video editing software

[Magickndm]

I'm looking for a good editing program that is fairly easy to use...what do you guys use?

 

[YEKCIM]

I just made my initial foray into this procedure this past weekend. I used Pinnacle 9, which was bundled with my Canon camcorder, when purchased about a year and a half ago. It took a little effort and time to get up to speed, but I'm very happy with the results. Mrs. YEKCIM and I both agree that the resulting DVD has better quality on our TV than does the same footage displayed directly from the camcorder to the (same) TV, via the video cable hookup.

I was not particularly interested in all the "gee whiz" effects that are available, either natively in the "SE" version that was bundled, or available as purchased add-ons, so basically all I did was to copy the footage to my hard drive, make a menu consisting of each of the resulting "scenes", and burn to DVD. Being able to choose a "scene" is a huge reason to do this, IMO, as that eliminates all the fast forwarding and rewinding, to find a particular clip. The software, by the way, does a very good job of automatically detecting a new scene, and the each scene is shown as a separate little "screen", which can then be moved (drag-n-drop) to the editing timeline.

The process is time and memory-intensive, as you may know. I found that about four hours are required, from start, to finish, although most of that can be unattended. Once I got familiar with the edit process, I could do that in, probably 20 minutes, as long as the little YEKCIM-ette (7 YO daughter) was not chattering incessantly at me. Once edited, it pretty well handles the "rendering" and DVD burning automatically, then ejects the finished DVD at the end. I also discovered that, since I'm not using any of the "special effects", I was able to speed the rendering process up considerably, by selecting "no background rendering". Before I did that, the rendering process went thru the entire hour long tape, three times, before being ready to burn the DVD, and that looks to be an all day process.

My experience has been that around 20 GB (yes, GIGabytes) of free memory are required to convert a one hour MiniDV tape to DVD. I have an 80-Gig HD, with around 36 Gigs free, so after each DVD is successfully burned, I delete the files that Pinnacle makes (in two diffferent folders, the way I have it set up...one is "My Videos", and the other is "Pinnacle" something or other, both in "My Documents". There is a folder in the "Pinnacle" folder in My Documents, the name of which I forget, that held about 10GB of "autosave", and I just deleted that entire folder, with no ill effects.

I know that is more info than you asked for, but since you are apparently new to this (as am I), I thought it might be helpful. I'm sure some other, more experienced folks will want to weigh in on this.

~YEKCIM

 

[PaulD]

I actually like the Pinnacle Studio software from an interface standpoint but you need to try the demo before you buy. This software is notoriously buggy!! I bought version 8 and have tried the updates through version 10 and they all constantly crash. Take a look at the support boards and you'll see I'm not alone. It sounds like some computers do not have any problems and others just have hardware configurations that play havoc it. Try before you buy. If you are one of the lucky ones then you've got a great editor. Otherwise, it's a waste of time.

I currently use Adobe Premier Elements 1.0. It is fairly easy to use and is stable. I don't like the limitations placed on you with regard to menu editing (i.e. you can't really change anything). But, I think version 2.0 has addressed this but you have to have Photoshop or Photoshop Elements to edit the menus. Still not as easy as Pinnacle Studio. You can download a demo of this one too to see if you like it.

 

[YEKCIM]

No problems with Pinnacle 9, so far, and I'm on DVD #5, as I type. My specs are:

Dell Dimensioin 4600
2.4 GHz Pentium 4 processor
1GB RAM
ATi X800XT All In Wonder AGP video card
Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS Sound Card (with Firewire port...for DV transfer)
80GB 7200 RPM Hard Disk
NEC 16X DVD-RW

I use my PC for many things, and it has handled everything I have thrown at it, but it has been upgraded significantly from its "stock" config.

~YEKCIM