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what film editing software?

S

soccerballtux

Lifer
my friend likes Adobe Premier, but when I asked him why he liked it over FCP his reasons were very n00b, such as 'it handles importing better, I don't have to convert it myself before import' or something really n99b that I could easily handle with handbrake or FFMPEG etc.

so, what's the consensus?
which is more capable?
which, if I wanted to help him edit, should I buy? He can deal with FCP

is Sony Vegas Pro even on the list of acceptable options here?
 
i like premier too. but thats only because i was taught Premier in school and there's tons of tutorials on youtube.
 
Ist of all you have to learn how to load Video and Audio Codecs and Filters into your OS. Hint: AVC/AAC in the mp4, MKV and FLV(FFMpeg) containers are free today so is XviD Mpeg4 for capture sessions. Large RAW AVI Raw files are easier and more accurate to Edit in NTFS Partitions. In other words you need lots of volume and take care you don't overrun Partitions when Video Editing and Re-Encoding. Anybody that suggests Adobe Premiere don't have have clue what their doing and wasting their money on crap.

Suggest you start basic using VirtualDub with ether XviD or DivX Mpeg4 with PCM audio Compressors with short 5 minute Music Videos - Captured off TV in RAW AVI/PCM.AVI or Download or Cam Format to re-encode then advance to numerous hours of whatever format of video into AVC/AAC.mp4 (MKV or FLV) containers using programs such as MeGUI, TEMPGEnc or FFMpeg.

You have to understated your video formats and containers. Suggest you download and install Media-info to identify Media Files (Video and Audio) Adobe Audition v3 (newer versions are crap) and CDex are also very helpful when playing with Audio Tracks to MUX with various Video formats.

Aside form the original Raw Mpeg1/PCM.mpg (MPeg2/AC3.mpg), I've been heavily into video encoding sense MS introduced MP4C32.Dll as an option with the Win98 Gold Installation using MPeg4/PCM AVI's.

Believe me there's a 1 or 2 year learning curve before it all comes together. Anything else is just a hit and miss expensive piece of crap.

If you really interested it becoming a Video Editor and Encoder suggest you take a look a this Site: http://forum.doom9.org/
 
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more accurate in NTFS? what?
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"Accurate" may have been the wrong word but here's what I'm pointing to: AVI falls apart after 2048MB's in Fat32 Partitions and you can't DOS Browse a Fat32 Partition bigger the 32GB's - It's easy to capture a Mpeg4/PCM.AVI greater then 2048MB's - So do it to a NTFS partition. Pending resolution your capture can be well over 60 GB but easy to edit and re-encode to whatever format and volume you want.
 
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Z15CAM said:
"Accurate" may have been the wrong word but here's what I'm pointing to: AVI falls apart after 2048MB's in Fat32 Partitions and you can't DOS Browse a Fat32 Partition bigger the 32GB's - It's easy to capture a Mpeg4/PCM.AVI greater then 2048MB's - So do it to a NTFS partition. Pending resolution your capture can be well over 60 GB but easy to edit and re-encode to whatever format and volume you want.
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so far every one of our shots for the scenes have been under 30 seconds. I'm asking more about what film editing software is worth investing in.
 
I have studied Adobe Premiere Pro and I haven't done with it before so I finally got into Final Cut Pro X for most of YouTube video editing. I can't say which is better I suppose both are capable of making awesome video.
 
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Who knows what the OP of this thread is pointing out' Video or PIC Editing - I've gave my input into Video but if you're into PIC Editing - Might I suggest "ACDSee Pro 2.5.363". It's so old Adobe hasn't desecrated it and recognized as a free hack.

I'm still an old PSPv9 and ACDSee user for PIC's and stay away from Adobe crap like what they did to Cool Edit (Audio). Abobe Audition Edition v3 is OK the rest Sucks because all Adobe did was Tojan the apps with marketing.

As far as Video Editing an Encoding I recommend either, VirtualDub for starters in regards to AVI and MPG, TMPGEnc or MeGUI for Mpg4 were as a lot of other Pro's recommend Handbrake which I've never personally used but assume very good.

Just about all Video formats today are done in AVC/AAC with MP4, FLV or MKV wrappers and it's FREE, basically over the release of MSC32.dll back in 1998 which introduced mp4 video compression where no one has ever claimed patented rights. DviX, Xvid and X/H264 are just a modification to that same Hacker's Video Codec of MSC32.DLL that MS could not legally embed into Windows at the time.

About the same issue happened with the audio Fraunhofer professional L3 Audio MP3 Codec where LAME evolved to encode 128Kbs mp3 frequencies and above. Today we take it for granted but MS OS still protects us from copying write protected Video and Audio Online. Yes there are work a rounds but basically it's illegal.

Does anyone remember DivX3a, MS MPEG-4 VKI DS Filters or XviD and the mpeg4/mp3-ogg or AVI and OGM videos we could make back then with VirtualDub - LOL

We have come a long way but to get a good results you still have to know the basics of Video Formatting.

It may seem daunting at first but all the Video knowledge you want can be found at Doom9.org: http://forum.doom9.org/
 
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soccerballtux said:
is Sony Vegas Pro even on the list of acceptable options here?
Click to expand...

Yes, but it's quirky. You might like it. I do. Reasonably stable platform for moderate cost OpenCL plugins. Many free and useful scripts. It's also a full fledged DAW. (Not a great one, but usable).

Is this for fun or profit or both? Simple cuts or complex 3D composites?

You haven't mentioned the A-word and neither will I. Unless you're cutting for a network gig.

The film school prosumer choice is FCP, but you don't seem to be a follow the herd guy.

If you can groove with the Adobe workflow, then Premiere might be your new best friend.

Actually any of the full-on NLEs are great (sort of), assuming they satisfy the must-have features on your must-have list - the trick is finding one that works how you do or expect to.

I've worked in almost all of them - but, I'm fastest in Vegas. And in my deadline-driven, low-cost niche, that's the most important feature.

Try the demos, play around, pretty sure you won't hate them all. :biggrin:
 
soccerballtux said:
ok, that's a good reason to choose it.

is FCP in any way more capable?
Click to expand...

I'm barely experienced with video editing so take this for what it's worth. I use Sony Movie Studio Platinum on my Windows machine and used Final Cut Pro on my macbook, and the thing that struck me the most was how I could smoothly scrub through footage in high quality without rendering on my less powerful macbook compared to doing the same in the Sony software. Perhaps Sony Vegas and Adobe Premier are more efficient, but FCP was definitely more fun for me to use compared to Sony Movie Studio.
 
ClockHound said:
Yes, but it's quirky. You might like it. I do. Reasonably stable platform for moderate cost OpenCL plugins. Many free and useful scripts. It's also a full fledged DAW. (Not a great one, but usable).

Is this for fun or profit or both? Simple cuts or complex 3D composites?

You haven't mentioned the A-word and neither will I. Unless you're cutting for a network gig.

The film school prosumer choice is FCP, but you don't seem to be a follow the herd guy.

If you can groove with the Adobe workflow, then Premiere might be your new best friend.

Actually any of the full-on NLEs are great (sort of), assuming they satisfy the must-have features on your must-have list - the trick is finding one that works how you do or expect to.

I've worked in almost all of them - but, I'm fastest in Vegas. And in my deadline-driven, low-cost niche, that's the most important feature.

Try the demos, play around, pretty sure you won't hate them all. :biggrin:
Click to expand...
Right now it's for fun, but I don't really see a point in doing it if you're not going to do it well-- or at least preparing yourself to do it well.

As such, I would rather learn FCP with limited time than Premier, if it's objectively better. If it's a wash, I don't really care. The feature set differentiation might be mostly trivial as well... I guess I'm just wondering if there's a big reason not to use Premier.

Not sure what a-word is.

I guess I'll just use premier since it's what he prefers.

I guess I'll start with Premier and maybe try other stuff.
 
soccerballtux said:
Right now it's for fun, but I don't really see a point in doing it if you're not going to do it well-- or at least preparing yourself to do it well.

As such, I would rather learn FCP with limited time than Premier, if it's objectively better. If it's a wash, I don't really care. The feature set differentiation might be mostly trivial as well... I guess I'm just wondering if there's a big reason not to use Premier.

Not sure what a-word is.

I guess I'll just use premier since it's what he prefers.

I guess I'll start with Premier and maybe try other stuff.
Click to expand...

A-word = Avid. Now forget you ever heard it outside the broadcast booth. Back in a previous century, they taught Apple how to treat users like the aspiring masochists they wanted to be.

Pretty much a wash...and imo, Premiere is a little more feature complete than FCP - as well as having a deeper content dev pipeline.
 
ClockHound said:
A-word = Avid. Now forget you ever heard it outside the broadcast booth. Back in a previous century, they taught Apple how to treat users like the aspiring masochists they wanted to be.

Pretty much a wash...and imo, Premiere is a little more feature complete than FCP - as well as having a deeper content dev pipeline.
Click to expand...

I have heard of Avid so many times, They must be very good. I get email from Avid all the times for demo, workshop, etc. So it is worth if you can go to their workshop and learn from the pro.
 
Rottie said:
I have heard of Avid so many times, They must be very good. I get email from Avid all the times for demo, workshop, etc. So it is worth if you can go to their workshop and learn from the pro.
Click to expand...

Ha! Good send up. Getting bent over by the pros is always better!

Avid is the #1 choice when spending other people's money. When it's your own, not so much.
 
fcp-x
Avid mediacomposer
Adobe premier

Those are the 3. FCP-x pissed off a lot of pros because of the limited export options and other things (like changing the ui on people). but this could be a good simple option.

Avid are kinda waffling and will charge you lots of money (subscriptions) and if you aren't making money or are not a cog in a production wheel then I wouldn't worry about going down that road.

Blackmagic is a cool company and someone said you can do editing in resolve now? I would try that.
 
ClockHound said:
A-word = Avid. Now forget you ever heard it outside the broadcast booth. Back in a previous century, they taught Apple how to treat users like the aspiring masochists they wanted to be.

Pretty much a wash...and imo, Premiere is a little more feature complete than FCP - as well as having a deeper content dev pipeline.
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thanks, this is literally the second time I've been in this subforum...
 
I think it is subjective. You usually can have a trial period, so definitely try before you buy.

I bought Premier Elements and really disliked it. Seemed unstable, and not very intuitive, for me.
I tried Sony Vegas Studio and love it. It has been stable for years for me, and I find it very intuitive.

If you are new to editing, then I suggest you start with the simplest program that does what you need, and later graduating to something more complex. Either of these packages may be too complex for a beginner, especially the Pro version of one of these packages would be a mistake – it has a lot more options than you likely need, not to mention it is more expensive. In my case, I worked with the older version of Windows Movie Maker for a couple years before moving on to Premiere Elements and then Vegas Studio.
 
I have read comments about Sony Vegas being efficient for getting projects out quickly at more than one website so its on my short list of software to evaluate.

Another Software I would like to evaluate (at some point) is Lightworks.

Both software (Vegas and Lightworks) have either a free version (Lightworks) or low cost version (Vegas) and a step-up to a Pro version (Lightworks Pro, Sony Vegas Pro):

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/moviestudiopp/compare

http://www.lwks.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=102&Itemid=213

Nice thing about Lightworks is that it also works with Linux (so free version + Linux (which is free) is always a nice option to have).

With that mentioned, I am wondering how well each one works with different levels of hardware?
 
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soccerballtux said:
Right now it's for fun, but I don't really see a point in doing it if you're not going to do it well-- or at least preparing yourself to do it well.

As such, I would rather learn FCP with limited time than Premier, if it's objectively better. If it's a wash, I don't really care. The feature set differentiation might be mostly trivial as well... I guess I'm just wondering if there's a big reason not to use Premier.

Not sure what a-word is.

I guess I'll just use premier since it's what he prefers.

I guess I'll start with Premier and maybe try other stuff.
Click to expand...

Regarding FCP vs. Premiere, one thing to consider is hardware cost.

For example, when I was comparing Early 2009 (Nehalem) and mid 2010 (Westmere) Mac Pros to Windows based LGA 1366 Workstations I noticed the used market price difference was much higher on the used Mac Pros (even after accounting for differences in video cards, RAM, HDD).

So a mid 2010 Mac Pro effectively competes with newer Intel hardware on price.

With that mentioned, I do wonder if the Apple software compensates for lower hardware spec per dollar with better efficiency? Or maybe on ease of use/learning curve?
 
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