Advices about video editing software??

[Stratos]

Can anyone recommend a good video editing software to create flight sim videos?? You know, cut that scene, add the music, credits and titles...

Nothing proffesional, only to have some fun. Thank's

[192nd_Erdem]

Well,Windows Movie Maker 2 did the job for me to get "familiar" with video editing.It's easy use and does the job.

 

When you feel ready for more "in depth" movies,there's plenty of good ones to choose from :)

[Andrew_McP]

Erdem's right. Movie Maker 2 (if you have XP SP2 installed you should find MM2 on your "accessories" menu) is very good and totally free. Ideas are the biggest part of movie making, the editor is just what you use to stick those ideas together, and MM2 is a great beginner's tool.

 

Be careful though. Movie making isn't a hobby... it's a disease which gets into your blood and is very hard to get rid of. ;-)

 

Andrew McP

[nscode]

A friend of mine who earns his living editing would say that Adobe Premiere is a nice tool for beginners :D And it really is... (btw, it is a bit ++$$$) don't think that because something is powerfull it's not easy to learn. When I needed to edit a video from my graduation party I did it all in a week with nice results and I never used it before :)

I also managed never to edit anything else after that.. gues I got a lucky escape, huh Andrew ;)

[Andrew_McP]

gues I got a lucky escape, huh Andrew ;)

 

:-) For what it's worth if people are paying for an editor I tried just about everything when I started down this movie making path two years ago. Movie Maker 2 was what I started with, and it's a superb place to learn the basics. But eventually you want to be a bit more "clever", and I ended up with Vegas's much cheaper "junior" version, which is now called Vegas Movie Studio. Nothing else was so easy to use (similar in style to MM2), and it's *much* cheaper than Vegas 6, which is great but unnecessary unless you have plenty of cash or a *really* bad movie habit. :-)

 

http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/products/vegasfamily.asp?keycode=3144-3000

 

I nearly bought Editstudio, which is even cheaper, and has excellent support from the designers in their forum. But it has a *really* unfriendly interface IMO. http://www.puremotion.com/

 

The good thing about all movie editors though is that there's usually a demo to try.

 

Andrew McP

[Ironhand]

You might also want to consider the freeware VirtualDub. I've used it a few times and it gives great control over the quality and size of the AVI file produced. Downside is that it only handles one audio track, so mixing within the program is not an option. I find that the output video quality can be, however, far superior to Windows Movie Maker.

 

Andrew_McP, thanks for the Sony link. Think I'll be checking that out this evening.

 

Rich

[Andrew_McP]

You're right Rich, VirtualDub's a very useful tool. I use it to convert various file formats and to chop up huge files generated by LOMAC's avi-maker. But it's not a very friendly editor.

 

Mind you, the price is right! :-)

 

> thanks for the Sony link

 

Everyone will have their own preferences, but I find "Vegas junior" to be the best of the bunch for ease of use. You get most of the functionality offered by Vegas, but fewer of the more professional features, and only four video & four audio channels. But for hobbyist needs that's plenty, and the price is very attractive.

 

The demo's good for 30 days, which is plenty of time to explore.

 

I'm not sure though whether it uses multithreading like its big brother though. As x2 CPUs start to become affordable the idea of a multithreaded editor really appeals to me. When you start layering clips and adding LOC/GA-style special effects things can get very slow very quickly.

 

Enough rambling from me.

 

Andrew McP

[Glowing_Amraam]

When you start layering clips and adding LOC/GA-style special effects things can get very slow very quickly.

 

You got that right, which is why i add the effects after i've placed the clips and added sound. :D