Video Editing Software better than Windows Movie Maker

[isiolia]

Adobe Products are now available subscription-style. You can't even buy them outright any more. The down side is that if you use them constantly over a long stretch of time, they are expensive. The up side is that if you only need them every once in a while, you pay for a month of use, do all your editing, and then you stop paying.

They do still just sell the Elements versions, rather than use Creative Cloud. I don't know the ins and outs, but I imagine that Premiere Elements is a modest step up from Windows Movie Maker.

Also, Creative Cloud's pricing model really doesn't favor the month here or there use. Yearly plans are discounted a fair bit, as is just getting the full package versus a la carte apps. Paying per year is (I think) intended to be comparable to upgrading every time there was a new version before.

[fastbilly1]

Then they is Avid’s Media Composer.

As someone who built Avid compatible machines in the early 2000s, was a small time editor, and still works as a DIT/Media Manager occasionally, Sony Vegas or Adobe Premier is what you want. I started really editing on two vcrs, then two vcrs and a Videonics AB mixer:

Then a couple films with a bell and howell 8mm cutter, then a 16mm cutter, then to an Avid with this guy:


Like John Blade said, Avid is the standard. Back in the 2000s you had to have a very specially built and configured machine: RD Rambus ram, SCSI harddrives, etc. But thats not to say that you NEED an Avid. When I want to cut something quick, I use Vegas. I used Vegas in college, instead of the Avid, since Vegas ran on my gaming pc super fast.

You can get Vegas 11 (the 2011 version) for $25 on Amazon:

And that should be more than sufficient for what you are trying to do. Or you can get the brand new version for $60.

Heres the thing, if you are planning on making htis your career, Premier is a better choice. But thats not to say you cannot learn very valuable lessons from Vegas. Like any skill, you need to practice. And besides, cutting is only about half of the skills of an editor, and cutting is the easy part to learn.

[Erik_Twice]

A potato would be a better video editing software than Windows Movie Maker

[marurun]

The version of iMovie on the iPhone right now is supposed to actually be pretty sweet.

[samsonlonghair]

TechX, I love Final Cut Pro, and iMovie is pretty neat too for beginners, but you said you're using Windows, not OSX. Do I really expect you to buy Apple hardware$$$$, learn to use OSX (admittedly not too hard) and then start learning Final Cut Pro? Probably not right now.

TechX, you said you're on Windows. The only video editing software that you need to invest time in learning is Adobe Premiere. I spent a little time during college interning at my local NBC affiliate. They use Adobe Premiere for their video editing. This is professional software--maybe not Hollywood grade, but at least professional TV grade.

When / if the day comes that you move to Mac OSX, rest assured that Adobe Premiere also works on Macs too. Also, the skills you pick up learning Premiere translate fairly well to Final Cut Pro. The two programs use fairly similar graphic user interfaces.

Don't feel overwhelmed. It's not so hard as it first seems.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... e+tutorial

[TechXRenAgadeX]

TechX, I love Final Cut Pro, and iMovie is pretty neat too for beginners, but you said you're using Windows, not OSX. Do I really expect you to buy Apple hardware$$$$, learn to use OSX (admittedly not too hard) and then start learning Final Cut Pro? Probably not right now.

TechX, you said you're on Windows. The only video editing software that you need to invest time in learning is Adobe Premiere. I spent a little time during college interning at my local NBC affiliate. They use Adobe Premiere for their video editing. This is professional software--maybe not Hollywood grade, but at least professional TV grade.

When / if the day comes that you move to Mac OSX, rest assured that Adobe Premiere also works on Macs too. Also, the skills you pick up learning Premiere translate fairly well to Final Cut Pro. The two programs use fairly similar graphic user interfaces.

Don't feel overwhelmed. It's not so hard as it first seems.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... e+tutorial

Yea i loved Final Cut when i was using it. Just a bummer its only for Mac...looks like Adobe Premiere it is

[samsonlonghair]

If you already know Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere will be no big problem for you. Like I said, the GUI is similar.

[Niode]

I tried to get my head around Final Cut Pro back when I was doing a lot of video editing for the College I used to work at (tutorial vids, online promotional stuff back in 2008 not many educational outlets were doing this sort of thing for free on youtube, now everyone does it). I found that Adobe Premiere was just so much nicer to use. I don't know whether it was due to limitations of my machine at the time but FCP would require me to bounce down every edit. With Adove Premiere (on the same machine no less) would allow me to preview my edits straight away (at a reduced quality). I haven't done much video editing for a while but I'm getting back into it with streaming Hearthstone and have my new iMac 5k coming soon. I'd definitely recommend Premiere over FCP any day of the week. It seems you are windows based so I would say that Premiere is a no-brainer for Windows video editing these days. It's super easy to use. After Effects is amazing and again, super simple to use. Plus it's relatively cheap to get legit with the subscription model they are using.

[Jrecee]

I've been using Vegas for a long time. I despise final cut, especially due to the rediculous transcoding requirements if editing avchd or other formats. Every other editing system has progressed to include multi-codec support, while apple clings to forcing you to transcode everything. Their way or the highway...

A positive of vegas is that it has a very low cost of entry. You can sometimes find the "vegas movie studio" versions for under $50, which are limited versions but let you learn all the basics. If you like it, you can pay an upgrade price and move to the pro version.

Premiere is a pretty solid choice though. Someone mentioned that final cut has become a pro option for hollywood films, but so has Premiere. Gone Girl was edited with the adobe line. Plus Premiere has the advantage of both mac/windows support where the other two are one or the other. Although I have no idea how well the two versions talk to eachother.

[marurun]

In 1999, when I was in Japan, I got to play with an Avid station hooked up to a fancy Mac to do some work with some video I shot for a class assignment. SO easy to use, at least for the basic stuff. I kinda fell in love with it...