Which software ..Vegas, Roxio, Ulead or Adobe elements???

[armandmizan]

Hi All

I am fairly new to video editing and was wondering if I could tap into all the talent that is on this forum.
I am wanting to do some video editing of kids, birthdays, etc and was wondering which software you recommend.
I am not going to try and make money out of this, although if it comes my way I wont object. X-D
I am really looking for something which has built in templates/themes for the "quick and nasty stuff", good effects to spice it up a bit and something that will take multiple audio and video channels.

Any advice you have would be most appreciated.

Thanks for taking time to read this

Best regards

Armand

[matjusm]

Sony Vegas- very easy to use but just as professional as any other high end editing program. I really like its easy to use drag and drop timeline which allows you to adjust quite a few things right on it. It also offers automatic transitions which are applied when two consecutive video clips overlap which I find extremely logical since a transition is nothing more than going from one scene to another and the duration of the overlap is the duration of the transition (which by default is a crossfade but you can choose from a whole bunch of others). So far it is also the only software I’ve found that allows you to do very quick fade ins and fade outs, something you’ll use a lot, especially when working with multiple audio tracks at the same time. And Sony Vegas is also extremely flexible with formats whereby it doesn’t care about the codec, file extenstion, framerate or resolution but simply allows you to stick everything onto one timeline.
Adobe Premiere is also pretty good. The timeline isn’t as flexible as that of Vegas (like how you have to go into trim mode instead of being in it all the time by default) and I haven’t found a way to create automatic transitions and fade ins/outs but instead have to drag and drop those one by one onto the timeline. It also offers some nice compositing possibilities by allowing you to adjust the size and position of your video right in the preview window but on the other hand, it doesn’t handle video playback very well or at least with the formats I’ve tried (.mov and .avi).
Avid’s products, which are quite similar to each other actually, aren’t something I’d recommend. They take too much time to learn and many of its features I find illogical when comparing them to how I do it in Vegas. Extremely picky about formats which can be a real headache and what it does accept, it converts into a special Avid format which takes up a lot of hard drive space though on the other hand, also offers perfect video playback quality.

[Anonymous]

I’ve only ever used Vegas so I can’t comment on the others but I can say that having started editing video with zero experience, Vegas was extremely easy to work with and I was very quickly achieving excellent results. It does everything I want to do and works great with HDV from my A1. I have read that working with HDV can be a pain but I simply firewire it to the PC and drop it on the timeline – no problems at all.

I’m not going to say Vegas is the best there is and that you absolutely must have it because I just don’t know, but it’s certainly a joy to work with and has never caused me any headaches. You could always download their free trial and give it a go…

Don’t overuse those effects, though! 🙂

[Anonymous]

A very common question.

I like Adobe a lot but you cannot go wrong with Sony Vegas.
I’ve never used templates so I can’t say much there but Elements was very easy to use and although I use CS3 as my main NLE I still have and use elements 3 on my back-up machine.

I like it. 8)

[armandmizan]

Thanks for all your feedback.It seems as if Vegas is a popular choice
Has anyone ever used ULead?

Thanks again for taking the time to read this.

Your input is always welcome

Regards

Armand

[Anonymous]

If you’re not too concerned about making money, I’d focused more on Adobe Premiere Elements 4.0. It’s much less expensive than Vegas (which is btw, a great video editing application, but probably a little more than what you need). Elements is a good starting application that has a lot of fun effects themes that are easy to apply and still gives you some manual control. Ulead and Pinnacle have comparable video editing applications that also come with plenty of effects, but I’ve found the Adobe Elements 4.0 user interface is a little more refined.

I’d suggest you try to find some trial versions to test out different software. I’m pretty sure Ulead (now Corel) has some trials.

Mark

[armandmizan]

Please excuse my ignorance here..when people refer to Vegas, are they normally referring to Vegas Pro (ver 8) or to Vegas Movie Studio +DVD Platinum edition.
:-//

Thanks

Armand

[matjusm]

The Pro version. The way I see it is that if you’re really into this, you should work with the best tools available.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I was referring to the pro version as well. Not sure how limited the studio version of Vegas is but the difference in price would suggest that there are some pretty major differences.

You can download working trials of both versions, though, so it will be easy for you to see which of the two most suits your needs.

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/products/vegasfamily.asp

Jon.

[Anonymous]

matjusm Wrote:

The Pro version. The way I see it is that if you’re really into this, you should work with the best tools available.

I agree with this but I also understand how it can come down to what people need and what they plan on doing with their end product.

Plus Sony Vegas DVD and Adobe Elements can give you very pro end products so you may not have all of the features of the top of the line software but these are very good tools indeed.
I really think many people will not use or need waveform monitors, vectorscopes, and audio spectrum analyzers.

Start with Vegas DVD [or which one you like best] and if you need more you can always move up and the tools will be there and the learning curve won’t be as deep.

My two cents…

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