Video editing software for Win, Mac or Linux

March 21, 2008 12:01 PM

Please help me choose newer video editing software for my current situation and needs.

In the past I have used Nero Vision Express but that old version does not work on Vista. Plus, I now have multiple PCs (a new dual core Vista tower, a Mac Mini and an old HP 1.6 ghz Tower running Ubuntu).

I am willing to spend some money, but not more than I have to (e.g., don't want to buy 2 or 3 tools if one tool could do it all for less total cost). Of course one option would be to upgrade to the newest Nero.

I am very very Windows knowledgeable, but less so on Mac or Ubuntu. I mention those in case the best solutions exist for those architectures. I am *not* very video knowledgeable (at least not compared to many folks, though I kind of understand codecs).

The tool(s) should be able to input AVI, MPG, WMV, etc. and allow me to edit portions from each to create an overall video, or DVD chapters, or (unless it's pushing my luck) iPod video files. I do *not* currently need any HD capability. I *do* want something reliable, not some hacked together GUI front end to some command line utilities (unless the latter is well thought of and used by many). I want to be able to easily set my cut points, save/preview the project, leave it to encode and/or burn and walk away with confidence.

I did a trial of DivX Author and it seemed user friendly and inexpensive, but not feature rich. The old Nero I own (ver 6) was feature rich (or bloated) and (IMHO) had a poor user interface.

Yes I know, I found plenty of info on Google or dvdrhelp (too much, in fact). But I am asking for kind indulgence from those of you knowledgeable in this kind of thing: would you summarize the current state of affairs given my current situation and needs? Or recommend a product overview or tutorial that answers my question that I didn't happen to find?

I suspect the fact that I am willing to spend money helps, and I have three platforms to choose from (Win, Mac, Linux), but am not willing to spend more than $200 or $250 USD total, so that limits me somewhat.

posted by forthright to computers & internet (12 comments total)

iMovie will do pretty much all of that. You may have to format convert some of your source files but I think it does a lot of them on the fly now. It's really easy to use and it interfaces seamlessly with iDVD, iTunes, iPhoto etc.

I use Final Cut Studio most of the time but I do still fire up iMovie to do small projects.
posted by unSane at 12:19 PM on March 21

(Oh, and if you want to use WMV files with iMovie, you should grab Flip4Mac which makes the whole thing pretty seamless.)
posted by unSane at 12:39 PM on March 21

unSane, when I try to use iMovie on my videos, they are grayed out in the Import Movie dialog, and when I try and drag and drop them from finder, they don't stick.

Yet when I double click the avi's they open and play fine in Quicktime Player, and the mpg's play fine in VLC. I suppose I'm missing something. I'll try to Google around a bit.

And, as you said, iMovie would require me to convert my WMVs using a separate process.

iMovie is of course free since I own the Mac Mini, and Final Cut Studio is way beyond my reach at $1200 (I looked it up). I guess I was thinking of something in the middle, but free works if I can get it to do everything I need.
posted by forthright at 1:16 PM on March 21

Flip4Mac should allow you to use WMVs. You might have to pay for the Home version ($29). If you want to export WMVs you will probably have to buy the studio version ($49).

If Flip4Mac doesn't work for you there are a number of tools that do really good bulk conversion. I use ffmpegx, which I think is free.
posted by unSane at 1:21 PM on March 21

I think Adobe Premier Elements is pretty much what you're looking for!
posted by TwoWordReview at 5:34 PM on March 21

I use, and get corporate editors to use, Sony Vegas. It does more, simpler, with even better control, than anything else I've used. I used to use Adobe Premiere (for many years), FAST dP/R, Final Cut Pro (despise it!), and all the other littler programs. And CMX, and oldskool analog devices for A/B roll editing.

Sony Vegas seems pretty popular in Europe and with younger editors. Premiere is what old people use. FCP is often what people who buy a product for its name use. Any of these programs is sufficient, however.

FFMPEG (as unSane sez) is fantasticly flexible if you can reduce your file conversion needs to command line or scripting.
posted by lothar at 6:10 PM on March 21

ffmpegx has a nice gui, so you don't have to worry about the command line

FCP Studio is fantastically powerful. The bundled software like Motion, Color and Livetype is amazing. It's pretty much a standard (along with Avid) in the movie editing world. But it's massive overkill for the current application.
posted by unSane at 6:19 PM on March 21

Thanks everyone for the quick replies...I see that Adobe Premier Elements and Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum both have trial downloads and are well within my price range and both run on Vista which is on my most powerful machine.

As far as I can tell iMovie won't cut it for my needs, though ffmpegx might so maybe I'll give that a "free" trial also.

I appreciate everyone's advice because trying to take drinks from the Google fire hose wasn't working for me. Once I get through my trials I'll try to remember to post my impressions.
posted by forthright at 7:23 PM on March 21

Hmmmm. My trial of Adobe Premier Elements isn't doing too good so far, I get "Unsupported audio rate in file" for many of the AVI files I try to import. Googling I get the impression that this has to do with the audio codec. When I use GSpot to look at the files they seem to be using MP3 for audio (various for video, such as XVid), is that enough to make them unusable by Elements? Of course I can watch (and listen to) the files just fine. Kind of disappointing.
posted by forthright at 9:59 PM on March 21

You often find that it's the audio rate that trips the app up.

I've found the best solution when dealing with a bunch of files in different formats is to transcode them all into a single format and then use this as your base format in the edit project. EG in iMovie I would transcode everything into MP4 or DV using ffmpegx then archive the original files.

This way you get to use the app you like best for editing rather than being forced to use the one that happens to handle your file formats. It's also tidier and tends to result in more consistent playback when you're editing, since the app doesn't have to transcode on the fly between different formats.
posted by unSane at 6:04 AM on March 22

Thanks, unSane. Obviously I have a lot to learn about video.

Your advice to convert to a common format then archive the originals sounds wise, but since I have a lot of videos I would of course have to decide on the "best" common format. I guess you are saying to do my trials of software using movies that happen to have been encoded in a format that works for them (iMovie, Elements, Vegas), and then once I decide what software I'm going to buy, then batch convert everything into such a format.

I'll keep plugging along.
posted by forthright at 8:07 AM on March 22

By all means, check out Final Cut Express; it's that $160 something in the middle between iMovie and FCStudio. Does almost everything that FC6 can do re: basic editing, import and export, comes with LiveType for snazzy title and object animation. It'll import anything that QuickTime can play.

There's also the $300 student version of Avid Media Composer if you're a student or have a student in your family and want to use your PC.
posted by dpcoffin at 9:46 AM on March 22