Options for video editing software
Someone on the Online News Association “Talk” mailing list asked which video editing software is most commonly used. Curt Chandler, formerly the editor for online innovation and director of photography at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (and now a senior lecturer at Penn State), wrote an excellent, concise reply. I am reposting it here, with Curt’s permission:
Final Cut Pro is good editing software if you want to capture to a laptop as you record an event, if you work in high-definition progressive format (24p), or if you need to produce .wmv files for streaming from a Mac platform. It costs $1,200.
Final Cut Express ($400) is good for standard definition, but can’t do the three tasks described above. You also can’t upgrade from Final Cut Express to Final Cut Pro. Both Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro are a little daunting to learn, because the programs have so much functionality. They both come with a sound editing program, Soundtrack Pro [FCP] and Soundtrack [FC Express].
On a PC platform, I have found it easiest to teach people Vegas. The full version costs $500, plus $400 to do audio in Sound Forge, but most things you want to do for the web (including HD progressive) can be accomplished with Vegas Platinum for $120, with Sound Forge Audio Studio for $75.
Vegas can be learned by beginners in about four two-hour sessions. Final Cut takes about twice as long. A big advantage of Vegas is [that] it is associated with Sound Forge, which is an excellent audio editing program, even in the Studio version.
Adobe Premiere is more complex to learn than Vegas and about as difficult to learn as Final Cut. Its audio component, [Adobe] Audition, is okay.
At the end, Curt added that the National Press Photographers Association “just produced a Multimedia Immersion program that took experienced photojournalists and made them field proficient in Final Cut Pro in four days. The program sold out in less than a week, and the organizers are trying to figure out whether they want to do it more than once a year.”
Two things Curt did not mention:
- Video is a hog. It hogs the computer’s memory, and it hogs the hard disk too. Make sure you have enough RAM and free hard disk space on the computer before you install video editing software.
- Video editing is painful with a slow processor (CPU). If you have an older computer (at two years, any computer is starting to be old!), you might want to consider investing in a new machine first, before you invest in the editing software.
In case you don’t know — all of these applications are platform-specific. Final Cut is Mac only. Both Premiere and Vegas are Windows only.
As always, if you have any information to add, it will be welcomed!
Gosh, I’m surprised Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0 wasn’t mentioned here. As a Mac person forever, it pains me to say this (it’s PC only), but we use it on the Windows platform and I find it easy to use for the simple editing tasks. And it’s less expensive than other tools. Elements 3.0 also directly exports an FLV file.
July 26, 2007 at 10:36 amI have never used Premiere Elements — thanks for the tip, Tom!
I have used the Premiere Lite or LT version that Sony used to put on its Vaio laptops, and it was, um, okay but not great.
Back in 1999, I taught myself to edit in Premiere, using “Adobe Classroom in a Book.” I laboriously slogged through every exercise in the first half of the book. It worked. I learned how to use the program.
July 26, 2007 at 12:14 pmThe best little piece of software I’ve found in recent years is called VisualHub. I’ve spent way too much money on software that will convert QuickTime to other formats (none of which seems to work especially well). Then I came across VisualHub, which is shareware and will convert to/from QuickTime, WMV, Flash, PSP, etc. It’s a terrific little tool. I use a Mac, so I don’t know if it’s available for other platforms.
July 26, 2007 at 12:49 pmOne correction: Adobe Premiere Pro is cross-platform.
We’re quite fond of Avid Liquid (formerly Pinnacle Liquid) and it’s a relative bargain. Full featured, and $500 if you don’t want the breakout box that allows analog capture. The downside is that it’s not the most intuitive software ever, but it’s fast and renders in the background, great for deadline editing.
July 26, 2007 at 11:34 pmp.s. LOVE that the new rss feed shows when there are comments to posts. Fab Feature.
July 26, 2007 at 11:35 pmThere’s Premiere for the Mac? News to me! Thanks, Regina.
I wonder about Avid Xpress Pro — is anyone using that? Some people used to talk about Avid Xpress DV, but that has been discontinued, and it appears that Avid Xpress Pro has replaced it.
July 27, 2007 at 8:48 amDavid Johnson at Lost Remote says Premiere Pro CS3 will NOT run on PowerPC (Mac) processors. The new CS3 version works only on Intel-based Macs.
July 27, 2007 at 8:14 pmQuite a few outfits in the UK are going the Avid Express Pro route. There is a better penetration of PC’s in UK newspapers than there is in the US and other places. Macs tend to stay with the designers.
A number are diving in with vegas - helped I think by the fact that the most common camcorder thats in use is the Sony HDV A1E which has a version of vegas in the box. Liquid is a great package as it packages the whole thing - editing and DVD burning in one easy use interface.
There is a lot to recommend Avid but having edited more than I would like to remember on both avid and final cut, as well as premiere and others. It would always be a platform thing for me. Go FCP on the mac and go what suits your budget on the PC. I had a good look around the editing software around in a few posts on my blog : http://www.andydickinson.net/?p=169
July 30, 2007 at 6:29 amFinal Cut Pro now has over 51% of the market, leaving the other 49% remaining to Avid, Adobe, Vegas, and 30 other video editing programs.
Professionals use Final Cut Pro or Avid, and Avid has probably lost over half it’s marketshare to Final Cut Pro in the past 7 years. This year Avid started to post multi-million dollar losses in revenue, if that tells you anything.
Final Cut Pro is priced at $599 for education.
If you going to teach anyone a program for professional use, Final Cut and Avid are your only real choices. They are not that hard to learn. But you can always take the easy route and learn a program that’s not marketable on a resume like Sony Vegas.
May 31, 2008 at 11:30 pmI use Sony Vegas and like it so far. In your comments you said a four hour training session is enough to get someone going in the right direction. My question is where can I get this kind of training? Are you aware of books or websites that have training for Vegas? Have you published any training documentation of your own?
Any ideas would be appreciated.
Dave
June 21, 2008 at 12:34 pmPlease excuse my ignorance but are there any cheap or even free programs that come close to the usability of some of these expensive programs?
June 29, 2008 at 11:13 am@George: The programs mentioned in the comments here cover the “cheap” end of the spectrum. As for free, you have Windows Movie Maker or iMovie — both are easy to use, but not full of features. Either one can be used to cut together a video that looks fine, but the only real bells and whistles you’ll get ar a bunch of cheesy transition effects that you shouldn’t use anyway.
June 29, 2008 at 2:18 pm