HELP! What video editing software is good?

CraigEverettEarl wrote on 3/12/2003, 10:18 PM

Hello everyone. Please help! I am a writer and have just recently filmed a movie for public access, based off one of my published short stories. I used Pinnacle software AV for the job. OMG did I run into problem after problem. Lockups, files became corrupt, etc. Pinnacle was cool and did help, but it was also a pain in the a**! Now, I have been referred to the Vegas Video software, for my next film. I'm running into several problems though. First, I need to know which one to buy to best suit my needs. I seen there is a 2.0, 3.0 and now a very expensive 4.0. Last time I used the Pinnacle software I used a v.c.r. and an analog camcorder. This time I'll be using a dvd camcorder. What I'm worried about is the space. The last film was about 15 minutes and I wasn't able to use Pinnacle to burn it to a dvd disk, or vcd. It was telling me that it would take three dvds for fifteen minutes of footage. I could have changed it to an avi file to try it, but the program kept crashing and locking up before I could see if it worked, so we were forced to stay with a vhs tape. This time due to public access we can't. I'm hoping Vegas is a lot better for it's price. Also, I was told that Vegas is also able to due blue screen stuff for the films. How does this work, if it does at all? Also, any other good or bad things I should know about that may interest me in buying it. Pinnacle basically let you cut down the film, the background sound and overlap music is desired. Just wondering if Vegas does anything else? Thanks for your time,
Sincerely,
Craig Everett Earl

Comments

IanG wrote on 3/13/2003, 4:23 AM

Sonic Foundry produce 2 video editing programs; Video Factory (VF) and Vegas Video (VV). Current versions are 2 & 4 respectively, though there seem to be a lot of people still using older versions (if it aint broke etc.). VF is the entry level program and is basicaly a stripped down version of VV. This means you can start with VF and then upgrade to VV if and when VF no longer meets your needs - VF projects can be opened in VV and you can carry on working. VV to VF doesn't work though.

VF is a very powerful package, well worth the price (and then some IMHO), but it doesn't do blue screen. Blue screen, or chromakey, is the video equivalent of a colour replacement. You select a colour in your video and then replace it with a different video. The original chromakey systems just replaced blue (hence blue screen) but you can now choose pretty much any colour you want. It works, but you need to be careful not to use your key colour in the wrong places!

Prior to VV4's release it was cheaper to buy VF and upgrade to VV. This is no longer true, but the introductory pricing for VV4 expires on the 15th. Who knows what the pricing will be on the 16th?

Can VV do more than your list? Even VF has more features than you can shake a stick at - and that's the entry level version! Elaborate transitions don't do it for me (watch TV and see how many the pros use) but filters, pan & crop and slowmo are all useful. More important to me are stability and ease of use, particularly in the things I'm going to do a lot of - VF scores very highly here. I've also been very pleased with VF's ability to work with other software e.g. more sophisticated video capture programs, video authoring programs, whatever.

I'd download the VF demo and give it a whirl - you've nothing to lose!

Cheers

Ian G.

IanG wrote on 3/13/2003, 4:23 AM

discdude wrote on 3/13/2003, 10:39 AM

The Sony Screenblast version of Video Factory comes with a chroma key plugin. It is priced similarly to SoFo's version. However, you can't take advantage of the Vegas upgrade price if you decide to go that route.

JohnnyRoy wrote on 3/15/2003, 8:09 AM

Craig,

I don’t know if you realize you asked a question about Vegas in the VideoFactory forum so people are telling you what VideoFactory can do. Pinnacle Studio AV and VideoFactory are in the same price range and while Pinnacle Studio AV appears to have more features, it lacks a 2nd video track which makes it useless for compositing and, in general, it is very buggy and doesn’t work as advertised. (as you have unfortunately seen for yourself) For these reasons, I feel VideoFactory is a far superior product. It will allow you to cut down your video, add background music etc. just like Pinnacle Studio AV.

But you asked about Vegas and Vegas can do everything you want including blue screen. This is called chroma key and the way it works is you shoot your footage against a colored background and then remove the background by keying out the color. This means that if the color appears in your subject it will be cut out as well. For this reason, most studios use a very bright green background (referred to as green-screen) because this color rarely occurs naturally. Then you place that over any other track and the part that gets keyed out will reveal the track underneath replacing the background with the lower track.

If you need to make DVD’s you might want to consider Vegas+DVD which will allow you to burn DVD’s with AC3 audio. A lot of DVD authoring packages only support PCM audio but AC3 allows you to put more video on a DVD because its compressed. If you can’t afford that you can use a less expensive DVD authoring program but you get what you pay for and Vegas+DVD really can’t be beat. It’s an investment in your future.

You can’t go wrong with either Video Factory or Vegas but if you want to do chroma key (blue/green screen) you’ll need Vegas or the Sony version of VideoFactory as was suggested. It all depends on your budget. Get Vegas if you can afford it.

~jr

CraigEverettEarl wrote on 3/20/2003, 4:48 PM

Thanks so much for all of your help. I highly appreciate it!