There's an industry philosophy that says all good videographers and producers need to put themselves in the shoes of the editor before venturing out on location for a shoot. The editor is inevitably the one who has to deal with the hours of footage, countless retakes and painfully brutal mistakes made in the field. Thinking like an editor will help increase post-production efficiency, while keeping all members of the production team in good standing with each other.

And while the job of the editor has certainly gotten easier thanks to the technological advances available today, the principle elements remain the same: the editor must import content, log the content, splice it together, fix flubs and render out the final product (only to do it all over again with revisions and recuts). Having a patient editor is great, but having some intuitive editing software doesn't hurt, either.

With the help of some of the leading minds in the post-production industry (outside of Hollywood, mind you), we hope to deliver some qualitative insight that will help make your editing software decision a bit easier.

A Brief History

Prior to the plethora of editing platforms available to us today, editors had but one way of editing in the early days - splicing film. Eventually, it evolved into tape-to-tape editing using a playback and a record VTR deck.

Then, in 1971, the engineers at CBS and Memorex combined forces to invent the CMX 600, the grandfather of all tapeless editing systems. It took a few years, but the tapeless technology evolved into using powerful computers, faster micro-processors and memory systems that would allow users to edit multiple channels of audio, video and graphical elements in one timeline.

Fast forward to 2011 and there are hundreds of options for every editing level - absolute amateur to award winning authority. Prices range from free to thousands. And now, with the advancement of mobile video, you can edit on the fly on your smartphone - yep, there's an app for that.

Pick Your Platform

Whether you prefer a PC or Mac, the options for editing software are seemingly limitless. We'll start with the PC-based systems. Randi Ayers-Hammer, a commercial producer in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, says that when she edits on a PC, she advises colleagues just learning how to edit to try their luck with Adobe's Premiere Elements 9 ($100) software.

"Premiere is a good starter program to learn the basics of editing," she said. "But make sure you do your research. Find the right system for your computer and processors. That can make a huge difference in whether or not your system is going to run smoothly."

Another great starter system for PC-based editors would be the Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD 9 ($50), which offers great editorial options, as well as the Device Explorer, which allows editors to import the files they need without all the ancillary content they won't use in their project.

For video cutters just cutting their teeth on editing with Macs, iMovie is as easy as they come (pre-installed on all Mac computers). This story-board style editing system allows users to drag a video clip into the order they want their video to play. Additionally, users can export in a format optimized for multiple devices, or even directly to YouTube.

And of course, you can't talk about Macs without talking about Final Cut Pro. While the Final Cut Pro Studio Suite ($1,000) used to be créme de la créme of editing systems, Apple announced in April of this year that a downloadable version will be offered up to replace Final Cut Pro Express 4. In Express' place - Final Cut Pro X ($300). The bulked up version of FCP offers a 64-bit scalable application with real-time background rendering, more user-friendly GUI and a jaw-dropping "magnetic timeline" feature which promises to make editing swifter and more succinct. This is tremendous news for editors of all skill levels, as editors can finally update their software with an affordable option that offers the same tools found in many mainstream media houses and Hollywood edit suites around the globe.

If Linux-based computing is more your style, consider Heroine Virtual's Cinelerra 4.2 (Free), which promises "a movie studio in a box". This free software is a dynamic way to produce high quality HD content without a high price. The makers of Cinelerra claim that their software can take low quality, consumer HD video and make it look like film. If you've got powerful CPUs, ample memory and a beefy network, this software may just be for you.