video editing software - recommendations?

[blaze]

Hello,

Any recommendations for video editing software? I have tried putting together a video of my recent Presi Traverse, using still images, video clips, and music, using Microsoft Movie Maker 6.0, and it's been frustrating, to say the least. To say a bit more than the least, I've had to start from scratch 3-4 times, after the working project becomes unresponsive, and I am just about ready to burn Bill Gates in effigy.

I'm on Vista Home Premium Edition. Yeah, yeah, I know...

In MMM I made use of transitions, "split" video clips to trim away the not-so-interesting bits, adjusted the length of certain still shots, adjusted the mix of video clip sound to imported music --- not completely basic, but nothing real fancy either. Stuff that the package should be able to do.

I'm not looking for any MMM workarounds. I have thrown in the towel. It's a piece of crap, and after the most perfunctory Web searches, it's clear that there are numerous other "users" out there who are at least as ticked off as I am. Funny, because up 'til now I've had good luck with it.

I am not necessarily looking for freeware. Under $100 would be lovely though.

Thank you!

 

[Billy]

blaze, I picked up "Sony Vegas MovieMaker / DVD Architect" a few years ago for about $90 (student version). The have a pro version for about $300. I like it alot. Just make sure your computer easily exceeds the "system requirements" on the box, because if you're even close to the system requirements it will choke your computer and be a total dog. Three layers of video, three layers of audio, mixing stills and video, fade ins and fade outs, tons of video effects and still photo effects, etc. Excellent value for 90 bucks.

 

[sardog1]

I understand your circumstances, and I'm really not trying to make you feel bad. I just want to point out for people drawn to this thread that all Macs have been shipped for the last few years with iMovie installed, in various versions.

I will never have the time to fully exploit its features, 'cuz I'm not into video production. But without any training, damn little practice, and scant editing work, I made a movie last year with soundtrack that I enjoyed a lot, as did others.

I saw a movie being done on a Windows machine once with Movie Maker. It was painful to watch the process.

 

[Billy]

blaze

more about Sony vegas movie studio here

look in the upper-right corner, you can download a free trial

 

[Craig]

I've used MMM w/ MS XP and Vista without problems.

Perhaps your problem is hardware based. It takes a lot of resources (CPU and Ram) to manipulate those large pic & vid files.

Try taking your pics (jpeg or tiff?) and resizing them to 800 x 600 (save aspect ratio) x 72dpi. That will decrease the size dramatically. Make sure you save the new pics in a different folder so you don't overwrite the originals.

Try creating a vid in MMM with music and transitions using the resized pics.

Heres a vid I put together of a Pemi Loop a couple of years ago using MMM.

I also have Sony Vegas MM. IMO it has a fairly steep learning curve for the casual user.

 

[Brambor]

Quicktime Pro

I don't have much experience with good free apps for movie editing but for the very very basic quick cut and stitch functions I would recommend upgrading to Apple quicktime pro.

 

[blaze]

I've used MMM w/ MS XP and Vista without problems.

Perhaps your problem is hardware based. It takes a lot of resources (CPU and Ram) to manipulate those large pic & vid files.

Try taking your pics (jpeg or tiff?) and resizing them to 800 x 600 (save aspect ratio) x 72dpi. That will decrease the size dramatically. Make sure you save the new pics in a different folder so you don't overwrite the originals.

Try creating a vid in MMM with music and transitions using the resized pics.

Heres a vid I put together of a Pemi Loop a couple of years ago using MMM.

I also have Sony Vegas MM. IMO it has a fairly steep learning curve for the casual user.

I always do work with downsized still photos. I ran into the problem when creating a "movie" using lots of video clips. No way to downsize them that I know of.

I also tried installing the 2.6 version of MMM. It does not overlay 6.0; you can use either version (but not at the same time). I had the same problems with 2.6 when working with video clips. Last night I created one using primarily still images and version 6.0, and it went much better.

Thanks for all the input. I will read up on Sony Vegas MM. Cnet has reviewed video editing packages recently; I found the reviews helpful for those who are looking to buy.

 

[paul ron]

I have discovered an interesting problem with my videos... if I take a video with my camera turned to portrait (vertical) when viewing em on my computer they are sideways.

I tried using some editing software I got off the internet but nothing rotates em.

I'm using XP.

 

[DougPaul]

I have discovered an interesting problem with my videos... if I take a video with my camera turned to portrait (vertical) when viewing em on my computer they are sideways.

I tried using some editing software I got off the internet but nothing rotates em.

I'm using XP.

Some still cameras detect the orientation and put the info in the EXIF data and some display software detects this info and use it to control the display orientation. If the same applies to video, then either your camera or your display software is not producing/honoring this info. (Exiftool is a good package for examining/modifying EXIF data.)

Sorry, I don't know of any software which can directly rotate video. (However, I haven't looked at video editing software.) One technique for doing this would be to convert it to a sequence of stills, rotate the stills, and convert back to video. (The mplayer and jpegtran/ImageMagic packages can do this. Versions are available for Windows and Linux/Unix.)

A Google search on "rotate video 90 degrees" brings up lots of hits. Perhaps one of them can answer your question.

Doug

 

[Billy]

blaze, here's a video I put together using Sony's "Vegas Movie Studio". I mixed photos with videos, fade ins and outs, zoom-and-pan on still photos (the Ken Burns influence), telescoping on photos without zooming, added some text, added a music track, and rolled some credits.

As someone said earlier, there's a learning curve on this tool (and for me it was a steep one), but after playing with it for a while, you get the hang of it. And you can make it as simple or as complicated as you want.

edit: the video is a little jumpy in places; not sure if that's smugmug or internet connection or me. something for me to look into.

 

[blaze]

blaze, here's a video I put together using Sony's "Vegas Movie Studio". I mixed photos with videos, fade ins and outs, zoom-and-pan on still photos (the Ken Burns influence), telescoping on photos without zooming, added some text, added a music track, and rolled some credits.

As someone said earlier, there's a learning curve on this tool (and for me it was a steep one), but after playing with it for a while, you get the hang of it. And you can make it as simple or as complicated as you want.

edit: the video is a little jumpy in places; not sure if that's smugmug or internet connection or me. something for me to look into.

Very nicely done Billy - thank you for posting this! Great example of what the Sony product can do.

Who was the artist on the 2nd musical track? I picked out REM right away. The vocal sounded a bit like Geddy Lee.

 

[Billy]

...Who was the artist on the 2nd musical track? I picked out REM right away. The vocal sounded a bit like Geddy Lee.

Correct, that's Geddy Lee. "Making Memories", from their 1975 "Fly By Night" album. In keeping with the Canadian theme, I wanted to use some Rush.