Video Editing Software

[Biff]

OK - I'm now as bald as Kojak after a rinse with a radioactive isotope based shampoo due to pulling my fkin hair out attempting to edit video footage for the last couple of months.

It started off following WT, Deano et all's trip down to ChCh a few months ago. Both myself and Aaron caught some good footage and I began editing it using some 'free' software courtesy of a friend who got it from some guy named Gnutella (ya know what I'm saying). Anyway, the software (Power Director) was crap (wouldn’t let me import audio etc. Possibly due to the fact it was the Lite version) so I moved onto Roxio Movie Maker. Problem here is that it wont recognise my DVD camcorder, allow me to import mpegs (I know, a fkin global standard and all that). Apparently I need to alter the settings, but you can only get that from the full version. OK - think I, about time I paid for some software so I try and download some from Roxio's website. Oh no, that would be far too easy, I have to live in North America to do that. Same shit with Pinnacle.

So, before I go absofkinlutely bonkers, can anybody recommend some decent software I can buy/fleece/borrow to edit this Ruapuna footage as well as begin editing my family video clips?

I'm more than happy to pay for it, but not the $200+ dollars Pinnacle NZ want.

And lay off the "you'll go to hell" shit for testing out pirated software. I've now become used to testing out shit like this before I fork out for the real stuff (scuse the language, but I'm really fucked off with wasting so much time with this crap).

Thanks.

[zadok]

I haven't used any video editing software, but this one sounds good and it's freeware. Might be worth a go.
http://www.zs4.net/downloads

[pyrocam]

Ive PM'd you. but virtual dub mod is good. have a look on pyrocam.com im pretty sure ive posted it there

[Big Dave]

i use final cut pro, for corporate thingys - but it was a over a grand.
premiere before that - and it was 6 hundy.

What about real producer - i dld that for mac for free a while ago - legit.

[bear]

What about Windows Movie Maker (comes standard with XP)? Have mucked around with that a couple of times and found it to be pretty good.

[MikeL]

I'm more than happy to pay for it, but not the $200+ dollars Pinnacle NZ want.

So you expect to get something pretty flash for less than $200, eh?
Let me know how you get on...
I spent $1100 on Liquid Edition and thought it was a bargain.
Of course some of us remember the days when you had to pay six figures for a non-linear edit suite that didn't do half as much...

[Krayy]

What about Windows Movie Maker (comes standard with XP)? Have mucked around with that a couple of times and found it to be pretty good.

....if the damn thing stops crashing...ad to do that you need to install Service Pack 2 (and screw you're machine up in the process)

Have a look at Editstudio from Pure Motion....greatr non-linear editing. I have a few problems with the encoding, but thats just because I have 30 or so codecs that I don't know how to use properly Only thing it won't do is burn discs, so I use Nero for that.

Other option is Ulead Videostudio. Very comparable to Pinnacle Studio and has some great features. Plus it burns quickly and has some real nice effects.

[White trash]

And fucken hurry up!

I wanna see that hero White trash rippin' up Ruapuna, front wheel skyward.

What a cool cunt!

[Biff]

So you expect to get something pretty flash for less than $200, eh?

Something that works will do. It doesn't have to be "flash". The only stuff I've bought in the past worked fine for it's era, and cost less than $200 (about 50 GBP). I'm not looking for anything too fancy, just something that will allow me to edit scenes and add audio, titles etc (I've got loads of audio editing software). I've got some old software (image maker, director etc) which is ok, but it's a bit old and 'clunky' in comparison to todays software.

And Pinnacle 9 Stuio Plus, rated as the worlds best home video editing software is $99 US. Unfortunately it costs $200 here. So I'm not prepared to be ripped off.

What about Windows Movie Maker (comes standard with XP)? Have mucked around with that a couple of times and found it to be pretty good.

Yeah - it's ok. I was looking for something a little more powerful. But it's fine for basic chopping and scene selection etc.


WT - I've actually edited the footage to show me whooping both yours and Aarons ghey buts. The power of film!

[White trash]

WT - I've actually edited the footage to show me whooping both yours and Aarons ghey buts. The power of film!

You "whooped" our "ghey butts"?

Next you'll be telling me you eat pieces of shit for breakfast...........

[Kickaha]

And fucken hurry up!

I wanna see that hero White trash rippin' up Ruapuna, front wheel skyward.

What a cool cunt!

You got the cunt bit right anyway

You'll just lucky I decided to let you have your moment of glory and not bring the bucket out to give you a thrashing

[Krayy]

Something that works will do....
Yeah - it's ok. I was looking for something a little more powerful. But it's fine for basic chopping and scene selection etc...

As an update to my other post, I actually break the DV to .avi/DVD etc process into 3 or 4 parts.

1. Rip DV from tape to disk
Most apps allow you to do this, but a lot of them use their own indexing and naming system, so to do this I use WinDV ( http://windv.mourek.cz/ ). It allows you to specify a naming system and automagically splits the tape into files based on the DV timestamp.

2. Edit into a movie
As mentioned before I tend to use Pure Motion's Editstudio ( http://www.puremotion.com/editstudio/index.htm ). It's a non-linear editing suite that you can set up to do virtually anything and it won't break the bank. For anything other than commercial videos, it does the lot, except author DVDs. Usually after finishing the edit, I export it back into DV format so I don't lose any quality.

3. Archive onto tape
Take the exported finished DV movie, and if you want to keep it, use WinDV to write it back onto a blank DV tape via the firewaire port. Even if you just do a quick hack on the raw footage to get rid of the crap, this allows you to edit it again later if you don't have the disk space to keep it around. Also, DV tapes have a shelf live of > 5 years, so if the editing software goes through a major update, you can re-edit it again.

4. Convert to displayable format
Use free software like:
- AVIDemux ( http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/ )
- AVIEdit ( http://www.am-soft.ru/aviedit.html )
- VirtualDub Mod ( http://virtualdubmod.sourceforge.net/ )
to convert it to DivX/Xvid or Mpeg and put it somewhere for people to download. Experiment with different formats for different situations and compressability. Just remember that once you've converted it, it will never be the same quality as the original DV format again. If you want to keep it, write it back to tape using WinDV.

5. Burn it to DVD
Now you need to get the Mpeg that you just created onto a DVD (you DID write the finished film back to DV tape though, didn't you?). Lots of DVD authoring stuff around, but most of it costs a few bucks, unless you got a bundle with your DVD Writer. Doesnt need to be fancy, just enough to chuck on a menu and write in either PAL or NTSC formats.

That seems to be about it 4 now....good luck

[Mooch]

What about Windows Movie Maker (comes standard with XP)? Have mucked around with that a couple of times and found it to be pretty good.

I've used this as well and have produced the odd bike or wedding video from it . You can do about 80 % of reasonable edditing package although your limited with Stereo sound output only ( no panning the sound of a motorcycle sound from the rear to front speakers and stuff like that) . The only real issue with WMM is that it doesn't support mpeg output for DVD burning (good old MS pushing own formats) . If I'm doing a quick movie I'll use this package to import and edit clips and stills and then output the movie to DV-AVI format. I'll then use Click to DVD to convert the format , make the DVD menu's and burn the DVD's. My 10 cents worth.
Mooch

WMM can be used / down loaded for free http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/d...viemaker2.mspx

[TwoSeven]

I used ulead videostudio 7 that came with my dvd-writer.

Basically, I capture the video to disk - you can either tell it the source or you can use a separate program. Since most of my input either captured from my tv-tuner to mpeg file or from my video recorder (thru the tv-tuner). I end up with an mpeg file on disk.

I then just open up ulead and import the video, go to the extract video window and just chop out all the adds. You are left with a collection of scenes. Thats the tedious part, but once you get the hang of it things become easier.

Then I publish the edited result back to mpeg file (always keep your raw footage in this format) so its back on disk.

Last step is to drag and drop it onto DrDivx to convert it to an AVI (divx codec) movie (it shrinks it down by at least 50%).

Also, install ACE mega codecs pack (v.6 or higher) - it has most of the codecs and a pretty good codec manager.

You can record from your video on to the disk with the sound channel muted, then overlay a new sound channel in ulead. Alternatively you can create a sound channel using a 3rd party tool and link it in using drDivx.

I'f I want to capture from dvd then I use a plug-in for drDivx called smartripper which pulls off the VOB files.

Its also a fairly time consuming process. Because I work in real time - a two hour video takes 2 hours to get onto the PC, then you need to edit it (another half our) then render the output to disk (another hour or two), then render it into the final format (maybe another couple of hours - but I batch these jobs overnight) and then you need to publish it.


Basically, you want to split your activities into.

Video ripping (getting the source onto your machine in a suitable format)
Video editing (chopping it up and adding the effects)
Video Publishing (putting it into another medium).

So you may need s/w to do all of these. There are some pretty good open source programs but then tend to be overly complicated.

[Ramius]

OK - I'm now as bald as Kojak after a rinse with a radioactive isotope based shampoo due to pulling my fkin hair out attempting to edit video footage for the last couple of months.

It started off following WT, Deano et all's trip down to ChCh a few months ago. Both myself and Aaron caught some good footage and I began editing it using some 'free' software courtesy of a friend who got it from some guy named Gnutella (ya know what I'm saying). Anyway, the software (Power Director) was crap (wouldn’t let me import audio etc. Possibly due to the fact it was the Lite version) so I moved onto Roxio Movie Maker. Problem here is that it wont recognise my DVD camcorder, allow me to import mpegs (I know, a fkin global standard and all that). Apparently I need to alter the settings, but you can only get that from the full version. OK - think I, about time I paid for some software so I try and download some from Roxio's website. Oh no, that would be far too easy, I have to live in North America to do that. Same shit with Pinnacle.

So, before I go absofkinlutely bonkers, can anybody recommend some decent software I can buy/fleece/borrow to edit this Ruapuna footage as well as begin editing my family video clips?

I'm more than happy to pay for it, but not the $200+ dollars Pinnacle NZ want.

And lay off the "you'll go to hell" shit for testing out pirated software. I've now become used to testing out shit like this before I fork out for the real stuff (scuse the language, but I'm really fucked off with wasting so much time with this crap).

Thanks.

If you want Adobe Premiere 6.5 Pro give me a buzz. It's pretty good.