Comparisons of Non-Linear Video Editing Packages?

kickabear asks: "I'm working on an independent (that means I'm poor) film. I'm looking for a site (or a book, I'm not picky) which reviews various non-linear video editing packages. I've found a few sites but I can't really find anything that does a side-by-side comparison of the features and capabilities of products such as Premiere Pro or Avid Xpress Pro or the 20 projects listed on Sourceforge. The project will be filmed using a brand new Sony HVRZ1U HDV camera, so if any comparison sites lean toward HDV/HDTV, that would be favorable. Any information, war stories, or advice would be appreciated."

Comments

Final Cut Express was just updated for HDV

[daviddennis]

If you haven't used Avid before, avoid it since it has a vertical cliff face learning curve. I tried playing with it at a tradeshow and it was nothing like any other editing program I'd seen before. It felt very modal and inflexible, which made it very difficult to get comfortable with. Of course if you want to eventually make a living editing mainstream motion pictures this might not be the best advice, but if you're rolling your own independent film it's not going to be the best choice.

The most featureful and best supported editing package is Apple's Final Cut Pro and its little brother Final Cut Express. You'd have to buy an Apple Macintosh computer to use them, but in my experience it's well worth it. Final Cut Express probably has all you need and at $299 or $99 when purchased with a Mac it's the deal of the century. If you need the featurees

When video editing was last discussed, most people who used Linux-based systems were still putting them together from CVS and fighting bugs, so I doubt that these products have the maturity you need to edit a film.

i don't know much about Adobe's Premiere Pro, but it's probably your best choice if you want to use Windows. Premiere used to be an absolutely ghastly program, with the result that Final Cut Pro slaughtered it in the marketplace despite being $400 more expensive. I understand that Premiere Pro copied a lot of features from Final Cut and so it might be fine. I don't have personal experience with it, though.

You might also want to check out Vegas Video, which has its set of adherents.

If you presently have a Windows computer, bear in mind that you'll probably need to upgrade it with FireWire ports and tons of disk space before it can become a video editing workstation. It will still most likely not run as smoothly as a Mac-based system where FireWire is built in and everything's designed and built by the same company.

Two good forums for this are http://www.creativecow.net and http://www.2-pop.com/ . I have to run, good luck with your project!

D

Re:Final Cut Express was just updated for HDV

[gregmac]

I used Rremiere RT a few years ago for a couple of projects, and I really liked it at the time. A few months ago, I was asked to do a video project, and I ended up going with Vegas 4 (Sony has bought Sonic Foundry, and Vegas 5 is branded as Sony).

I tried Premiere Pro at a friend's place, and I was really not impressed with it after trying Vegas (keep in mind it had been a few years since I used any NLE softwarae). It was basically the same as I remember it from 5 years ago (maybe that was the problem) but I just didn't like using it, it felt clunky compared to vegas.

Now, my initial reaction to Vegas was "wow, prosumer" but after using it for a while, found it's really quite powerful, yet also really easy. Initially I didn't like that you could put two clips overtop of each other on the same track and have it do the auto-crossfade, but it is ocasionally handy. The interface is flexible so it really supports a couple different styles of editing.

The video I was working on was just under an hour long, and was made up of many smaller segments which I edited individually, rendered and then put together in one big project before rendering the final cut. Working with the full movie on my AMD 2200 with 512ram was noticably slower for a lot of operations, espessially compared to working on a 5 minute clip. Having more memory would definately be a plus.

By the looks of Vegas 5, they've given the interface a small makeover, but it doesn't really look like there's many new features. I would recommend taking a look at it anyways.

Avid has a free version

[michaelbuddy]

A lot of people are touting mac, true final cut pro and imovie are good, downright excellent. At the same time though if you're not used to Mac, I wouldn't just jump and get one and then find out you might not like the feel of Mac. (shocking but sometimes true) Mac people would never believe it.

If you are already running windows, which I assume you are since premiere pro only works on windows. You might consider using the free Avid software at first.

http://www.avid.com/company/releases/2003/030107 _A vidFreeDV_prod.html

If you dont' have editing experience it's a good way to go. You can import using a lot of free software. Including virtualdub.

At least look into the free version. I made a first movie with the most junky linear decks back in the day. I would have killed for free avid back then.

what are your film specs? how long? any effects? any 3D. any other special camera or fx work? You may be just fine cutting together your movie with Adobe Premiere Elements. It's been rated very highly.

Look into DVD Lab too if you need to make DVD's with sophisticated menus. You can also make a DVD with TMPGenc. Google will help you find it my son.

Re:Avid has a free version

[anjrober]

This URL has changed, FYI.

http://www.avid.com/forms/freeDVReg.asp

Thanks for the initial post though and the great pointer.

Re:Wrong Camera

[ajservo]

Well, there's a problem with all of that.

There's no 1080p. 1080i's the limit.

The HDV spec is written out already. This is part of the spec. If we took the limitations of a format and didn't work with them because of it, we'd all still be snubbing video in the first place over film. The 1080 output of this camera looks good on a TV. Certainly far better than 720X480 offered by DV resolution. Although HDV isn't as wonderful looking as full on HD, it's still good enough that if you just up the color saturation, it's going to smoke ALL DV quality footage and look fantastic on a DVD.

Although I would probably shoot 720p if given the choice myself, 1080i on HDV looks more than adequate for most productions, and his film won't suffer because of it.