Damn it, but computers have become really complicated

[JonCole]

Anyone here have experience with video editing? I wanted to get into some light personal editing, with the possibility of more professional work down the line, so I was wondering if anyone had input on what software may fit my needs on Windows. I'm split between Sony Vegas/Movie Studio and Adobe Premiere/Premiere Elements, they seem to have similar feature sets at least from my somewhat unlearned perspective but I'm really most interested in whatever has the better complication-to-capability split.

[shammack]

I edited video professionally for several years, but I used Avid, which I don't think has a consumer-level version anymore. I haven't tried Premiere, but I've used Adobe After Effects lot and I hate it. I've never even heard of the Sony thing.

 

I guess that wasn't very useful. But I'd say if you're planning on doing professional work down the line, I'd go with Premiere just because there's a better chance of its being used elsewhere. Honestly all video editing software has pretty much the same features (at least as far as things you will actually ever use), so it's just down to which interface you prefer.

[Gormongous]

Anyone here have experience with video editing? I wanted to get into some light personal editing, with the possibility of more professional work down the line, so I was wondering if anyone had input on what software may fit my needs on Windows. I'm split between Sony Vegas/Movie Studio and Adobe Premiere/Premiere Elements, they seem to have similar feature sets at least from my somewhat unlearned perspective but I'm really most interested in whatever has the better complication-to-capability split.

I edited video professionally for several years, but I used Avid, which I don't think has a consumer-level version anymore. I haven't tried Premiere, but I've used Adobe After Effects lot and I hate it. I've never even heard of the Sony thing.

 

I guess that wasn't very useful. But I'd say if you're planning on doing professional work down the line, I'd go with Premiere just because there's a better chance of its being used elsewhere. Honestly all video editing software has pretty much the same features (at least as far as things you will actually ever use), so it's just down to which interface you prefer.

 

I have a friend who edits professionally using Vegas. If what I've heard from him is true, I really wouldn't recommend learning it, just because it does multiple basic things differently than just about every other piece of video editing software out there, so you're specializing yourself on something that doesn't have as much broad applicability as Premiere, which shares a lot of its verbs with the rest of the Creative Suite.

[JonCole]

I edited video professionally for several years, but I used Avid, which I don't think has a consumer-level version anymore. I haven't tried Premiere, but I've used Adobe After Effects lot and I hate it. I've never even heard of the Sony thing.

 

I guess that wasn't very useful. But I'd say if you're planning on doing professional work down the line, I'd go with Premiere just because there's a better chance of its being used elsewhere. Honestly all video editing software has pretty much the same features (at least as far as things you will actually ever use), so it's just down to which interface you prefer.

 

That was my intuition, I just have recently heard good anecdotal things about Vegas recently and I have a weird brand loyalty to Sony so it reblipped on my radar after being fairly set on Premiere previously.

 

I have a friend who edits professionally using Vegas. If what I've heard from him is true, I really wouldn't recommend learning it, just because it does multiple basic things differently than just about every other piece of video editing software out there, so you're specializing yourself on something that doesn't have as much broad applicability as Premiere, which shares a lot of its verbs with the rest of the Creative Suite.

 

I do imagine that there's some degree of UI/design consistency among Creative Suite stuff, so learning Premiere could leverage somewhat into other products in that lineup unlike Vegas.

 

Thanks for the input, guys. If anyone else has more experience in these things, any other advice would still be recommended. I'm still trying to do a little more research before I bite the bullet, might try out a couple trial versions first.

[syntheticgerbil]

I often use Premiere and think it works just fine. I'd avoid the CS4 version though, it has major frame rate/blending issues. I don't think you really have to mess with After Effects if you want to keep it as simple as possible, since Premiere already has a lot of the functions After Effects has, just the light versions of them (like color correction, minor effects, keyframing certain elements).

 

The major thing I hate about Premiere is that it doesn't seem to recognize most newer video formats unless it's an mpg, mp4, or mov. Maybe this is asking a bit too much, but I sure would love to be able to just drag and drop an flv, vob, or mkv in to the program and just be done with it. Instead I have to go the extra step and use Freemake to convert, which is just simply a waste of time. I've never used any other major video editing software though, so I have no idea how it compares.

[SilentBtAmazing]

Wow I just spent like five hours trying to figure out why my audio quit working. It turns out that sometimes this happens with Windows 8.1 after a restart. Ultimately got fixed by uninstalling / reinstalling audio drivers but I was barely competent enough to get there.

:/

[Ben X]

Another editing software question:

 

Which freeware editing tool would you recommend for some basic editing on Windows 7, with no view to professional work down the line? I have a bunch of mp4s and avis that I want to cut together to make some silly videos and short films. I don't need anything much more complicated than Movie Maker, except that I will need the ability to edit the audio track(s) separately, which MM doesn't seem to allow. (It would make my life especially easy if the software let me import my mp4, then separate the video and audio for editing from there - otherwise I may be coming back with requests for a bit of software that can do that with a bunch of files as an automated process..!)

 

Thanks!

[JonCole]

Another editing software question:

 

Which freeware editing tool would you recommend for some basic editing on Windows 7, with no view to professional work down the line? I have a bunch of mp4s and avis that I want to cut together to make some silly videos and short films. I don't need anything much more complicated than Movie Maker, except that I will need the ability to edit the audio track(s) separately, which MM doesn't seem to allow. (It would make my life especially easy if the software let me import my mp4, then separate the video and audio for editing from there - otherwise I may be coming back with requests for a bit of software that can do that with a bunch of files as an automated process..!)

 

Thanks!

 

I feel like this doesn't exist. I've tried quite hard to find something of this nature and everything seems like shareware or upsell material. Or it seems super old. You may be better off spending like $10-20 on last year's Premiere Elements or Sony Movie Studio than mucking around in that stuff. But maybe I'm wrong, I hope I am. I've just had to slum it with MM up until this point.

[Gormongous]

I feel like this doesn't exist. I've tried quite hard to find something of this nature and everything seems like shareware or upsell material. Or it seems super old. You may be better off spending like $10-20 on last year's Premiere Elements or Sony Movie Studio than mucking around in that stuff. But maybe I'm wrong, I hope I am. I've just had to slum it with MM up until this point.

 

No, I think you're right. I held back because I haven't been up-to-date on the video editing scene for some years, but it seems to me, Ben, like you want three things (compatibility with modern containers/codecs, professional-level features, and free to download) and you'll only be able to get two with any given product.

[Justin Leego]

Would Avidemux fit the bill?

[Architecture]

VideoLAN is currently working on a free non-linear editing program, but it's not out yet.

[syntheticgerbil]

Camtasia is "free" if you keep messing with a registry key to reset the trial.

[Ben X]

Thanks, gang.

 

It sounds like neither Avidemux or Camtasia allow you to edit your audio tracks properly. I just assumed that would be classed as a basic feature that at least a few freeware programs would have, but obviously not. I'll look into Jon's suggestions of last year's stuff. Do those programs have the ability to split audio out from an mp4 to a separate editing track and chop it around at will?

[brkl]

Lightworks has a free version, but it has some limitations. Also, it's bloody complicated to use.

[Justin Leego]

Yeah, it's tough. I guess if you want to see what using a pro level application would be like then Lightworks has got your back!

[Thrik]

It's a shame that Adobe doesn't do a lower-price Creative Cloud tier for the Elements series. While Premiere Elements could be a great choice, like professional-grade products the codecs and feature set can fall out of date so it feels a bit shit to pay £80 or whatever for it.

Still, if you think you would regularly use a few of Adobe's programmes you might be able to justify a £50/month Creative Cloud membership — or get work to do it. I personally love how seamlessly Audition (audio), Photoshop (sprites), and Premiere Pro (video) integrate with each other; for example, you can click on sound in Premiere Pro to edit the shit out of it in Audition and it auto-updates while preserving the original.

Of course, this is all irrelevant based on the original requirement. But like the guys above, I think that finding good free software of this kind will be challenging.

[JonCole]

It's a shame that Adobe doesn't do a lower-price Creative Cloud tier for the Elements series. While Premiere Elements could be a great choice, like professional-grade products the codecs and feature set can fall out of date so it feels a bit shit to pay £80 or whatever for it.

 

Man, no kidding. It seems strange that it's not tiered in that fashion. The motivation for Creative Cloud from what I perceive is to trade higher convenience and access for that monthly fee. Sure, buying a fixed price version of one program gets you that program forever, but paying the fee gets you all of the programs updated as long as you have it. Not to mention, people like subscriptions that don't have heavy upfront costs - when you're talking about a $300 program, paying $50 for a month of it seems like a steal. By offering these advantages at a relatively low price, it gets people to possibly stop pirating Adobe's pro software.

 

However, with the state of creative consumer-grade products for Windows, I feel like someone would be just as likely to want to pirate a $100 version of Premiere Elements or Photoshop Elements when what they're hoping for is freeware or very cheap software. I'd almost certainly pay a $10-20 subscription for Elements versions of Pro software and maybe access to one or two of the programs that tie into them, rather than pro-grade software and EVERYTHING for $50 a month. As it is, I just ponied up $60 or something for Premiere Elements and didn't feel particularly happy to pay that much.

[Ben X]

Well, even going back three years didn't get me anything under £20, so I might try Lightworks. Is it really that difficult just to grasp the basics? All I need to do is have separate video and audio timelines and do some trimming and cut-pasting... If that doesn't work out, I guess I'll try out some various free trials.

[brkl]

It's... well. Video tutorials are your best bet and it has a pretty comprehensive manual. It just doesn't work and communicate how you expect. Maybe it's easier now than when I first came across it since they've been developing it a lot, but it's just not something you gradually learn just by trying.

[JonCole]

Premiere Elements 12 has separate timelines, I just checked. But it's the latest version, so likely still around 70 US/I don't know how many £.

[Nachimir]

Nearly the same in £, it's about $107. I'd swear the gap in £ and $ numbers for software and some hardware closes more every year

[syntheticgerbil]

Is it possible to buy a 3.5" hard drive enclosure (preferably Sata to USB 3.0) that does not need a power adapter? I seem to be reading that is not possible.

[JonCole]

No. From what I know, USB ports provide up to 10 watts of power. Most 3.5" HDDs require anywhere from 15-30 watts of power, usually on the upper end while under load.

[syntheticgerbil]

If that is so, is it possible to buy a 3.5" hard drive enclosure that powers off of 2 USB hookups then? Do they make that?

 

I'm trying to get an external I can take to school but not fumble with finding a power outlet.

[JonCole]

I've never heard of anything like that. Is there any particular reason you're set on not simply buying a portable HDD instead of a 3.5" HDD + enclosure?