Video Software

[tireman]

Any reccomendations on Video Editing software. I am a member of a shooting team and I am looking to create some promo videos of our matches for our club website (under creation). It needs to be capable of creating streaming video for the net and standard mpeg files. I would prefer something that can do transitions, 3d title effects. The system I will be using is as follows:

Epox 8KHA/Athlon XP1900/512MB Mushkin PC2100/ATI Radeon 9000 pro/Pioneer DVD Burner/Plextor 40X cd burner

Any suggestions appreciated!

[RJ]

Depends. If basic editing is what you want (including transitions, titles, DVD authoring, WMV and RealMedia) then Pinnacle Studio 8 is very good.
If you want something professional then get Adobe Premiere.

RJ

[tireman]

I guess I should clarify, I currently have Premier on my own system, But this system is someone elses. We don't want to go too basic, but buying another copy of Premier, no thanks.

[ryanatalie]

Pinnacle Studio 8 does a fairly descent job, and is inexpensive. I just wish the mpeg-2 encoder was better. You can use it to stream video for WMP or RP media.

Ulead MediaStudio also works well.

[tireman]

Yeah, I was looking at the Ulead online. I am pretty proficient when it comes to this stuff, but for this situation, ease of use (for other people involved) is what I would like to have.

[Mac Medic]

What do you shoot?

[RJ]

Oh yeah, for MPEG-2 encoding one of the best programs is TMPGEnc. With Studio 8 you can output the edited video as AVI (with the same codec like the original) and let TMPGEnc encode, then let Studio 8 author the DVD.

The newest version of Premiere has a built-in MPEG encoder, older versions need an extra plugin.

So if you don't want Premiere again, well, then Studio 8 or Ulead VideoStudio would be options. Personally I don't like the interface of VideoStudio much.

Too basic or not, that's only up to you. Studio 8 does transitions, titles, makes RealMedia and WMV files, is easy to use. It has only one video track, you can't make a video inside a video, etc.
I think you should try it out. Pinnacle had a trial version of Studio 7, not sure if there is a trial of Studio 8 for download yet.

RJ

[tireman]

Thanks RJ, I'll check it out. I looked at Pinnacle's virtual tour of ver 8 and from what I see it looks good. I did not see a trial version but I'll dig around and see what I can find.

[tireman]

Originally posted by oem_guy_2002 What do you shoot?

It depends on the match, in the open classes, I shoot a Colt 1911 .45, heavily modified (by me). In stock classes, a Glock 21 .45 or a Springfield Trophy PI9140L .45, just depends.

[ryanatalie]

I love the .45 too. I have a Kimber Gold Match for home, and ultra CDP for carry. I don't do any competition shooting though.

[audiyoda]

For what you want, I'd suggest Video Factory from Sonic Foundry. The cost won't break the pocket book and in my professional opinion, there's not a better video editor on the market in it's price range. It's got some of the best effects and transitions I've seen -- regardless of software package and cost, it will import jsut about every format of video file, picture file and audio file currently used. And it will easily export your video for streaming in the three popular streaming formats: RealMedia, WindowsMedia or Quicktime.

As good as Studio 8 is, and I don't want to knock it, I believe the ease of use this package offers and the quality it puts out puts it a step above Studio 8. Basically you don't need to know video editing to use this package -- so although you may do the majority of the work for your shotting team right now, in the future that could always change. This package will allow anyone to step in and take control.

-Craig

[tireman]

Thanks Craig, as it turns out, a member of the team told me that that was what he had so we'll give it a try.