Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
This forum is in permanent archive mode. Our new active community can be found here.
Good Video Editing Program?
Greetings everyone. Since I'm considering making a YouTube series with the sole purpose of teaching Go, I'd like a program where I can easily superimpose words and/or pictures on the screen. What would be the best program to do video editing with that style in mind?
Keep in mind, my budget isn't the biggest.
Keep in mind, my budget isn't the biggest.
Comments
Torrents ftw?
I do incredibly basic stuff with -
Virtualdub Mod
Besweet (for dabbling with audio formats and DVDs)
DGpulldown (for changing framerates)
Cinemacraft Encoder (for DVD video)
Adobe Imageready and Photoshop are basically where I go for most of the stuff that you're interested in visually.
And wait, you can do video editing on Photoshop?
I am also going to start working on a few videos, and my budget is basically limitless (Torrents), so I'm wondering if I should go with Pinnacle Studio, Aodbe Premiere (which I tried and thought was clunky), or something else?
Adobe Premiere is what I use now, though obviously this Go series didn't pull through. I doubt there's any interest anyway.
Also, video is 30FPS, 1024x640, just for reference.
You know how we always talk about how 90% of people just need a netbook, and one of the few things you actually need a powerful PC for is editing video. We're not kidding. Even if you went out and got a $5000 PC, it will not be instant and smooth.
Edit: Are there any downsides to pre-rendering, other than having to wait?
Ok so in terms of software the pros use either Avid or Final Cut Pro (Avid dominates Hollywood, Final Cut pretty much everywhere else). FCP is only available on a Mac but is the best option as it's much (much) easier to learn than Avid and much easier to pirate.
For that reason as has been mentioned here PC people who want to do some editing often use Premiere (The industry itself is 100% Apple) and it will get the job done for you. However you can get a free 30 day trial of Avid Media Composer 4 and torrenting has gotten easier with it, so if you want to check out what Hollywood films are cut on go ahead.
Yes, the big key to efficiency is rendering. However there are a lot of traps people fall into that slow down the process. The biggest is to make sure the format of your media matches the format of your sequence, otherwise you'll have to render everything constantly because your computer will be converting the files all the time. If they are the same format then you should be able to play your media in real time until you start doing effects / colour correction etc.
Another thing is if possible to put your ''scratch disks'' (where your media files are on your computer) on an external hard drive (only if you can connect it via Firewire 400/800 at the very least), as having your media on the same drive as your editing application is generally a big no no and will slow you down.
If you're interested, what we do in the industry is capture the media files in a low-res ''offline'' format (generally DV PAL/NTSC) and work on that, then ''conform'' when done to the full quality HD or wtv files. However this is obviously not something you'd be doing outside of a work environment.
It obviously all depends what format you're shooting on. But for reference, with a properly organised system I can run DVCPRO HD 1080p and HDV 1080i footage from my base model aluminium Macbook Pro (lower spec than you have) in real time with no need to render. Obviously when you start doing effects and stuff the need for a more powerful machine is unavoidable.
In response to your question, there are no downsides to pre-rendering, your output will always be full quality, but the trick is always to minimise the times you're sat around doing nothing. Also remember that often you don't need to see full quality, full frame rate footage when you're editing (obviously it can't be too bad). I'm not aware of how Premiere works as I've always been on FCP, but I'm sure there are ways to playback in lower quality and then output at full-res.
Have fun!
Edit: VLC are about to release there own video editing software but I'm not holding out much hope. With editing you want your system to be as stable and as simple as possible, thus why everyone uses OSX.
FCP is the king of video editing software, and I really have been spoiled by it to the point that almost any other video editing software is unusable. For Windows, though, Pinnacle is pretty damned decent. The biggest problem with it though is that it's a money sink because they make you pay per feature and effect that you want to use. As in, you'll be browsing through transitions or something and come across the perfect one, only to find you have to play $15 for the effects pack that it comes in.
Much like open source games and open source graphic design software, 99% of open source video editing projects are absolutely worthless for any need beyond a very basic one.
.avi is a terrible format to cut on. it's an output format meant for playing not working with. What you need to do is convert these files before you start working on them you want them to be in Quicktime .mov files, then you shouldn't have a problem.
I would generally do this in a program called Compressor but it's Mac only. The thing is that I assume you have multiple different clips so you want a program that can batch convert them rather than having to do them individually which would be quite annoying. (if you only have a few then download Quicktime Pro 7 and export them to QT files - simple). There are quite a few different programs that do this but I don't know off the top of my head which will allow batch converting, you could try out things like Sorenson Squeeze, MPEG Streamclip or QuickTime Pro and see which works best for your needs.
Also another option that might work for you is to put the .avis into your Premiere timeline and then export the sequence as a Quicktime movie (I'm sure premiere will let you do this) this should convert the file for you. Then you delete the originals from the project, drag back in the QT file and it should be smooth from then on.
Basically you're having this problem because your camera is converting your files .avis as they're shot, which is common in consumer cameras that are made for home videos where they don't expect you to do any editing. That's why its going straight into an output and not a working format.
Let me know what you settle on. Ok basically what you do is capture them in low-quality, do the cut. Then ''make the files offline'' (basically delete the media files but maintain the data of where the cuts are and what the Timecode for each is) then batch recapture and the system uses the Timecode to place the new high quality media in the same places. However this is something you really don't want to be going near, It will go wrong! Anyway that's something you only need if you're working with HDCAM footage or something like that, your problem is definitely the .avi files.
I'll let you know what happens when it finishes.
It converted fine, and looking at it in Premiere, it's fine. I'll get around to editing it later.
Anyway, my new issue is that I was going to try Pinnacle Studio 14, which I just torrented, but it says "This file is unsupported." It's a .mov file with the default codec settings.