Does anyone use video editing software (for windows) that he or she likes? I'm learning to edit digital video for my demo's

CW

I use Pinnacle Studio 9 - quite good.

Mike

Final Cut is one of the best of them all.

Harry,

While I'll agree with you that Final Cut is the best (I mean, hey, everyone cool at Reels in Motion uses Final Cut Studio. Oh wait, I'm the main editor here at Reels in Motion. *GRIN*)

However, I'm running OS X (Tiger) on my beautiful 17" widescreen Macbook Pro. Unfortunately, CW mentioned "for windows." On that side of the stadium, we've got a much smaller choice. I've heard that Pinnacle is good, as Mike said, but I have no experience with it. I'm guessing that you're looking for the $50-500 ballpark figure? If so, many of the programs are similar.

Let us know what price range you are looking in.

Warm regards,
Scott Sullivan

Sony's Vegas is the way to go. It's versatility and outstanding audio options make it one of the better editors out there.

If it's for Windows, the best is AVID XPRESS PRO. Others are out there, but AVID is the television industry standard. And has all the bells and whistles. Check on eBay, you should find it discounted there. Make sure you get "original discs", not copies. As well you will require a "dongle" (think key) that should come with the package.

If you are using Apple/Mac machines, Final Cut Pro is great. The software was written by the same man who wrote Avid's application.

Also make sure you get plenty of "storage". Video and audio files take up a lot of storage. You will need hard-drives that run at 7200 PRM.

Have any questions, please feel free to PM me.


Good Luck,

The Conjurer

Some of my Pinnacle 9 work might be show on Franz Harrary's international tv show. Pinnacle 9 and 10 are the same thing. Vegas I dislike.
Posted: Jul 10, 2006 11:37pm

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Get the plus version though.

Hey Magicleland why do you dislike Vegas?

Windows Movie Maker is the way to go! Alright guys that was a joke. Final Cut Pro is great for putting the video together. I use Livetype for all of the pictures and text. Then I bring the video into Soundtrack Pro to make custom audio for the movie. I'm going to start using After Effects, although I don't know much about it right now.
-Tyler

Vegas is complicated and expensive. I can get more bang for my buck and a better looking video with other software. I don't like the way they make you get items in Vegas.

I just draw stick figures on index cards. Staple. Then flip.

Lol!

I guess to each his own but Vegas really isn't that complicated, expensive maybe (if you have used other sonic foundry software [now sony] before).
I met a guy out in hollywood that pitched a major motion picture with that very thing!

And I'm Darn sured The Village was filmed with Pinnacle.

That was referring to Scott's post about index cards and stick figures... in my haste I failed to add who I was talking to! Sorry about that.

magicleland; I believe The Village was edited on an Avid workstation. Pinnacle is the consumer level division of Avid Technology (which is the industry standard-something like 90% of TV and 85% of films are edited using Avid).

I don't think it matters what you edit in as long as the finished product is what you want. We started out with Pinnacle but were immediately dissapointed in the limitations we ran into while editing our first project. We needed more audio and video track capability. Vegas supplied all that we needed and more (you can have an unlimited number of each on your timeline). Pinnacle (the version we had) could have only one video track and one audio track.

The biggest drawback to using Vegas is that the workflow is considerably different from the above mentioned Avid (if you are planning on working in Hollywood as an editor I would suggest Final Cut Pro or an Avid to learn on).

We are saving to get a couple of Avid workstations for our company but at $10,000 each we have a way to go before getting there.

Final Cut Pro.... period.

Avid all the way!

Jeff

Ok what do you guys use to edit, say, a single .mpg file? Is there a stand alone editor that will load the video file, and then let you start cutting bits out, etc?

I've tried using the Pinnacle program, but it seems to want to assemble pieces of video together for a final dvd. I need to edit bits and pieces out of a single video file.

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance.
Chris

Any of the mid to higher end editor's will work for you. I like Vegas because it is very intuitive. Final Cut Pro is becoming the standard so you can't go wrong there. Hope this helps.

We use Final Cut Pro HD by Apple and Premiere by Adobe. If you're editing on a Mac, which you should be you can't go wrong with these two proggies.

Jake