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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."
Here's what I can tell you.
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1. Your skillset is the single most important thing for your edit.
If you don't know how to use a piece of software, you won't use the full capabilities of it, and if you're taking the time to learn how to use it, that's time and attention away from the editing choices you're making. If you already know how to use a certain piece of software, use THAT. If you're using it and run into something you need to do that can't be done using the software you know, THEN go out and find software that can do that ONE THING, do that one thing in that software, and bring the composited piece back into your main edit on the software you know.
The hardest thing to do when editing with all these tools is remember that the best pieces can be (and usually are) done without the fancy tools at all. If your piece is only good because it contains a certain special effect, then it isn't any good, and if your piece is good, you can edit it on 16mm and still entertain/win awards.
2. Your footage is the second most important thing for your edit.
If your footage is sub-par, your edit will be sub-par, to a degree significantly larger than any improvement you might gain by the incrementally better output that one package might provide over another. Obviously you don't want a crappy consumer package that restricts your ability to import/export or only works at a low resolution, but most packages don't do any such thing. Pay attention to your lighting, your sound guy, your shot composition, and your actors.
3. Your time is the third most important thing for your edit.
If you're learning, you're not editing. If you're rendering, you're not editing. If you're rebooting, you're not editing. Make sure you have a stable computer that you know how to use, plenty of storage space and memory, and for goodness sake make an offline edit -- and a few re-edits, probably -- of the whole piece BEFORE you start compositing the special effects in. If at the end of the day you need to switch software packages or take your piece somewhere else for the online edit, you'll be much better off with a solid offline edit and no special effects than with a mediocre offline edit with tons of special effects that need to be redone because they're (surprise) only offline quality.
4. Your money is the fourth most important thing for your edit.
You don't have unlimited funds; would you rather spend it on a software package with extra features you'll never use, or on better makeup and that extra grip on the day you shoot?
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Okay, I'm done ranting now. Seriously: good luck.
If you can afford a camera like that, you can afford to spend some money for an editing package that works right out of the box, rather then spending a week downloading, patching, getting dependencies, then trying to figure out if you want to render with --rftopts=3,4,0x4628,93 or --rftopts=3,2,0x3528,92 with some sourceforge package.
I've used Premiere and Vegas. If you haven't done NLE before, Vegas is a great place to start - It's intuitive and works quite well, plus if you buy the Vegas+DVD package, you get a free AC-3 encoder for Dolby Surround.
Premiere has a few more features, but it's much less intuitive to learn and use. Where Premiere really comes into its own is when you're doing part of your work in another Adobe application (e.g. After effects, photoshop, whatever) - Moving stuff between Adobe apps is soooooo smooth, and doesn't need a render-load-edit-render-save-reload pass like when trying to use After Effects with vegas.
I've used Primere Pro and a variety of "prosumer" editing packages, but I keep coming back to Vegas.
It's significantly faster than most NLE packages, offers a number of preview modes including a decent real-time preview, renders quickly, and doesn't burn a hole in your pocket.
It comes with a basic (but decent) titler, and it allows you to layer clips easily to do things like video inlays (layer clip + frame filter to resize video) or graphic overlays (PNG image with alpha). You can use envelopes to modify the alpha of a layer, which is really nice for custom fade effects.
All in all, it's a very powerful package that's not too hard to use. They have a free trial so you can see if you like it.