Video editor

[myles]

For the information of those looking for a consumer/hobbyist-level (non-free) video editor:

Vegas Movie Studio 4.0 became my main video editor a little while back, edging out my old version of Pure Motion EditStudio (I'm a hobbyist, remember, with a limited hobbyist budget), mainly due to the alpha channel support for compositing Moho animation and separate backgrounds. Lack of alpha channel support, even in the latest Pro version, is probably the main drawback of EditStudio from my perspective (I guess not all their customers are animators ), although it has blue/green/reddish-mauve/pick-a-colour chromakeying as a substitute and is otherwise a very nice program.

Sony has now released Video Movie Studio 6.0 (straight from 4.0 in the strange world of version numbering) with a few worthwhile features. I haven't tried the demo version yet, so these new features are mainly culled from the VMS forum: Tapestyle scrubbing, keyframes for video effects, broadcast colours effects, choose your own settings for more video formats rather than using the fixed templates.
Sony has also included a few features from big brother professional video editor Vegas, such as parent/child masking (somewhat like Moho's masking) and parent/child motion (somewhat like Moho's layer grouping feature), although only in 2D if I read correctly.

The main drawback in VMS 6.0, like the Home version of ES, is a limited number of layers (4 video and 4 audio).

There is also a VMS Platinum version for a little more, with HDV support, ACID-XMV music software, 3-wheel colour correction, and a bundle of included audio effects and transition effects software.

DVD creation software is included with both versions (so far I've only used the VideoCD feature within VMS itself, so I can't comment).

So far I've found VMS to be rock-solid and quite nice to use.

Downloadable trials (around the 45MB size) are available for both the standard and Platinum versions, as well as the manuals in PDF. The manuals are of the "Getting Started" style, so you might also want to look at the manual for big brother Vegas for more detail and explanations of some features.

Feel free to add your experience and recommendations of other video editors to this thread.

Regards, Myles.

[cribble]

Thank you very much for the information. I would suggesting someone posting about "personal/beginner level/free" video editors too. I don't know much about video editors so i'm ruled out.

Still though, very good work

[nobudget]

Editstudio can import images with alpha, so an image sequence could be used as a substitute for alpha channel video. It would be nice to see actual alpha video support though, but their quicktime importer is a bit shaky...It's still my favorite video editing program, powerful but quite user friendly.

Reindert.
www.nobudgetvideo.com

[jahnocli]

Just stumbled upon this:
http://www.stoik.com/morphman/morphman.htm

(Click on "Video Man" in the nav sidebar).

It's not free, but it's pretty damn close, and it looks like a formidable feature set for the price...

J

[nobudget]

On the subject of morphing, to my knowledge there are no reasonably priced morphing programs with alpha channel, so a morphing object separately over a background. I actually used Moho for that purpose, design two faces with .png alpha and keep both faces in the exact same contours (that's the tricky part), in Moho dissolve them while moving bones to alter the shape. Not a bad morph technique with the right images and you can overlay it on a background. No more background warping in your morphs!

Reindert.
www.nobudgetvideo.com

[Xcelerate]

I use Vegas too! I'm new at this forum. My friend recently found out about Moho and bought it for our video project. I figured if he was willing to pay $100, I decided to see what it looked like. I was very surprised with all the features it had! It can do a lot of what Vegas can!

[mr. blaaa]

yeah. Vegas is my favourite since half a year or so, since i found out that -compared to premiere- it is the better choice. Long lives realtime!

[J. Baker]

Just stumbled upon this:
http://www.stoik.com/morphman/morphman.htm

(Click on "Video Man" in the nav sidebar).

It's not free, but it's pretty damn close, and it looks like a formidable feature set for the price...

J

Unlimited audio and video tracks! Thanks for posting the link. Trying it out now.

[IsraelRN]

Well,

For Video Editing i do use Final Cut Pro Studio (DVD Studio Pro for DVD authoring)

However there's an interesting editor FREE from the author of the incredible Wink software:

www.debugmode.com

Check Wax for video editing, and WinMorph for morph&similar effects.

Best Regards,
Israel RN

[slowtiger]

nobudget: You're right. We used Elastic Reality in those days when morphing was fashionable. To morph an object and put it into another surrounding required a carefully chosen background colour in the original material, render the morph to an uncompressed format, and key out that colour in some video editor or After FX.

[artfx]

Boy, I remember those days. Much Quantum Leaping and morphing gong around. Isn't it about tie morphing made a comeback? It was a cool effect, though overused.

[Genete]

As linux user my best choice is Cinelerra.
http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3
Check out if your other plataforms video editors reach cinelerra capabilities...
For DVD authoring Avidemux, dvdauthor, mencoder, ...
For converting from a format to other ffmpg, transcode, ...
All of them free (GPL or similar)

Linux also exists

[NukaCola]

PresentaVid is a much simplier tool (only for Windows), but has some cute publishing features, because it was made by the company that specialising on media convertion as i know . It is a much more like a video presentation tool, rather than a video editor, but also deserves a look.