what about lightworks?

S

stefanocps

Well-known member
hello
i am traying to understand if it is worthy to learn it
I have strated with edius few years ago, then switched to premiere, then this year strated with avid
Find avid wonderful but also all the time nos so flawly...i have used and stuided few months...now that i have to work again after few months i can t remember anythiung..seems new and need to restart studiyng it on somehow
that s why i wonder if lightworks may be a good alternative. it looks very different and then hard to start with..so before i go would like to have opinion
for now i am amateur/professional videomaker that work mainly at my prodcuction..not big things
thank sfor suggestions
 
i have downloaxed and nstalled it and i see at glance that is very different in concept from all the other.
of course i amnot asking whether i should learn it or not but opinion about lightworks from users. prp and cons...
 
If you're a professional editor and you use whatever NLE the post house provides then it's probably not a good idea. Not many facilities that I know of use it -- at least here in the states... Having said that my friend was one of the beta users/testers for LW and he absolutely loves it and finds he can work more quickly and efficiently than in any other NLE...
 
I've heard it's similar to Avid in terms of how it works. Try it out and see what you think. If you're amateur/hobbyist, you can use whatever you want. Even HitFilm :)
 
I've tried it a few years ago just to see what all the fuss was about, but personally I hated it. Nothing at all about it was intuitive and it never felt like it gave me freedom to experiment. Even simple things had me reaching for the manual.

Of the big players, it is most similar to Avid, but I find Avid much more intuitive (once you start memorising keyboard shortcuts).

If the reason you are considering Lightworks is because it is free, then you might want to check out Resolve instead, if you have a decent workstation. It is a maturing NLE, as well as an excellent, well established colouring program. It also looks and behaves very similarly to Premiere and FCP7. It's also more widely used so will allow you easier collaboration & more work opportunities.
 
I switched to Lightworks from Premiere 4 years ago and haven't looked back. Coming from a 16mm film editing background I found it to be very intuitive. With the current 12.6 version it has matured nicely.
It is designed to work best with keyboard and jog/shuttle control like a Contour Shuttle Pro. You can buy a set of custom keyboard stickers for a few dollars that will shorten the learning process.
If you are editing compressed AVC video, you need a fairly powerful computer: fast quad core with at least 16GB ram and a 2GB Nvidia GPU. It runs best with pro DI codecs like Prores, Cineform, or DNXHD. You need dedicated media drives separate from your system drive too. But it will run well on less powerful hardware than either Avid or Resolve.
For simple doc style editing I find it to be much more efficient than Resolve or Premiere. It is great for long form doc or narrative production. Great media management tools.
I use Resolve for raw processing and color grading, but my 4GHz i7 4770k, 16GB ram, Nvidia GTX760 GPU workstation is not enough machine for fluid editing in Resolve.
Running Cineform or Prores I have fast shuttle up to 10x speed with perfect frame for frame fluidity in Lighworks and excellent audio scrubbing with the Shuttlepro from very slow crawl to 4x shuttle. Best audio scrubbing of any NLE. It has a very analog tape qualtiy to it.
The workflow is different than other NLE's since it was designed by and for feature film editors. I like that you are not locked into a single rigid gui layout. You can organize your editing layout with flexible movable windows to suit your own preferences. You can have multiple edits in a single project. You can assemble masters from sub edits of various scenes and elements. You can have more than one edit open on screen at the same time as well as a media preview window.
FX are node based like Resolve.
Lightworks primary weakness at its current stage of development is that it does not handle H.264/AVC highly compressed codecs well. It has a distinct preference for i-frame broadcast grade media running at 50Mbps or higher and uncompressed studio grade 16 or 24 bit 48KHz audio in WAV or BWF formats. Lesser grade originals are best transcoded before import.
 
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