other much more expensize Programs can do....

They Market the program as a Basic 1,2,3 step Type program but it isn"t that at all....I would Recomend it to anyone who wants to do professinal Level editing without spending an arm and a Leg...

Cheers

PS: It also has Dolby AC3 audio support and Pretty Good Quality encodeing and supports HD Resolutions....

Also you can use Pretty Much any Cheap video card for Video editing, Unless you are Talking about a Capture Card in which case More Info on what you want to do would be Helpfull....

 

sry about that...i read that from PC World which gave it a good review.

 

Studio Plus version 10 is a good choice ….. even I was also planning to buy a movie Editing Software…..and therefore was doing some research work!!! Got some real good reviews see if it helps and pz let me know if it’s worth purchasing……cannot paste all the links so m directly posting the search page…….

http://www.inods.com/iNods/search.jsp?query=+Studio+Plus+version+10.&hitsPerPage=10

 

As you've asked what software is the best, then you are looking at Adobe Premier pro, but is is very hard to master and costs about £400 or $700US.
There are plenty of other good programs that will produce good results for you which are far cheaper and far easier to use.
As for Pinnacle, it is very easy to use and has plenty of add-ons for extra effects, but Pinnacle do tend to charge for every little extra possible.
Pinnacle 9 is better than Pinnacle 10, as 10 is very very slow and has some major bugs that need to be fixed with coming patches. This is against the extra features provided in 10 which are limited, the main one I can see is the ability to us ethe PC as a DVD recorder with a new feature they have incorporated.
If you are looking at digital only, and have the ability to pick things up easily and the patience and money then Premier Pro is the way to go, you can get training DVDs for it, well worth the money if you go that way.
I know people that have produced televised adverts with the Adobe software, so you are looking at top end, so not sure if you really need that.

 

Minion,

Does this magix program handle the download from camcorder to pc as well as do the editing?? I have Windows Movie Maker on my cpu currently and it handled the transfer (download) process. I then edited the footage and created a movie. Let me just say that the video quality was horrible. I am thinking that letting MovieMaker handle the transfer is half the problem. I don't have an expensive camera (canon ZR200), so I can't afford to lose alot of resolution in the process of downloading/editing and converting of files. I am looking for your opinion on what programs I should be using to handle the various tasks involved with getting a home video onto a DVD that can be viewed on any DVD player. I don't need to get real fancy with lots of special effects. Simple to use programs that don't sacrifice quality are my cup of tea. Thanks.

 

Hi, MagiX Movie Edit Pro Can Capture from a DV Camcorder in it"s Native DV AVI format so there is no Loss of Quality from what is on the MiniDV Tape to what is Captured to your PC....

It can also Capture from Regular TV tuner Cards and From Hardware Mpeg Encoder Cards and from Analogue Digital Converters Like the Canopus ADVC Line...and it can also capture to a Number of different Formats but with DV Camcorders it should capture to DV AVI.....

The Mpeg encoder Built into MagiX is Fairly good so you should not Loose Much quality when you Go from your DV Camcorder to DVD useing MagiX...(Yes MagiX also has DVD authoring Capibilities and a Dolby AC3 audio encoder but I haven"t tried these Features yet)

The Reason why the Output from Movie Maker is so Bad is probably because it usually tries to make you render your Projects to WMV Format which isn"t the Best format especially since you still have to encode it again to put it on to DVD.....

Your Camcorder isn"t That bad Just make sure you use it in Conditions were there is a Lot of Light because these Cheaper Camcorders have a Smaller Light Censor so they don"t work very well in Low Light Conditions....

Cheers

 

As long as you do a regular DV transfer it does not matter which program you use. Minion is right about MovieMaker, but you can still use it if you just want to do very simple editing. Just pay attention that you tell it that you wnat to stick to DV-AVI. Check this: http://www.digitalvideoclub.com/tutorials/moviemakermistakes.php
Over there you will also find a listing of well known names in video editing: http://www.digitalvideoclub.com/siteinfo/suppliers.php

Your choice for a video editing program heavily depends on how fancy you want to work. Many programs are availabe as 30 day trials, so you can have a close look before you decide.

Remmber that the most important part, which determines quality, is encoding to MPEG-2. Personally I still rely on stand alone encoders (e.g. TMPGEnc, Canopus or Mainconcept), because they are very versatile (changing all kinds of specific settings) and offer very good quality. But as long as you use high bitrates, most encoding software (stand alone or built in) will at least give acceptable quality.

 

Thanks alot Minion and TPFKAS. You answered all of the questions that I had about the software. I am glad to hear that Magix includes DVD Authoring, that way if my wife wants to make a movie herself, it will be easier for her to operate. I will try a stand alone encoder to determine if I am losing any quality by using the built in Magix. I will let you know what I find. Yes, I am aware of the low-light issues with my camcorder. The image quality ramps up considerably when shooting outdoors.

 

I suppose it would probably depend on what kind of movie editing you want to do as well. Most often its not as simple as just a "1-2-3 Click" style program. Consider first what kind of things you want to do, for example: Do you want to create custom menus? Add your own chapter points? Create animated chapter selection like on a commercial DVD? What about certain special effects to enhance the look and feel of the DVD? Heck maybe you do just want something to take the video and burn it into a simple DVD.

Finding out what you first want to do will help you make a decision alot easier than just a general "which is the best" type question.

 

I WANT TO BE ABLE TOO
CUSTOM MENU
ADD OWN CHAPTER POINTS
special effects
CREATE HIGHLIGHT IN FRONT OF DVD CLIPS OF THE OCCASION
CHANGE MOVIE BLACK AND WHITE
SLOW AND SPEED MOVIE
ETC

 

YEAHH... i want that too...! just kidding... but what i want is to decide what framerate i will use, size of capture... and to choose the compression my self as in virtualdub... but virtual dub sucks in that part (capturing), i tried it... it is laggy (drop in performance) and VERY big drop in quality.... this is my original message i posted in an other forum:

you don't have to consider the following as it is already answered in this post previosly:
"hi, recently i bought a digital camcorder - SONY digital8 HandyCam Model No.: DCR-TRV280, it came with some redicoulus software which does some basic capturing, which is far from my satisfaction... it uses two kinds of streaming...USB and some i.LINK IEEE 13.. somthing somthing, the IEEEEEE thingie is supposed to be better, but i have no idea where to put the cable in the back of my computer, there is no such port.... so i used USB streaming. i did all the preperation - setting up quality and brightness, and i found out that, with the original software i cannot choose how big resolution i want, how many frames per second, and !!!!!! i cannot compress video while capturing....!!!!!! which is the most redicolus - this means that i will need 60GB free every time i need to capture a hole minitape at once, couse 1 minute of redicolus slow (15 frames per second), relatively small (320pix wide), and literally uncompressed captured video comes around 400MB (1 MINUTE OF VIDEO!!!) i tried with virtual Dub but it comes all messed up bad quality, and plays in small scrolls, unfortunately, i dont know of any other good (not best, but to make it work) video capturing software. i just need something that wil not drop performance or quality and have some basic options as brightness, contrast and satura corrections, option to change size of capture, frame rate, and TO COMPRESS WHILE CAPTURING, as virtualdub does... i WILL pay money if necessary"

 

Hey Guys, don't panic ;-)
Here a couple of very simple rules:
1. Don't use USB to capture video form a DV camcorder. Always use the "IEEEEE thinghie" (OK, its IEEE1394 aka Firewire aka iLink).
2. When capturing using IEEE1394, don't do anything like changing framrate, brightness or whatever. Do all of those things later on while editing your footage.
3. Get a decent size hard drive so that you don't need to worry about file size. best is to install a separate hard drive for your video. One hour of video transferred over IEE1394 is around 13GB, so a 80GB hard drive is OK, but hey for $100 you can buy a 250GB HD...
4. Next get a decent editing program that has allows you to do what you want to do. They vary in price from $0 (MovieMaker, part of XP) to $800 (e.g. Adobe Premiere Pro) with a lot oc choice in bewteen.
5. When you're done editing convert to the fromat that you want. You can use a program like VirtualDUB to make any AVI (Divx, Xvid, Indeo etc. etc.) as long as you have the codec installed on your machine. If you wnat to go to VCD or DVD, you need an MPEG-encoder. Get a stand alone one or buy a DVD authoring program that has an encoder built in.
6. Check some of the pages of digitalvideoclub.com to learn everything there is to know about the above ;-)

Cheers.

 

I would say Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 or 2.0 is the best. I have 2.0 and I mastered 1.5 without using a manual. I thought it was easy to master but thats just my opinion. I wanted to make professional movies so badly I just spent a lot of time using it. I did use the manual just once but only to tell me how to access the menu to edit the effects. I mastered it in only about 2 to 3 days and I would recommend it over most video editing programs. Also if u have ever used windows movie maker that will give u a taste of what u are up against compared to premiere pro. Let me put if this way. If u thought mastering movie maker was tought then u are gonna find master premiere pro next to impossible. Hey dont give up though. Master it and make movies to your hearts content.

 

I agree with Dante, premiere is definately the way to go, at least for windows...

 

Does anyone here have an opinion on Ulead Video Studio 9?

First I tried Adobe® Premiere® Elements 2.0, but it couldn't even detect my camcorder device,a Panasonic PV GS-65, pretty much a slam-dunk for all other apps. What a piece of cr*p; it could not even see the camera. Unreal.

Then I tried Pinnacle; well, this software worked. Kinda. But tended to lock up a lot and crash. Not stable.

XP Movie Maker kinda works, but it is limited and also it doesn't burn DVDs; requires a 3rd party app to do that.

So next I got Ulead VS9. Well, it is slower than snot, and also the results are sketchy, such as choppy audio.

So, here I am on app #4, starting to believe that all of these apps are garbage. Am I right, or?

 

try avid software, its a little hard to learn but can do some excelent stuff, Avid Xpress Pro is a little pricy, however Xpress DV is not too bad. AVID IS PROFESSIONAL, If you live in the US and have heard of the Movie Terminator 2, that was edited on an avid system. Lost the TV Show is too. For a Video Card, try one from the Quadro series (nvdia) Great for video stuff.

http://www.avid.com

 

ive tried alot of other video editing programs and turns out that adobe primere 1.5 is best for me.you might look into that