Slashdot Mirror
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."
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
If you're on a budget, I would think a $499 package would be better than Premiere's $699 package, right?
iMovie is only $499 bundled with a Mac mini. There's a lot of reviews for iMovie sans HD, and I'm sure a few with; iMovie is pretty solid for basic NLE (I've used it for weddings, presentations, and DVD quality releases), but most of the 'magic' comes from the camera, cameraman, director, and source material. The NLE can't do anything with crap.
GPL Deconstructed
I've also found that it's hard to find side by side comparisons. I've used just about every major NLE out there, and I've come to the conclusion that the reason behind you not being able to find comparisons is that they're all pretty much the same. Aside from a few UI nuances, they all work the same and do the same thing and have the same types of bugs and problems with hardware (as in capture devices). One of the easiest to work with (once you get used to it) is cinelerra. Don't count it out until you've tried it. I've never used it with HD, but it's supposed play nice.
If you are talking about a professional project (even on a low budget), there is not so much choice: it's either Avid or Final Cut Pro. I never heard of a film longer than a few minutes cut on anything else (not counting products which died long ago like Lightworks).
Avid has the advantage of better/easier integration with the other parts of post production like sound editing on Pro Tools, color correction on Symphony, etc. if you need these.
It's probabably your better bet for more demanding projects, and probably worth learning since it's the industry "standard". Another possible advantage is that it runs on both Mac and Windows.
Final Cut Pro tends to be easier to learn, and the editors I know tend to prefer it for small projects which don't need to be moved around to higher-end Avids for finishng, to Pro Tools, etc.
It only runs on Macs, but that also makes it potentially a lot cheaper, at least to start with: there is no dongle, and you can borrow a copy from someone else. Apple doesn't care so much: they have sold you a Mac anyway, and eventually you will pay for FCP too. Avid on the other hand relies on the software for it's revenue, so it is dongle-protected.
Whatever you get, if you buy rather than renting, you should realize that after a year you will probably have spent at least twice than what you planned, that there will always be stuff that you would need but cannot afford, and it has to pay for itself within 2 years, after which it's obsolete, you cannot rent it at any decent price, and you don't want to use it for yourself.
I don't mean it never makes sense buying. Sometimes it does. But I've also seen many cases where it didn't.
Here's what I can tell you.
---
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?
---
Okay, I'm done ranting now. Seriously: good luck.
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.
7 _A vidFreeDV_prod.html
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/2003/03010
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.
...::----::...
I am in no way affiliated with this sig.
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.
You say you want to use the Sony HVRZ1U. Looking at the specs, I
suggest it is a bad idea, particularly when you are considering post
production issues.
The HVRZ1U is 1080i only. Interlace scanning was a really cool hack
from the analogue age, but in the digital age it is a terrible hack.
You want progressive scanning. Particularly if you hope to release on
film, you want progressive scanning.
If you acquire your footage progressive you can later interlace it if
you have to, but if you acquire interlaced you can never get good
progressive footage out of it.
The big "1080" number might be attractive, but being interlaced it is
really more like 540. Look for a progressive scanned camera if you
possibly can. I think some progressive cameras run at slower frame
rates, but 25 frame per second camera works really well if you want to
go to 24fps film. Even if you go to video, you will get more of a
film look.
That is just for conventional editing that only consists of cuts. Do
anything slightly interesting (all that stuff that digital editing
makes so easy) and your post production software is going to go to
considerable effort to try to deinterlace. Make it easier, get better
results, don't use interlace in the first place.
Interlace: A once clever hack that should not be perpetuated!
-kb