The Best Video Editing Software
The best video editing software for you, these days, seems not such an easy thing to establish. However with a little help you can easily make a good choice.
The key point to keep in mind is this:
All of the major home video editing software companies offer camcorder to DVD video editing solutions that make them almost inseparable from each other. So lets first take a look at what you REALLY need.
The first thing to establish is what is the format of the material you will be working with and what will be the format, or formats, that I will ultimately be producing.
Source Formats:
Standard Definition (SD):
Standard Definition (SD):
| · | DV.AVI video recorded to mini DV tape on a camcorder. |
| · | MPEG2 video recorded to mini DVD either on a camcorder or DVD recorder. |
| · | MPEG2 video recorded to an inbuilt hard disc drive on a camcorder or DVD recorder. |
| · | Any of the various high compression formats such as MPEG4, H.264 recorded to flash type memory on camcorders. |
High Definition (HD):
| · | HD MPEG2 (HDV) recorded to mini DV tape on a camcorder. |
| · | AVCHD (an MPEG4 variant) recorded to inbuilt hard disc drive on a camcorder. |
| · | AVCHD recorded to DVD on a camcorder. |
| · | AVCHD recorded to solid state (flash etc.) memory on a camcorder. |
Output Formats:
| · | DVD - MPEG2 files authored (organized and written) to the DVD standard. |
| · | Completed projects or edited material written back to the original recording device. E.g. A completed project written back to a tape camcorder for archival purposes. |
| · | High Definition material written to a standard DVD. |
| · | High Definition material written to a Blue Ray disc. |
| · | Any of a number of very highly compressed formats for viewing on computers or loading on to internet services such as YouTube. |
So your first task in deciding on the best video editing software for you is to work out what your most common source files will be and what your most common output will be. That represents the core of what you will be using the software for and should be your main focus.
The second important point you need to look at with video editing programs is not the program itself but simply a reality of all complex software running very intensive processing such as video editing.
Every computer will have differences in hardware setups, software loaded and setup and will have reached a different operational state caused by the different uses and habits of the user.
You can take any video editing software product, load it on to ten computers and for most they will work just fine. For some there will be adjustments needed but no big deal and for some, no matter what you do, you just can't make that darn thing run! That is why it is a good idea to take advantage of free trial periods first, before you purchase.
Bells and Whistles! Like any other competetive market, video editing software is caught up in a never ending race to keep up with technology as it develops and still make the product seem "sexy" to the customer.
The point is, you probably don't WANT to buy video editing software. What you WANT is a finished video production. The problem for the software company is that they know you NEED to buy video editing software but that is not what you WANT! They have to make you WANT it! And because of that we get "bells and whistles" features that make you WANT IT but most likely will never need.
Transitions: These are the little inserts that go in between two clips to make the scene change. If you look at a movie you will notice when the scene changes it either cuts to the next scene with no transition, this is called cut or a straight cut. It fades to black then fades into the next scene from black called a crossfade through black. Or, finally, the two scenes merge into each other softly and this one is called a crossfade.
There you have it, pretty well the entire range of transitions that professional video editors use!
Overlay Tracks: An overlay simply put, is the ability to put one video in the background and have another visible on top of it. It is that "picture in picture" effect you have seen. You can also put subtitles in an overlay track or still photos or a bunch of other things to really get creative.
If you watch the TV news these days you will see the main track is the person on-air, then you may see a ticker tape readout running below, the station logo at the top right and video of the "at the scene" reporter getting ready to make a report. All of that is done using overlay tracks. You need about five or six for good control but you would never use more than that otherwise, once again, no-one is going to want to watch the mess you have created!
Audio Control: There is no video editing software at the consumer level that offers truly excellent audio control and features. They are video editing programs not audio editing programs.
On the next page are my choices, in order for video editing programs. The top choice is the one I currently use. Take advantage of the trials and see which you like.
Copyright© 2008 Flourish Group Taiwan.
"What am I REALLY going to do with the video editing software that I choose?"
It is easy to get distracted by all the "bells and whistles" on offer but the reality is that many of those features may ultimately prove useless to you unless you can at least forsee a need for them.
Formats.
Newbies use ALL the available transitions because they look cool the first time they see them. NOBODY ever, ever, wants to go back to their house again to look at their latest production! Ignore transitions as a deciding feature, they all have them and they all have more than you need.
Some have pretty good control some don't but if you are going to demand pro level audio control then you need dedicated software for that. The ability to handle Dolby 5:1 Surround is a bare minimum. They may crow about their audio capabilities but from video editing software want you want is solid basics and realistic expectations.
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