It's clear that not everyone reading and posting here is a fully fledged filmmaker, and as this forum is perhaps the best source of info and guidance on the GH1, we get a few strays from the home-movie making end of the business - myself perhaps being one of them.
So this is for you, and also for anyone wanting quick and easy editing of GH1 footage even though you may have more heavyweight tools for doing the more cinematic stuff.
I've bought more low-end NLE programs than I care to think about, and they've all been disappointing to various degrees. What brings about disappointment in particular is when they fall short of their advertised capabilities in practice, and when they simply don't seem able to cope with GH1 footage.
Despite the lessons of the past, today I bought an upgrade licence for Nero version 10, having been impressed with the adverts online for Nero Vision 10 which is part of the package (though you can buy it standalone). It was clear that it's a significant upgrade from previous Nero Vision versions, which worked reasonably well for the most basic GH1 editing but which were about as basic as an NLE can be. In fact it's a total rewrite, done by someone who clearly has a full understanding of the basic requirements of an NLE and I suspect Nero have bought in a resources for its development rather than it being an in-house thing. It may be the first NLE written from scratch since the AVCHD age began.
The interface is intended not to terrify novice users. But that makes it simple and uncluttered. Fancy graphics of the kind which tend to be embarrasing other than to schoolkids are avoided. But there's plenty of stuff to be found by right clicking on icons and objects, and several times when I thought it was missing a key function, I found it by a little persistence or by checking the help file.
The first thing that impressed me was that it actually plays a mixed timeline of GH1 footage without freezing, unlike most others I've tried.
When placing clips on the timeline you can change how existing clips are affected through use of modifier keys allowing you to over-write or insert etc etc very much in the style of Premiere Pro - in fact there's quite a few PP-like features, including the way the keyframing works. You can select all-to-left or all-to-right or all-on-track. Keyboard shortcuts are comprehensive but can't be changed, though choices are what you'd expect.
Effects and transitions are fairly basic but perfectly adequate for productions where you don't want E & T to distract from the content. There's a simple but very effective trim window, the main monitor automatically splits to show the effect of edits you're about to make, and the handling of AVCHD clips is very smooth and efficient. Cuda is implemented if you have appropriate hardware.
I've not seen a limit given to the number of tracks you can add (video, audio, or combined). There's a master effect track and effects can be stacked onto individual clips. Colour control is limited to RGB and HSL.
Sadly there's no audio-only crossfade but you can achieve that by overlapping on different tracks. Video or audio can be locked.
No particular provision for dual monitors but the playback window can be made full screen at the click of a button. All UI elements can be resized as desired but not moved around. There are no menus at the top, though right-click menus are comprehensive.
Nero Vision 10 retains the ability of previous version to smart render unchanged frames, so if you simply want to butt-join a set of clips and render to a single file, it takes no longer to render than it would to simply copy them.
I've only played with this new NLE for a couple of hours, but so far, bearing in mind the very low cost ($59 standalone) and the fact that it's a new design with all new code, I'm very impressed - for once, expectations are exceeded.
So this is for you, and also for anyone wanting quick and easy editing of GH1 footage even though you may have more heavyweight tools for doing the more cinematic stuff.
I've bought more low-end NLE programs than I care to think about, and they've all been disappointing to various degrees. What brings about disappointment in particular is when they fall short of their advertised capabilities in practice, and when they simply don't seem able to cope with GH1 footage.
Despite the lessons of the past, today I bought an upgrade licence for Nero version 10, having been impressed with the adverts online for Nero Vision 10 which is part of the package (though you can buy it standalone). It was clear that it's a significant upgrade from previous Nero Vision versions, which worked reasonably well for the most basic GH1 editing but which were about as basic as an NLE can be. In fact it's a total rewrite, done by someone who clearly has a full understanding of the basic requirements of an NLE and I suspect Nero have bought in a resources for its development rather than it being an in-house thing. It may be the first NLE written from scratch since the AVCHD age began.
The interface is intended not to terrify novice users. But that makes it simple and uncluttered. Fancy graphics of the kind which tend to be embarrasing other than to schoolkids are avoided. But there's plenty of stuff to be found by right clicking on icons and objects, and several times when I thought it was missing a key function, I found it by a little persistence or by checking the help file.
The first thing that impressed me was that it actually plays a mixed timeline of GH1 footage without freezing, unlike most others I've tried.
When placing clips on the timeline you can change how existing clips are affected through use of modifier keys allowing you to over-write or insert etc etc very much in the style of Premiere Pro - in fact there's quite a few PP-like features, including the way the keyframing works. You can select all-to-left or all-to-right or all-on-track. Keyboard shortcuts are comprehensive but can't be changed, though choices are what you'd expect.
Effects and transitions are fairly basic but perfectly adequate for productions where you don't want E & T to distract from the content. There's a simple but very effective trim window, the main monitor automatically splits to show the effect of edits you're about to make, and the handling of AVCHD clips is very smooth and efficient. Cuda is implemented if you have appropriate hardware.
I've not seen a limit given to the number of tracks you can add (video, audio, or combined). There's a master effect track and effects can be stacked onto individual clips. Colour control is limited to RGB and HSL.
Sadly there's no audio-only crossfade but you can achieve that by overlapping on different tracks. Video or audio can be locked.
No particular provision for dual monitors but the playback window can be made full screen at the click of a button. All UI elements can be resized as desired but not moved around. There are no menus at the top, though right-click menus are comprehensive.
Nero Vision 10 retains the ability of previous version to smart render unchanged frames, so if you simply want to butt-join a set of clips and render to a single file, it takes no longer to render than it would to simply copy them.
I've only played with this new NLE for a couple of hours, but so far, bearing in mind the very low cost ($59 standalone) and the fact that it's a new design with all new code, I'm very impressed - for once, expectations are exceeded.
rogar-BigGrin(DBG)