Editing software for GH1 footage

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pmk396

Well-known member
I just thought that I'd ask this here because I haven't got any replies on the "post-production:-editing software" forum of the website.

I am a newcomer to the filmmaking craze and I invested in a GH1 a few months ago and I am delighted with the results. I am currently in the middle of getting a Zoom H4n as external recorder with an AT875R external mic. I have made a couple of shorts and I am still learning lots about filmmaking.

My next big thing is what film editing software to get. I have been using a friend's FCP software for editing my shorts on his Mac but I need to move on and get my own software now. I plan on shooting at least an hour long film over the next year or two. This new project of mine over the next year or two is basically a good action styled film with fight scenes, guns and explosions (basically the kinda stuff you'd see in a Bourne film). To make my project look any way decent, I know I'll have to get After Effects probably with Andrew Kramer's Action Essentials 2 (for explosions, muzzle flashes, etc).

My question is though what would be the best editing software for me to get?? I was gonna get either Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9 or Adobe Premiere Elements because if I've to get After Effects etc, I don't think I'll be able to afford Sony Vegas 9 or Premiere Pro as well. Basically, I'll just need a software package for simple editing, importing audio(dialog/music/sound effects) and has the ablility to enter text (ie. captions on the bottom of the screen to illustrate the name of a location for a specific scene).

Another thing is that I'm worried about is if the specs of my computer would be enough? I have a Dell Inspiron 530s with 2.2Ghz processor and 2GB of RAM with Windows XP. I have a big hardrive so storage isn't an issue.

By the way, I am in no way trying to mimick the quality of footage, audio and special effects that Paul Greengrass uses in the Bourne films, I am just using that as an example of the kinda genre of film I plan to shoot.
 
We have FCP, Avid Media composer, and Adobe Premiere, but the one we use for about 90% of our work is Grass Valley Edius.
 
Sony Vegas Pro is the most intuitive editing software I've used AND it doesn't require alot of horsepower to work well, BTW-I'd rethink using AE for stuff you can stage practically with research-frankly nothing screams amatuer more than CG muzzles or explosions and if you can't pull this off in-camera (w/o hurting yourself or others!) just work on a story you can tell w/o CG trickery thay studios w/ millions have a tough time pulling off-just sayin'......good luck!
 
Here's my experience with Sony Vegas:
I have Vegas Home Studio 10 and with a few 1080p video tracks and transitions etc, I find that my (work) Dell 531s with similar specs to yours gets bogged down considerably. I need to be very careful of the number of media files I include in a project or I get very stuttery video in the preview window.

However on my new (home) Dell Studio with an AMD 6-core processor and 4GB of RAM, I have no such issues.

Both machines use low-end video cards, and since I don't believe Vegas uses GPU accelaration, you need as beefy of processor as possible.

Regarding ease of use, I've only really used iMovie on my Mac and Vegas Home Studio on PC. I'm no pro, but I find Vegas very easy to use. I found the VASST tutorial videos that came with Vegas very informative - highly recommended.

Not really related to your questions, but I found the colour grading presets from Eugenia very handy - and a nice replacement for Magic Bullet, if you swing that way. Here's a demo.

Anyway, hope this helps a little.
 
I've concluded that most of these software will actually render the GH1 files to a lower quality format albeit it's probably more functional (can edit & join and do stuff...) but nevertheles the original .mts files still show the highest quality. Is there a way to maintain the original file quality after a conversion into another more useable format? I'm also saying here that the avchcd files are a pain as they are not many good tools that really do it justice. A lot of software will simply convert it to another format which affects the quality.
 
I've read several claims that Prores, although a compressed format, looks as good as original footage.
 
Cineform Neoscene is what I use to transcode and the loss of quality is minimal and unnoticable except to trained "pixel peepers"
 
BrianBrook said:
Cineform Neoscene is what I use to transcode and the loss of quality is minimal and unnoticable except to trained "pixel peepers"
Click to expand...


I have actually found Neoscene to improve some footage shot on a GH-1 as it upscales chroma information to 10 Bit 4:2:2....I had shots with visible gradients in the sky that. after conversion with Neoscene, looked way better.

CS3 + Neosecene has been an excellent stable editing environment for me and Premiere also plays nice with After Effects too as you can dynamically link projects between the two programs...in fact the Adobe apps all work well together....Photoshop and Encore are very useful tools for an editor also.
 
I'm thinking of purchasing neoscene to convert files. Anyone think it's better than using final cut pro compressor?
 
I tried FCP when it first came out(w/ all the hype!) and something about it didn't fit w/ me, then worked w/ Adobe Premiere for years and now I'm VERY happy w/ Sony Vegas 9-it works closest to how I think and using Cineform Neoscene is the icing on the GH-1 cake! As for the ? about Compressor-never used it and probably never will.....
 
Premiere CS5 work perfectly with GH1 and if you can afford the CS5 suite you´re done, on Mac and PC.

My two cents.
 
Just a note: no matter what software you get, editing it will be a pain. I have a 2.3ghz 4gbram 7200 rpm gaming laptop and it has a trouble keeping the lag of the footage down to a minimum when editing. I'm hoping that the adobe cs5 I'm installing will remove most lag.
 
Sean Jeong said:
Just a note: no matter what software you get, editing it will be a pain. I have a 2.3ghz 4gbram 7200 rpm gaming laptop and it has a trouble keeping the lag of the footage down to a minimum when editing. I'm hoping that the adobe cs5 I'm installing will remove most lag.
Click to expand...

i couldn't imagine doing all of my editing on a laptop. that's one thing i have to have a desktop for.
 
I find Premiere CS5 to be a real pain in the a$$ compared to Sony Vegas pro 9e.
I really liked Edius Neo Booster 2 as well, but I find that the highest quality output I am getting is editing native 24p mts files in Sony Vegas 9e at 32 bit full color and outputting to mpeg 4.
It's so clean I don't see ANY degradation in the edit recompression to a master.

I DO notice the added noise in Neoscene. It's very slight, and almost like some grain, but it's there.. it ads some noise.

Edius neo Booster 2 is the fastest of the bunch of using 24p native avchd footage (hacked GH1). It edits like butter - no stutters, but it's color isn't as good to me and it's output isn't as good to mp4 to my eyes. It can not handle gh1 non hacked files correctly. Neither can Premiere.
 
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