Video editing software

[Ric]

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone knows of or can recommend a good video editing program.

I have a "Fire Cam" which is a small camera which attaches to my fire-fighting helmet and takes high defination MPEG-4 movies.

I have looked at the Windows and Apple offerings and they really don't cut the mustard with what I want to do.

I'm a bit of a newb when it comes to this stuff, but I'll need to edit out the fuzzy bits, stabilize the shaky bits and rotate the crooked bits if you get the drift. Maybe a bit of over dubbing as well.

Any advice / suggestions will be appreciated.

Cheers

[rogerco (Roger)]

AVS has a cheap video editor that will probably have enough to get you started and at $59 its affordable. Friend in my brigade who has the same equipment is doing great things with Vegas Pro but it it is a professional product at $599.

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD110 was recommended to me by Nick Howes.
It's very powerful and pretty intuitive to use, and it will walk you through everything until you get the hang of it.
I think I paid $50 for it.
You can try before you buy too.
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/moviestudio

[pluto (Hugh)]

If you want to spend money get Adobe Premier, if not have a look at Lightworks or Blender.
Blender is primarily a 3D program but it includes a compositing and an editing module which I've heard good things about. It's probably overkill for what you want though.
I'd definitely check out Lightworks though, sounds really interesting, and you've got nothing to lose as it's freeware, I'm downloading it now to have a look!

[Ric]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for those leads, they are very helpful.

Cheers

[telemarker (Keith)]

You might consider Adobe Premiere Elements. A cut down Premiere at a cut down price. Still, it lets you use a timeline interface for cutting between clips, apply stabilise and transform filters to clips and overlay tracks.

If you buy the boxed version it can be run on both OSX and Windows machines (a total of 2 machines only). The iTunes (OSX only) version is 1/2 the price of the boxed. There is a trial on the Adobe site.

Other alternatives:
Final Cut - a bit expensive. I found difficult because I don't think in the same way as it wants to run.
Premiere - not too expensive if you can get an educational discount. Alternatively, Adobe put the old Pro 2.0 version available for free but it'll only run under XP. I currently run this in Virtualbox on my Macbook but mainly use Elements on my iMac and the Macbook.

I'm not too far away in Downer, so if you want to try some of your footage in any of these, send me a PM and we can organise something.

Regards
Keith

[Poita (Peter)]

If you are on Windows and want to get down and dirty and use a powerful NLE and don't want to spend any money then lightworks is the business.

Exceptionally powerful and feature packed, and is free.
http://www.lwks.com

There is now a beta available for Linux as well.

There is a great community and online tutorials etc. and this is an industrial strength package. Well worth getting to know it.

If you are on a Mac though, iMovie will do all of what you have listed there, and is free.

[Ric]

Hi Keith,

Thanks for the offer, at the moment though I don't have any footage bar a bit rambling through the paddock doing some test runs.

Hi Peter

I'll have a look at that Lightworks as well.

Cheers all

[Ric]

Just installed the Sony Movie Studio this morning.

Just as well I donloaded the manual as well. The first impression is that it looks like it will do everything including the washing and ironing. All new territory to explore, that's for sure.

I'm sure that after a quick read and watching a few of the tutorials I'll get a handle on it and it won't seem as complicated.

I"ve also downloaded a few of the other suggestions as well to do some comparisons and work out which one suits me the most

Cheers