Which Editing package do you use?

[Doughie]

just kicking off a general thread about editing software....

...Anybody care to post which editing software they use for their video footage and how long theyve been using it and general opinions of it? Often new members ask about editing software, so this may be a useful thread for people to get a feel for the different options here.

myself - i used to use iMovie (oh the shame!) quite a bit but then they radically resdesigned it (not to my taste at all) and so i have now decided to use Sony Vegas Pro 9. I really quite like it, but i am only at BaseCamp#2, maybe about 4000feet altitude, and i cannot even see the summit. I recently got hold of 'Vegas Pro 9 Editing Workshop' which is a 500page book on editing in Vegas and it seems about the ONLY book recommended. Anyway, post away what software you use, how lomng you've used it for, previous packages used, and anything else on a general video-editing level.

Doughie

[John McManimie]

I used to use Adobe Premiere Pro but switched a few years ago to Sony Vegas. It runs well on my laptop and on all of my systems and will even be used for AVCHD footage. It works well on slower systems (just a bit slower but still functions well). Aside from that, I use Avisynth, Virtualdub and Adobe After Effects for working on video.

[Rolando]

I used Avid Liquid 7, wich does not run on Windows 7, cannot handle AVCHD and will no longer be developped. After having upgraded my PC to Win 7, I use Adobe Premiere Pro, but changed very recently to Avid Media Composer 4 (offered at 80% discount for crossgrading from Liquid 7), which includes a free upgrade to Media Composer 5 in June.

For me MC is the most comfortable and flexible editing application, very professional. The learning curve is rather steep, but numerous tutorials are available on the internet.

[halfpipe]

For basic mpeg2 cutting and Joining I use VideoReDo which also servers to author DVDs at times
To Join together different types of files I'll use Womble
To encode to avchd for blu-ray authoring, it's AVCHDencode, Sometimes Nero Vision5
To convert video from .ts to flv for the net I'll use either Format Factory or SUPER
Still trying to nail down a blu-ray authoring program TSmuxeR for now

[Stephan]

I've been using EDIUS Pro since 2007. Initially, the reason was my PC being a first-generation entry-level dual core (Pentium D 820) with relatively standard / low performance, so I wanted a solution which let me edit High Definition video without investing in another top-notch, very costly PC.

EDIUS did just that. Thanks to the built-in Canopus HQ codec, which implements so-called "intermediate codec technology" (*), I could have real-time HDV editing and color correction on a lousy old PC. No more waiting for renders during my editing sessions! Ultra responsive, rock solid, very comfortable, very nice.

(*) This is similar technology to Cineform (that you can buy for Adobe Premiere), Apple ProRes (with Final Cut), or Avid DNxHD. They're all based on the same principle: these codecs have much bigger files (so you need fast disks), but they are much easier on CPU requirements.

Intermediate codecs are also extremely useful if you do some compositing. I sometimes do animated travel maps in After Effects, and rendering to Canopus HQ is a breeze. Well, I mean, as fast as AE can go At any rate, it's much more solid and faster than trying to render to MPEG2 or H.264. I can then integrate the composition into EDIUS.

Since then, they added AVCHD support by transcoding AVCHD into Canopus HQ codec. And recently, they even released version 5.50 which is advertised as supporting real-time native AVCHD editing (without transcoding). Similarly to Adobe Premiere CS5 I guess. As the announcement says, they claim real-time AVCHD editing for three HD streams with an Intel Core i7.

I'm quite satisfied overall. It's a lean, mean, editing machine which delivers the job without drastic requirements. Not a resource hog nor bloated software. The user interface may look odd at first glance, but for anyone who's already used Adobe Premiere, the learning curve is fast. However the feature set is much more limited than other editing software like Adobe Premiere or Final Cut. Very limited compositing or masking compared to Adobe Premiere (there's only Picture in Picture basically). Color correction is okay for simple jobs (primary / secondary), but the controls are odd, and a bit inadequate / insufficient.

There's also a more entry-level edition called EDIUS Neo.

Regarding the overall workflow, I settled for:

• EDIUS Pro for editing,
• Using VirtualDub to downscale for DVD authoring,
• Rendering HDV out with EDIUS (MPEG2 CBR @ 25 Mbps) for blu-ray authoring - because my camcorders still are HDV, so I need not bother with H.264.

[steve]

For HDV, I've been using Sony Vegas Platinum on a Vaio laptop for the last four years, (V6 then V8). Those version of Vegas come with a cut down version of the Cineform intermediate CODEC. This worked quite well.
Last year I built a new editing PC, (Core i7 920, 12GB ram, 1TB system HDD & 2x1TB HDDs in Raid 0). This runs Vegas Pro 8 which handles AVCHD also using the Cineform CODEC. I have also tried the Vegas Platinum 9 trial that handles AVCHD native, and it is quite usable, even on the laptop.
If I get the right package with an EX1R, (see other posting) Vegas Pro 9 (64 Bit) was bundled earlier this year.
Although the user interface on Vegas takes a while to get used to, (I used Premiere in my DV days), the Sony software is quite modest in its resource demands.

As an aside, I am tinkering in my spare time with an Ubuntu Linux build that includes Cinelerra, Kino and Avidemux. So far they can only handle HDV (via Firewire) but the prospect of a completely free software set of tools that will run on quite a modest hardware platform interests me.

Steve

[Doughie]

Steve - i didnt realise there was some sort of cut-down Cineform codec in Vegas8 (and therefore surely 9).
Can you give me some guidelines on where it is, what it is, and your workflow for using this intermediate codec.

much appreciated.

[acgold7]

Doughie, until Steve weighs in--

I don't know Vegas, but it's possible, if it's like Premiere, that the limited Cineform license was only in a single older version. Premiere 1.5 couldn't do HDV, so the 1.5.1 update included a small Cineform version so you could import and cut HDV. It was invisible and you didn't really even know it was there. Possibly the older version of Vegas had something similar to do HDV or AVCHD, while later versions have this capability natively and therefore don't need the Cineform plug-in.

While I still own Cineform, early reviews on Premiere CS5 are that it is so fast and so stable than Cineform isn't really necessary if you have good hardware and all you want is fast smooth performance. Cineform has moved away from their role as a simple accelerator and now focuses on high-end color grading via the included First Light app they bundle with their higher-end packages.

[steve]

Adam,

Vegas Platinum 6 to 8 incorporated a cut-down version of Cineform to make HDV editing smoother. The problem was that the licence covered an outdated video for windows version that is no longer supported. Sony decided that for version 9, it would revert to native rendering as editing platforms were now faster. I sometimes edit on an Core 2 Duo Vaio laptop and the trial of Platinum V9 was OK with HDV, but painful on AVCHD. This is driving my decision to go for XDCAM-EX rather than a high-end AVCHD camera. Disk space is getting cheaper by the month, but it will be some time before CPU architecture good enough for AVCHD is available in affordable laptops.

Doughie,

My HDV workflow depends on whether I am using the i7 of the laptop, and on how complex the edit is. I use the HDV intermediate CODEC if there are many filters, transitions, etc.. especially on the laptop. If the edit is using the footage fairly straight, especially on the i7, I will usually edit natively in HDV.

Hope that helps

Steve

[inef]

Which Editting package I use.. I started with Pinnacle 9, 10, 11 and 12. Than switched to Premiere Pro (After Effects etc). Tried Avid for a while but that wasnt my thing. A while ago, I switch to Final Cut Pro. I now prefer to work with Final Cut Studio 3. Just love the package.

Ine