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Video Editing Programs...share what you use and why...
Hey all, im the head animator for team 68, Truck Town Thunder, and i was wondering what everyone uses for there editing. No, im not talking about video post, im talking about putting it all together at the end.
Well, sry ahead of time to all u adobe lovers. But i hate premire. its too unstable, and way to slow. Im quite partialed to [b][B}Vegas Video 3 , by sonic foundry. I know, its not as well know as premire, but it defineatelly wins for me. I found out about it through acid, a lot of folks use that, dont you? well, if not, you should. so, lets all talk about video eding, shall we? also, i do our chairmans award in vegas, and it turned out great! :D -Alex |
The biggest problem I had with Premiere was no real time preview but with 6.5 that concern has been taken away and it is now my editor of choice. If I had a Targa 3000 card however Discreet Edit would catch my eye.
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Through my connections in the industy, My tema has access to Avid's and Adobe After Effects (that we have used). Last years anim was combiled in AE. You can do ram previews in realtime. I prefer Avid as it is the industry standard for non-linear editing. I know you all dont have access to one, but I bet if you chacked around you may be able to find a local business that may be willing to teach one or two students and allow access to it when it's not bussy. Avid had a whole tutorial booklet (as does mos other programs out there) that would teach you the basics in no time. Ive used premiere, but there is somuch dependent on hardware that its a pain some times. AE is alot more forgiving as far as hardware goes and you can assemble and add music in notime. Then do your titles and your done. Ive never used Vegas, if it works go for it. My feeling is to try to gain access to what the pros use and you'll get more out of the whole experience. It may be up to some of you to get knocking on thier doors and look for supporters in this industry.
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Yeah, we used an avid system too for the year before but I guess it is completely outdated so last year we used Premiere and didn't like it for it's lack of real time and super long rendering times. Now though I have a feeling that 6.5 will be a lot better and more forgiving. Also, After Effects isn't really for video editing, it's more post production. Stuff like tweening images and alphas. We used it for credits and that neat-o logo off the ball thing at the end. Everyone seemed to like that.
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All Editing is Post-Production. Aftereffects is timeline based and can work with Audio and Video and can have several layers of each. So based on what you put on your time line. Its editing too. It isnt real time, but it has Ram Previews (depending on the version). We used AE to put last years anim together. We rendered in layers and compositied in AE. I wouldnt edit Audio there if I could avoid it (but I had in the past when no other options were available) I put together a full 3 min video with AE about 4-5 yrs ago and that was before ram previews.
So if you dont have the hardware to run somthing eles- Its an option. PS: There is a software package from Avid call ExpressDV. Its about 1900 for the basic version and 2400 for an upgrade. If you have a computer you can run it on (check out their site for spec's) you dont even need a capture card if you import Quicktimes or AVI's and If we export the same for Discreet then you'd be all set. If you read my post on computer systems, the same applies here- If you dont have the money. Find someone to donate it- or 3-4 people/businesses. |
Educational versions
Check out if there are educational versions available. I purchase stuff from Journey ED (Check www.journeyed.com -but I'm not sure thats it)
They also hooked me up with another educational provider for upgrading 3DS MAX to version 5 (from 4) for $150. That would be $800 as a regular upgrade. If they give us 5 this year, we will own 2-4's 1-4.3 and a 5. We need to upgrade to the same level so we can be more productive. |
iMovie. Easy, comprehensive, and FREE.
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Sorry to dissagree (we are aloud to do that here aren't we?) I've used just about every edit software out there is at least once. With one or two exceptions. I edited a 30sec commercial on Imovie shot with DV and it was fine. But there is somthing different between pasting a series of clips together and using a non-liniar edditng system.
FIRST is for inspiration and recognition of science and technology. Well Cheap and easy never inspires me. I am economical and I get the best deal I can but I look for the right tools not the free tools. Dean Kamen states that he hopes students are inspired by working side by side with professionals (engineers) to see how the Real World works. Not to see how the guy in the basement works. (PS I have my own business and work from my home so the above statement is about mentality not location) AVID and Media100 are the two leading editing stations for the Industry- so it only benifits you to use them over anything else. I never saw a real editor use anything else (as far a non-linear systems go) There are a few compositing systems like the Flame and such but they are soo expensive that they are few and fare between. There was a lot of complaining going on after last years Championship Event. That Animation gets shafted every year. Well if you want to change that- Get some Production/Post-Production professionals involved on your team. Dont sit in the corner and hope someone notices you. Knock on some doors and get them interested. Ask for mentoring relationships with the Pro's. Most of them dont know you're there. I have trained dozens of people who came out of college and wanted to get into the graphics/animation/video field and most of them knew didly. Even with a degree. You guys need to step up and get real experience now not in 5years. If you want to change the view of Animation start with your own attitudes. Are you part of the team or do you serve the team. I actually like to do both. But I have been a Mentor from this profession and I encourage other professionals to help out both physically and fiancially. My voice is heard on the entire team, not just with animation. Animation is a Technology. It is only a small part of a larger profession. The more you understand each aspect of that profession the more you respect others for what they do, but the better you can serve your client base and/or company that you are a part of. I got into this business as a 3D animator- my education is in Architectural Design. That was in 94. Now I can sit at an Avid and edit, I can sit at AfterEffects and Produce a show, I can sit at PhotoShop and do what ever I need to, design and maintain Websites, I do 3D work for Video and for Print (for Achitects and Developers), I program CDRoms for many Fortune 100 Companies. I am not bragging, I am telling you that I have the client base because of my scope of knowledge. Even if I never touch edit software, I need to talk to editors and give them what they need to finish a show. Even if I didnt produce CDRoms or Wed sites- I need to know how to design graphics to work in each environment. So Understanding the REAL tools of the industry is key to your success and the success of the FIRST Program. Be FIRST Class in everything you do. As stated in previous posts, if you can only get this or that and you dont have much choice then dont be ashamed to use it. But this is OCT 3 2002, dont tell me you cant get something untill youve knocked on doors and asked for help. Your school may be able to purchase the software and it may not have to come out of your team's budget. PS- I checked and www.journeyed.com has student/faculty versions of AVID Express DV for $500 and School Versions for under $1000. If you want to add a capture card you can do that for as little as $100. |
i personally use a legal copy of premiere 6 with a canopus dv capture card, but you can't leave out final cut for the macs. Even though i hate macs, i believe it is a great product, maybe even the best in the buisness. Just an oppinion, and i'll stick with my windoze box :)
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Could anyone recommend a good, cheep/free, and easy to use video editing software.
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I use a free and easy to use program called VirtualDub. It can join/split/resize/crop a wide variety of video files. :D
The program itself is very simple, but there are filters out there that you can add to VirtualDub's plugins folder to increase what you can do to manipulate videos. You can get it at http://www.virtualdub.org/ |
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It has video capture capabilities for you to import video from hardware. The filters are pretty cool, and you can download more if you wanted. I bet one could do quite a bit with this program. I found a neat subtitler plugin that adds text to video. VirtualDub without plugins only has the bare essentials. |
Just a follow up on earlier posts. I listed AfterEffects as a potential program to use. I know, I know it's not free, but it is available in a lot of schools - as is the entire Adobe line of Software. It was pointed out as not being a nonlinear editor. Which in essance is true, but it does alot more than all this free stuff people are talking about. This aside, I pointed out that the essance of Non-Linear Editing is to be able to combine Audio and Video Clips or portions there of. Another benefit that I wanted to pointout was that AfterEffects is Resolution independent. Well, what the heck does that mean? It means that you are not limited to Video Frame and Pixel Aspect Ratios (width to hight ratios) In Video it is roughly 4x3 (ie 320x240 (half res) or 640x480 (full res). There are other closly sililar ratios that are'nt exactly 4x3- such as D1-NTSC Which is a non-square pixel format that displays as 720x486. Oh boy, whats this non-square stuff about. That can be another post if anytone needs to know let me know...
All the above relates to Video Editing Systems that are Resolution dependent. When you capture or import video it will translate the footage to the proper resolution for your project (or project settings- if you even have a choice) even the Aclaimed Avid is bound by these constraints. If I import a picture that is 1024x768 (maybe a screen grab) most edit softwares will compress this to the project resolution (like 720x486) so you get a distorted picture that probably is noisey and buzzy as well. Aftereffects will import Any Format at any Resolution and keep it that way. Well, does this have any good use? The Video resolutions are designed to translate properly when displayed on a TV screen. In fact there are even special Resolutions for HDTV and Widescreen TV and the like. Well the fact is that you will not always be confined to there aspect ratios if you do a project that will be played on web or on CDRom. Case Study1: After 9-11-01 a client of mine decided they didnt want to have their yearly Partners' Meeting (Jan 02) in the same format as in the past- Normally it was a celebration and gathering that people flew in from all over the world to attend. They didnt feel much like celebrating and they knew some would not want to travel. So we did a webcast. Instead of a standard webcast where somone shoots video and we encode it and they provide a link to the fottage on some webpage, we designed an inteface that incorporated various aspect ratios that were seamlessly embeded into the BG of the webpage. That means the graphics that made the webpage continued seemlessly behind the senior parner that was speaking. On some clips it was a standard resolutiom, but on others, there were two partners sitting side by side from the waist up. This became a format that was about 1.5 longer than normal and about .75 the height. All the final edits and compositing was preformed in Aftereffects. Then we encoded and embedded the footage. Case Study 2: Just last week I was asked to illustrate an Audio Voice over of Four Clinical Studies of 3D RA Imaging (Moving X-Ray Imaging) for a medical company. The Footage would be chown on a CD and I was to use existing footage of non-standard AVI that came out of the X-Ray Equipment. As well as High Resolution stills and other video formats. The mix of footage and non-standard formats could only be done with AE, which included importing MPEGs which before that latest version of AE couldnt even be done with this program. The result was a 400x400 MPEG footage of (4) 1.5min to 2min that completely synced to the VO track. All edits were preformed in AE. I have done countless pans, pushes, and pulls on high resolution photos. The final renders were later imported and edited in an Avid or Media 100 System Think out side the box- the 4x3 box, that is... |
Adobe Premiere
Adobe Premiere- easy to learn, what the pros use, a million different customizations- its perfect (with fast computers like vaios anyway- dont even try to use it with an outdated computer)
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We don't make a lot of videos but when we would we would use Avid express. But, our principal just bought a new $50,000 system with like 5 monitors, a whole bunch of video inputs and outputs, and a computer with 300 gigs of hard drive space, an Intel Xeon processor, and a whole bunch of software including Premier and Video Toaster and more. It's got a whole bunch of other equipment that I have no idea what it even is.
Ridiculous if you ask me. We have only like $5,500 for robotics currently. Only $2500 of that was donated by the school. They are also kicking us out of our nice room and making us move all our stuff to make space for the new video editing equipment. We have to go in a room with metal tables and a hard lynolium floor. To top it all off, the school just blew 5 g's on a GEM car for the security guard to motor around in. I guess not any school money is good for anything. But where is the robotics money, where???? |
I have used/use a combination of many. THey includ Pinnacle's Studio DV, VirtualDub, TMPGenc, mpg splitter, and Adobe premiere.
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You know what you guys could do if you really wanted to be a savvy power user? Use the ever-so-nice ever-so free Linux. I have seen a couple of video editors on it and they struck me as being just as powerful if not more than windows based programs. Best part, if you have a problem that seems common chances are there is already a patch to fix it.
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What I use
I used vegas video last year because of its simplicity.
I will use adobe premier this year though because of its quality. |
Apple iMovie
I use Apple iMovie on my PowerBook G4. I can record directly to the laptop, and edit the clips on the way home. Before you go and bash Apple, I am a long time Windows user, but Windows doesn't even begin to compare. Try It ;)
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I know that this is nothing close to the professional editing programs, but if your team is looking for a FREE windows video editing program - check the Windows Movie Maker 2 at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/m...maker2beta.asp
The functionality of the second version is pretty close to iMovie for Macs, although quality seems to be worse. You can probably use VirtualDub to clean up/encode the video after that. |
finalcut
I agree with the users of Final Cut Pro: Version 3 is an advanced, complete editing package that I believe through experience surpasses any Adobe product in speed, reliability and features. Though it is only available for the Macintosh, it would be worth their while for Premiere users to check out this program if they have access to a G4 Mac or equiv.
I have used Final Cut 3 as well as Premiere, but have no experience with Avid products. As the professional media developer said, it may be that Avid is superior to both these products. Could someone who has used both Final Cut and Avid rate the two against each other? |
If you want access to an AVID check with your local Television station affiliates (ABC, FOX, CBS, NBC). We have two here at my station and I think they would be willing to let someone with experience use the suite free of charge, but you would have to check. (I'm in RI by the way).
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Re: finalcut
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If you look on the Apple Website you find a new prosumer Final Cut Pro called Final Cut Express. It is almost a full featured final cut pro for a 1/3 of the price ($299 retail, $250 educational). Also iMovie was also recently updated to version 3. |
Luckily we have a program at our school which several of our team members work on with all the goodies. Personally I use Avid at my school. Avid is a little on the expensive side, but my school is paying for it not me ;) so I'd rather use that it has the most plugins I've ever seen for anything. It is a little wacky with the hardware it will run on, but once again im not payin for that either ;)
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I'm currently running AVID Express DV on a laptop and desktop. I mentioned earlier that as a student you can get this software for under $1000. I dont expect you to have this in your house- unless you have a job and are really into this stuff. But this is a FIRST forum and my objective is to help you guys find the professional tools and approach to all that you do. That is the point isnt it. So out of a typical FIRST Team budget. $900 isnt that much money. If its a problem, find someone to donate it. you can run on a standard PC with a firewire card in it. The AVID site has the specs. Nothing I run it on is on their approved hardware list and it still works perfectly.
If you are MAC based then go with final cut pro if you want. Avid ExpressDV is available there as well. My feeling when ever I buy hardware and software is- Be Compatible. You dont want to be a lone wolf when it comes to interfacing with other companies and institutions. You want to use standard stuff. Avid fits the bill all the way. I dont expect you to buy a 20 or 30 or 80 thousand dollar edit system. but the express dv is compatible with the full systems. If you learn to edit on it you could sit at any avid and presto- your an editor. Thats the power of common tools. Any thing you use will get the job done. The question you need to ask youself is whats the whole goal here. To produce a video/animation or to prepare yourself for the future. Only you can answer that and what ever you decide will be the right answer for you! |
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