Video Editing Programs

P

Phil vG

Well-known member
I got a savings e-mail from B&H the other day. One of the things it had on it were a few software Editing Programs that most of the time I don't pay any attention to, but this time i decided to take a look.

Now I've been a Adobe Premiere person right from the start. That's because when we first started doing things with pictures we bought an A3 scanner back in 1998-99, it came with a free copy of Adobe Photoshop, so I chose to stick with what I knew.
But now, when I look at the amount of software there is, how can people pick one, how do you decide ,"that's what I need" ?
Why worry that a camera can't do something when a computer program can do it anyway.

What do most people on this sight use?

I'm not a Mac person, but do most people who are use FCP?

Will one program do a better quality final compression down to a set size than another one will?

:undecided
 
Phil vG said:
I got a savings e-mail from B&H the other day. One of the things it had on it were a few software Editing Programs that most of the time I don't pay any attention to, but this time i decided to take a look.

Now I've been a Adobe Premiere person right from the start. That's because when we first started doing things with pictures we bought an A3 scanner back in 1998-99, it came with a free copy of Adobe Photoshop, so I chose to stick with what I knew.
But now, when I look at the amount of software there is, how can people pick one, how do you decide ,"that's what I need" ?
Why worry that a camera can't do something when a computer program can do it anyway.

What do most people on this sight use?

I'm not a Mac person, but do most people who are use FCP?

Will one program do a better quality final compression down to a set size than another one will?

:undecided
Click to expand...

Apple shot themselves in the foot on Final Cut, with the introduction of FCX. Many 'pros' who had been using FCP reviewed their future use of Apple's editors, and jumped to Premiere. Adobe also used the opportunity to discount packages to assist in the decision...

I've always used Premiere... Ok I did use Final Cut Express for 'live video', but I used AfterEffects for most of my 'fancy' stuff, and recently since buying the Blackmagic Pocket Cam, I've been using Resolve for 'color work'. Resolve is developing some 'editing' capabilities, but I've grown use to Premiere.

There may be some people who would consider the modern FC... but I think many have gone with the Adobe Creative Cloud, as it gives access to all the apps, Premiere, Photoshop, AfterEffects and Audition... as well as the other web/publishing apps if they are useful.
 
Followed the same route you did, also started with photoshop, pagemaker, indesign and now cc2015. But I stopped with Adobe. Now use Davinic Resolve 12, its free and does all I want.
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
Apple shot themselves in the foot on Final Cut, with the introduction of FCX. Many 'pros' who had been using FCP reviewed their future use of Apple's editors, and jumped to Premiere. Adobe also used the opportunity to discount packages to assist in the decision...

I've always used Premiere... Ok I did use Final Cut Express for 'live video', but I used AfterEffects for most of my 'fancy' stuff, and recently since buying the Blackmagic Pocket Cam, I've been using Resolve for 'color work'. Resolve is developing some 'editing' capabilities, but I've grown use to Premiere.

There may be some people who would consider the modern FC... but I think many have gone with the Adobe Creative Cloud, as it gives access to all the apps, Premiere, Photoshop, AfterEffects and Audition... as well as the other web/publishing apps if they are useful.
Click to expand...

Adobe had their own version of this when they introduced CC and their
rental only policy. Many pros who had just switched over to Premiere from
FCP 7 ended up switched back away from Adobe as they were not interested
in paying a monthly fee for the rest of their life. Some schools and Universities
also ended up switching away from Adobe. However Adobe CC still
has plenty of fans.....as does FCP X. Both are good edit programs to be
honest. I personally can't bring myself to pay a monthly fee, when I can
own FCP X, Motion, and Compressor for the cost of 6 months of renting
Adobe's CC. And with FCP X etc... You get all updates for free. But for
power AE users and those who must interface with other Adobe users,
it's now the only way.

Another option is Resolve 12. If you have a beefy GPU (I have an old 2009
Mac Pro with a 6GB 980 Ti) it is an awesome NLE....and it's free.
 
Phil vG said:
I got a savings e-mail from B&H the other day. One of the things it had on it were a few software Editing Programs that most of the time I don't pay any attention to, but this time i decided to take a look.

Now I've been a Adobe Premiere person right from the start. That's because when we first started doing things with pictures we bought an A3 scanner back in 1998-99, it came with a free copy of Adobe Photoshop, so I chose to stick with what I knew.
But now, when I look at the amount of software there is, how can people pick one, how do you decide ,"that's what I need" ?
Why worry that a camera can't do something when a computer program can do it anyway.

What do most people on this sight use?

I'm not a Mac person, but do most people who are use FCP?

Will one program do a better quality final compression down to a set size than another one will?

:undecided
Click to expand...

You decide by trying demos and seeing which fits you the best.
 
David Jimerson said:
You decide by trying demos and seeing which fits you the best.
Click to expand...

That is the route I followed. I decided on Edius because of its ease of use and an accessory card called HDspark which allows you to view the image full screen on a HDTV for color correction.
 
Last edited:
I have the same with Resolve, with their cheap 150 dollar 4K capture/videocard you can also plugin a 4K monitor/television.
 
I doubt anyone can cite quality reasons for their choice. When you learn something, and pickup shortcuts and the techniques, starting from scratch is a bit daunting. Everyone has their own favourite, and now, I think it really just is preference.
 
David Jimerson said:
You decide by trying demos and seeing which fits you the best.
Click to expand...
I was thinking with Blackmagic, don't bother if you don't have a Blackmagic camera.

Publimix said:
I have the same with Resolve, with their cheap 150 dollar 4K capture/videocard you can also plugin a 4K monitor/television.
Click to expand...
I've been wanting to get something like that for a while, but just like software I can't decide what would be best (at a low cost).
 
intensity pro 4k card is cheap. Resolve is free. The Intensity card works with almost all NLEs, including edius, which is not mentioned on the manual. I use edius before with HD spark card but since it doesnt support 4K and resolve, which I use for grading decided to get the intensity pro card. Works with premiere, FCPX, vegas, edius, avid and after effects.
 
Re: Davinci Resolve... free... there are two versions of Resolve one free, the other does have some price, and more features/filters... I've used Resolve 11 for quite awhile but mainly for 'color' work, as the 'editing' features I think are 'better' in Premiere... which I have... and the transition between Premiere, AfterEffects, and Audition, make that setup 'very attractive'...

The problem with using cDNG (used in Blackmagic RAW modes...) in Premiere... is it wants to 'render' the clips which take a long time... and Resolve seems to render on the fly, and with my machine being a 'laptop', I have dropouts for the real time play back.

But since I've been using AE for years, the idea of having to render out the full clip, having only edited with the limited RT playback... this is not a problem for me... the color controls just seem 'better' in Resolve.

If I were to use the ProRes option for the BMPCC, Premiere would work as well as Resolve, save for the color work aspect.

There is another 'sort of free', editor called Lightworks. I tried very early beta Windows versions, before they had a product offering, but was not impressed enough to keep up on the project.

I have no experience with Avid nor the 'vegas' line of editors. (Well I did use to sell FDDI cards to Avid in the 90's... but... that wasn't using their editor...).
 
I still use FCP 7. Does everything I need it to do and cuts with any flavour of Prores like a dream. Only thing it stinks at is h.264, but my clients rarely give me stuff in that format, and if they do I just transcode.
 
When I embarked on filmmaking, I tested everything available at the time (2011), except for FCP 7, which was obviously out of date. In a former life, I frequently installed proprietary software that I had never seen before as part of my IT consulting service. My first rule was, and is, is there a straightforward and obvious way to get started doing simple things? By that criterion, FCPX was miles ahead of everything else. It became clear that FCPX was designed with people like me in mind - simple to use for the novice, and plenty of depth for those in the know. I understand the professionals' consternation because they needed things that, at the outset, that FCPX did not have. With several major updates, and numerous minor ones, all free, those concerns have been addressed, and the product has become a very strong application.
 
Are the big time pro movie makers creating there own programs, or are they using something any of us could get?
Like if I want and got a job putting together a movie for Steven Spielberg ( :grin: Yer right :laugh: ) what would I be using?

I'm pretty sure that when it comes to CGI we can get the same things, like LightWave, 3D Studio Max, Cinema 4D and Maya, just to name a few, and the same goes for Gaming Graphics Engines. But big time movies?

I will be staying with Adobe most likely, and dabbling in a few others, but I'm just curious.
 
Curtis Mack said:
When I embarked on filmmaking, I tested everything available at the time (2011), except for FCP 7, which was obviously out of date. In a former life, I frequently installed proprietary software that I had never seen before as part of my IT consulting service. My first rule was, and is, is there a straightforward and obvious way to get started doing simple things? By that criterion, FCPX was miles ahead of everything else. It became clear that FCPX was designed with people like me in mind - simple to use for the novice, and plenty of depth for those in the know. I understand the professionals' consternation because they needed things that, at the outset, that FCPX did not have. With several major updates, and numerous minor ones, all free, those concerns have been addressed, and the product has become a very strong application.
Click to expand...

I still want to strangle someone with my bare hands when I edit with FCP X. There are things FCP X is good at, but for the way I edit (to fixed music tracks and layers of sound design) it's a pain in the ass. And believe me, I've tried, many, many times to make it work for me, but it just doesn't. It was never the lack of certain features. It's the way the timeline works. And yes, I know all the workarounds, but they add extra steps to something that should be straightforward. I think FCP X was designed with the idea that you edit picture first, lock it in, then add music and sound FX as a final step. But that's not how I work. I often lay out music first. Then add picture, constantly sliding things around but keeping the music and other shots locked in place. I don't want any clip tied to any other clip, including its own audio. If FCP X had a way to completely disable all aspects of the magnetic timeline, I'd switch, but I have yet to find a way to work that isn't a tortured workaround. I can do it. But not as efficiently as in FCP 7.
 
Phil vG said:
Are the big time pro movie makers creating there own programs, or are they using something any of us could get?
Like if I want and got a job putting together a movie for Steven Spielberg ( :grin: Yer right :laugh: ) what would I be using?
Click to expand...

Almost certainly Avid. You can get Media Composer for yourself. The add-on hardware often used with it in big productions is (quite a bit) more cost-prohibitive.
 
Phil vG said:
Are the big time pro movie makers creating there own programs, or are they using something any of us could get?
Like if I want and got a job putting together a movie for Steven Spielberg ( :grin: Yer right :laugh: ) what would I be using?

I'm pretty sure that when it comes to CGI we can get the same things, like LightWave, 3D Studio Max, Cinema 4D and Maya, just to name a few, and the same goes for Gaming Graphics Engines. But big time movies?

I will be staying with Adobe most likely, and dabbling in a few others, but I'm just curious.
Click to expand...

When I watch the BTS segments, I most often see Avid as the 'editing' tool. As for 3-D... I see a lot of proprietary software, and perhaps some big places use the various listed apps, but I think there is a whole lot of 'custom/inhouse' applications as well.
 
Batutta said:
I still want to strangle someone with my bare hands when I edit with FCP X. There are things FCP X is good at, but for the way I edit (to fixed music tracks and layers of sound design) it's a pain in the ass. And believe me, I've tried, many, many times to make it work for me, but it just doesn't. It was never the lack of certain features. It's the way the timeline works. And yes, I know all the workarounds, but they add extra steps to something that should be straightforward. I think FCP X was designed with the idea that you edit picture first, lock it in, then add music and sound FX as a final step. But that's not how I work. I often lay out music first. Then add picture, constantly sliding things around but keeping the music and other shots locked in place. I don't want any clip tied to any other clip, including its own audio. If FCP X had a way to completely disable all aspects of the magnetic timeline, I'd switch, but I have yet to find a way to work that isn't a tortured workaround. I can do it. But not as efficiently as in FCP 7.
Click to expand...
This.

I know that FCPX works great for people who are new to the game and are willing to learn to work the way FCPX wants you to, and those guys tell me that it's soooo much faster to cut on, but after 15 years of cutting on FCP maybe I'm just stuck in my ways. Maybe if I get some time one of these days I'll commit a couple days to locking myself in a room and do nothing but learn FCPX, but in all the times I've played with it I still can't get comfortable with its workflow.
Premiere to me is just a copy of FCP with a media manager I don't care for. Sure, it's nice that it handles h264, but I don't really see any advantage to using it over FCP7.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top