Video Editing Software

[Wes Carter]

I did a cursory search for video editing software and realized that even though this has been addressed previously, due to the ever-changing world of computers and software this might need to be addressed again.

On my computer I have both Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9.0 and Adobe Premeire Pro CS4, neither of which I am the least bit proficient at. I'm going to spend some time learning one or the other, but wonder which one I need to invest my time into. Neither one was cheap, but my time is very limited as well.

What video editing software do you use? How bad was the learning curve? Did you use any online resources, DVD's, or books to learn the ropes?

I can get around in Adobe Photoshop just fine, but the video editing world has left me in the dust.

 

[Skip Talbot]

I've grown to like Vegas. I find Adobe products in general to be extremely cumbersome. Adobe insists on using unconventional controls and short cut keys that make their software extremely difficult for people to learn. I was able to pick up Vegas just by playing around with the software, but I find myself going back to Google constantly trying to do stuff in Premiere. Vegas Pro has a great range of features and was easy to get into. I have noticed some buggy behavior in version 9 though where selecting video rendering settings can cause the program to momentarily freeze, and selecting higher bitrates on some of the AVCHD formats causes an error. I can work around these though, and because of its ease of use, its become my editor of choice.

 

[Jason Foster]

I think Premiere and Final Cut should be really for those interested in doing more than just the basic stuff. I completely believe that for 90% of the chasers out there Sony Vegas is the best solution. Once one is ready to move beyond the highlights DVDs and venture into film like productions (assuming additional training is also being done), that's the time to work you way up. At one time Premiere was fairly simple and other products wear not as good. Those days are past.

 

[Darren Addy]

I chose Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9 Platinum for work and like it pretty well. I got up and running with it by following the MadCowMoo series on YouTube, which are pretty entertaining. In fact, between Adobe After Effects and Sony Vegas Movie Studio you can do some pretty sophisticated stuff. SMVS9P is about as easy to use as iMovie used to be.

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You can learn a lot on YouTube, just find a good video and then check out the Related Videos. If you see one that is particularly good, investigate the other videos by that user.

As an aside, between the power (or lack thereof) of my work computer, I find that converting HD video to AVI with CineForm's NeoScene and then importing that into SVMS9P allows me to edit HD on an older computer.

 

[Scottie Sadler]

I've used both and I prefer Sony Vegas. I don't do anything too crazy but for just basic editing together of clips it does everything I need. Learning curve in minimal, I just started out by clicking around and found most everything I needed with maybe one or two google queries. With Adobe Premiere I could do most of the same stuff but it just seemed less obvious I guess. I also had some problems with Premiere crashing in the middle of editing several times. Perhaps more of a resource hog but not for sure.

 

[Darren Addy]

Scottie,
Are you talking about the high-dollar full-blown Sony Vegas or Sony Vegas Movie Studio (it's little brother)? Sometimes people refer to the little brother as Sony Vegas (for short), but since there is a (much more expensive) product named that it causes confusion.

That is another plus for Sony Vegas Movie Studio, however. If you like it and need more capabilities you can move up to the big brother.

 

[Chad Cowan]

I've been using Pinnacle Studio 12 this year and love it. It's cheap (~$100), supports HD, really easy to learn how to use, lots of add-ons available and the new update lets me edit the .mov files used by the 5DII.

 

[James Wilson]

I have a Sony camcorder that has the M2TS files and can not find a decent priced program to convert them and still keep the quality. I always hear the two listed above but they are crazy priced IMO.

 

[Wes Carter]

Thanks for all the advice. I've been working with Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD 9.0. Skip helped me get through a few of the issues I had getting started. The Pinnacle software does look intriguing and I might give it a whirl after I get proficient at the Vegas offering and maybe get my feet wet with Adobe.

Again, thanks to everyone who chimed in. Feel free to add to the thread, because as of yet I'm not past the point of no return!

 

[DHarms]

I did a cursory search for video editing software and realized that even though this has been addressed previously, due to the ever-changing world of computers and software this might need to be addressed again.

On my computer I have both Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9.0 and Adobe Premeire Pro CS4, neither of which I am the least bit proficient at. I'm going to spend some time learning one or the other, but wonder which one I need to invest my time into. Neither one was cheap, but my time is very limited as well.

What video editing software do you use? How bad was the learning curve? Did you use any online resources, DVD's, or books to learn the ropes?

I can get around in Adobe Photoshop just fine, but the video editing world has left me in the dust.

I have both Premier Pro and Pinnacle Studio but I find that for most of my basic editing needs I use TMPGenc 4.0 Xpress. It is quick, efficient, inexpensive and the user interface is basic and easy to learn. It has a great selection of codecs for transcoding. Once I have the video where I need it I can use Pinnacle for making the DVD if required.

Hope this helps.