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

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.

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.

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 :)

Could anyone recommend a good, cheep/free, and easy to use video editing software.

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/

Yes, it's mostly used by others to cleaning up video. Indeed it is not a non-linear editor. I know it is a very limited program, but it's the best free video editing program I could think of. :(

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)