Can anyone recommend a good video editing software

[dharrison]

Hi all

I have a friend who wants to put together a basic movie to one of her friends. Basically its part of a wedding video and she wants to add one of the groom's songs as the background music to the video.

She isn't very advanced technically and is just looking for a package that is easy to use but effective.

Can anyone in this community please recommend a good video editing software that is easy to use and has good features for the purpose intended? Open source or low cost software would be advantageous but not essential.

Any help would be gratefully received.

Best regards in advance,

[andyf]

As you told you's friend is not much technically sound in video, so i would recommand you for using
Pinnacle Studio version 10.5 or lower.
It is easy to use and specially designed for newbie in video editing. Normally all wedding video editor uses different version of studio depending on their financial condition.

hmmm one more thing, to grab(take) video file onto computer you are suppose to have a good capture card,there are many companies which provides hardware to capture video.you can use one from pinnacle itself.
while buying hardware first confirm what your camera outputs (anolog/DV) format, accordingly purchase the hardware.

also make sure you machine is quit capable for handling large video files thatmean your system should have better RAM and HardDisk space.

you can have software details at :
http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSit...Studio+Family/

[davebarnes]

Take a look at iLife and its components (iDVD and iMovie). Comes free on every Mac.

[speed]

Try the Editstudio trial.

They also do the tools to author DVDs you need them.

[designbuyers]

all u need is this http://virtualdubmod.sourceforge.net/
u can cut,merge,convert[codecs required],apend etc & it's stable as rock at least for me and free - GPL

and if you want pay for other one , Ulead Media studio and Video Studio

and what is for pro is .. > adobe after effects and Premiere

[orangemike]

I'd definitely say iMovie is the way to go.

[rjjj111]

I have a DVD and want someone to splice together a few flips of the movie, then put them back together with the audio.

any takers???? $$$$$

[jhamilton87]

check out www.jumpcut.com it's free.

[Lynn Quario]

Windows Movie Maker is easy to use also.

It comes free with Windows XP

Just another suggestion

Lynn

[designbuyers]

Lynn Quario, yes Windows Movie Maker is great and easy to use but .....

it's only gives you final file as wmv and it's not good at all .

[kgun]

Apple is best on this:

• Software. Final cut Studio Also look at Avid, more precisely Avid Xpress Pro.
• Hardware. Apple MacPro with up to 3Tb storage.

P.S. My youngest daughter takes exellent movies with sound with the camera on her latest Ericsson mobile phone. Could not believe the quality when she showed me.

[richard-s]

It depends upon their computer. You don't need a Mac, modern Windows PCs are perfectly good for creative tasks!

If your friend has a PC, Windows Movie Maker 2.1 is free with Windows XP SP2. It's easy to use. Although its features are limited, it may be enough for this first, simple project.

The edited file can be saved to the computer's hard disk and then "authored" and "burnt" to DVD using whatever DVD burning software they have on their PC - eg. Nero, Sonic, Roxio etc.

Serif makes a more advanced, more flexible Windows program: Serif MoviePlus. The previous version, version 4 is very stable; the current version 5 has much improved features.

See: Serif MoviePlus5.

Some people report that Pinacle can be unstable.

If your friend has an Apple Mac, they should already have iMovie or equivalent. This should do the job. Other people have already suggested more ambitious, more expensive alternatives.

If your friend runs Linux, there are some open source video editors.

Note: Video editing needs plenty of hard disk space; also, video rendering & encoding need patience and/or CPU power.

Each hour of miniDV digital video occupies about 13GB of hard disk space.

Rendering & encoding video on a fast PC often takes two or three times the duration of the video.

Editing digital video is addictive!
See: Sri Lankan Videos.

Richard

[Webconomist]

Mac just does it simple. A lot of little tricks required for Windows software, and it can crash. A MacBook pro, or just an iMac are fine, iLife comes included.

It's simple, quick, painless and you can burn a movie inside an hour, add music easy and its almost all drag and drop...I switched to Mac 5 years ago. I'll never go back to the pain of Windows. Why be a programmer if you don't want to be?

[richard-s]

dharrison,

Was any software supplied with the camcorder?

Many camcorders are sold with a software bundle which includes editing software.

That's a good place to start.

ps. They'll also need a connection cable: Usually a DV cable (aka Firewire, aka iLink, aka IEEE 1394, etc.) with the correct connectors for the camcorder and the computer.

----

Webconomist,

My previous Mac had dual floppy drives, no hard drive and 128kbytes of RAM. Its variable speed floppies played tunes as it worked, loading data and program modules.

We thought it slow because each run of the special project management software took over four hours. (Our previous mainframe took a whole weekend to do the same job.)

That was 1985: My next computer *may* run Apple Leopard, especially if Apple escapes from power-hungry Intel CPUs.

My point was that *any* modern computer can be used for video editing. Good stable software is available for all types of computers: Unfortunately, hyped, unstable software is also available.

As with so many modern products, price and brand-name are little guide to quality or usefulness.

Regarding time:

Transferring the contents of a standard 60 minute miniDV tape from a camcorder to *any* computer takes 60 minutes: Ordinary tape-based camcorders replay only at *normal* speed.

Burning 60 minutes of video onto a DVD is most unlikely to take less than about 15 minutes, for a reliable burn.

This leaves very little of your "hour" to do any actual creative editing, rendering, encoding and authoring.

Someone editing their first video, especially an important wedding video, should plan to spend a couple of week-ends plus a couple of evenings, producing several versions before they are happy with the result. During this time, they'll almost certainly need to "phone a friend" for help.

Richard

[dharrison]

Thanks for all your replies.

My friend has a Windows PC so she has located Windows Movie Maker.

However, now she has run into problems at http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic...=334112#334112

If you can help, I will be very grateful.

Thanks again and best regards,

[buzzi]

woo, IF I'm not too late,, would recommend VisiCrop

[dharrison]

Sorry buzzi this thread is nearly a year old. My friend made her vid as far as I know.

Thanx anyway.