Spec me some video editing software!

badgermonkey

badgermonkey

badgermonkey

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Well as anyone who might venture into PC Games or Consoles may or may not know (this is my first venture into here), I am currently setting up a project to release a video games review show series, with the first episode scheduled for late Jan/early Feb.

I can get all the filming done ok (Have a reasonable camera), however I need something good and professional, but not too costly, to edit it. The more features the better basically, but I'm not sure of my budget as it'll be an xmas pressie, so I need a few in different price ranges.

I throw myself upon you all - which software for me? :)
 
How are you capturing the game footage? If you're using Fraps, the only two programs I know that can use it's codec are Vegas and Adobe Premiere, I much prefer Premiere due to the way it is laid out but both will do the job, Vegas has a few better effects though (but I don't like loads of effects :p ), try out both, pretty sure there is a free trial of both programs.

Have a look at my website portfolio and you can see the sort of stuff you can edit with Premiere (all the game stuff was done with it)
 
i have only ever used adobe premier, over the last few years. I use it fairly often in my job as well. I know it better than any other software and would strongly recommend it. However it is pricey.
 
I use Vegas 6c , Serif Movie Plus 5 , Pinnacle 9 .They are all good and each one has it's purpose in my editing . I capture using Pinnacle and edit with Vegas or Movie Plus . Movie Plus has some grate video effects and is easy to work with .Check out there websites for more details.
 
I've only ever used adobe premier at uni, It's very easy to use but guess its probably quite expensive
 
Avid Xpress Pro is the industry standard and very good. Unfortunately it costs £1000, but there is a free version available from www.avid.com. I don't know how much is cut out, but it would be a good way to get into it if you ever decide to take it further.
 
starscream said:
Avid Xpress Pro is the industry standard and very good. Unfortunately it costs £1000, but there is a free version available from www.avid.com. I don't know how much is cut out, but it would be a good way to get into it if you ever decide to take it further.
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I strongly recommend Avid but it is fairly difficult to pick up and if he is using Fraps or similar to capture his gameplay footage it is useless
 
Sirrel Squirrel said:
I strongly recommend Avid but it is fairly difficult to pick up and if he is using Fraps or similar to capture his gameplay footage it is useless
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Was going to be using Fraps for PC games, however as i'm also covering console games then they will be camera filmed, so doing the same for my PC games isn't a major loss.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll grab a load of free trials and work out which of these I like :)
 
camera filming the console games isnt ideal.You should use a video in/out card (VIVO) and plug the console directly into the pc and record.
 
Hmm, at uni I use final cut express and pro (mac) and avid (pc). At home I use avid for complicated work and vegas 6 for quick editing (short vids for powerpoint presentations etc).

Personally I think vegas 6 is quite reasonable. Unless you want to start rotoscoping or pro editing etc etc theres no reason why it wont do the job (actually, can it deal with DV? - i'm not sure, might want to look into that as I prefer to go straight from cam DV into avid and then edit and export as whatever).
Also take into consideration that if you were to purchase avid then you have to be running xp pro (a fresh install), and also have to make quite a few changes in order to run it properly, effectively it will be a video editing machine, not a machine for gaming and so on.
 
Avid runs fine on my machine and I have games and everything running on this rig, he needs to forget the Avid idea though as Avid can not import files created using Fraps. I think the best bet is to use Adobe Premiere
 
Sirrel Squirrel said:
Avid runs fine on my machine and I have games and everything running on this rig, he needs to forget the Avid idea though as Avid can not import files created using Fraps. I think the best bet is to use Adobe Premiere
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I don't know fraps, what does it export as? and it is not possible to convert it to quicktime, or another format?

I know that Avid is overkill for this, but its useful to learn should he want to take things further in future :)
 
starscream said:
I don't know fraps, what does it export as? and it is not possible to convert it to quicktime, or another format?

I know that Avid is overkill for this, but its useful to learn should he want to take things further in future :)
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It exports as avi but it uses its own codec and whenever you convert it to quicktime you get audio but the video is white, so rather than mess about trying to find a way to actually convert it quickly, it'd save a lot of time to just edit his program in Premiere or Vegas. Saying that he could import it to Premiere then save a Premiere DV AVI and import that but it would just take longer.

I do agreee though, Avid is the best
 
benneh said:
Also take into consideration that if you were to purchase avid then you have to be running xp pro (a fresh install), and also have to make quite a few changes in order to run it properly, effectively it will be a video editing machine, not a machine for gaming and so on.
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Eh? I installed it on my un-fresh install of xp pro and it didn't change a thing?

Avid is an excellent program, though premier will be just as good for your needs.

Sirrel, what main pros would you say avid has above premier? When using it the only difference i've found is that avid is a bit easier/ clearer to use, like when altering brightness or colour correction.
 
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While there isn't a lot between the two, I find Avid is a bit faster in terms of rendering and I prefer the interface and colour correction but the latest version of Premiere does seem quite a bit faster and has some nice features so there really isn't a lot between them. Avid is handy to know though being the industry standard so if you ever wanted to get into mainstream editing then it's the one to use.
 
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