Hi all I am a bit new to the forums here. I was wondering what video editing software everyone uses to make their movies. <BR> <BR>I use Pinnacle Studio 9 Plus with Hollywood effects Mega for my video editing. And Adobe Photoshop for my stills. <BR> <BR>I am actually not that satisfied with Pinnacle so I was wondering what everyone else is using and what effects they can get out of them.. <BR> <BR>Let me know <BR>

Avid MediaComposer Adrenaline at work. <BR>Sony Vegas and Avid Xpress Pro at home.

Pinnacle liquid Edition for vid <BR>Jasc paintshop pro for pics. <BR>I know i'm in the minority though with Liquid Edition.

adobe premiere pro 1.5 <BR>adobe after effects 6.5 pro <BR>adobe photoshop 6.0 (i know, i need new version!)

does any one have any example videos that they have done with their software? <BR>

funny you should ask... <BR> <BR><a href="http://www.wakepics.com/view_single.php?medid=10504" target="_blank">http://www.wakepics.com/view_single.php?medid=10504</a> <BR><a href="http://www.wakepics.com/view_single.php?medid=13476" target="_blank">http://www.wakepics.com/view_single.php?medid=13476</a> <BR><a href="http://www.wakepics.com/view_single.php?medid=14826" target="_blank">http://www.wakepics.com/view_single.php?medid=14826</a> <BR><a href="http://www.dpcfilms.com/VideoPlayer.asp?i=128" target="_blank">http://www.dpcfilms.com/VideoPlayer.asp?i=128</a> <BR><a href="http://www.dpcfilms.com/VideoPlayer.asp?i=130" target="_blank">http://www.dpcfilms.com/VideoPlayer.asp?i=130</a>

show off!

Joe how did you get that flicker effect on the Umali project and does adobe have that good of video editing software? <BR> <BR>I want something that has some cool effects <BR>with pinnacle that I am using I have some basic wipes fades and other transitions but about anything else I have to pay extra for. is this the case with adobe? How much did it set you back?

No offense, but the whole faux film thing is played. <BR>ESPN's QC guy and I had a conversation about the fad the other day. But I have to agree. EVERY amateur video is laced with damaged filmed effects nowadays.

<a href="http://www.wakepics.com/view_single.php?medid=12718" target="_blank">http://www.wakepics.com/view_single.php?medid=12718</a> <BR> <BR>I used Pinnacle liquid Edition for this.

Not directed at any of the video posted here but if I see one more clip showing a rider going in reverse and then forward again I think I'll need therapy. <BR> <BR>Toolfan is right about the faux film look too. When you render film effects onto crappy looking video you just end up with crappier looking video. Most of the Pro's are pretty up on what the flavor of the month is when it comes to the latest effect. By the time the use of any particular effect filters down to the amateur sector it's been pretty worked over. <BR> <BR>

sorry to hijack.... <BR> <BR>Rich, I got 9 more Z1's on the way. along with jimmy box's and varizooms. <BR> <BR>Im stoked.

NICE! <BR> <BR>Are these additional units or are you replacing older DV or Beta units?

toolfan - what are you guys filming over there? <BR> <BR>Dykmans - Rewind and Forward is the latest thing! <BR> <BR> <BR>Movie Maker PRO <BR>

we are replacing our DSRs. from 300s to 400s. We will also probably get a couple of the new DSR450s.

Dave, <BR> <BR>Ain't it great when you find someone like Joe who actually likes to edit! You guys did a nice job on those 2 vids.

toolfan - cool.. <BR> <BR>Dykmans - Thanks! That was all Joe, I just held the camera.. How hard can that be? ;-) Joe's always had the ability, he just needed some footage with better riders. I fostered that inner ability and now he's a star.. I hope he remembers the little people..?

You know who else loves to edit . . . Sean B., at least that's what he told me at that Surf n skate party. He had been drinking heavily though! <BR> <BR>Joe won't forget the little people though, just watch any Mac vs PC thread if you don't believe me! :-)

lol... drunk people will say just about anything. ;-)

what "mac vs pc" thread? i never post in them! <img src="http://www.wakeworld.com/MB/Discus/clipart/wink.gif" border=0>

Adobe Premiere Pro- great with windows

i use imovie along with some final cut pro at my school when i can although im still getting the basics down. <BR> <BR>nick

im using premiere pro 1.5 and AE 6.5 photoshop cs and encore 1.5 and audition 1.5 right now... but i need to upgrade to avid sooner or later... or a mac...

Cody - why do you need to upgrade to avid?

is switching from premiere pro 1.5 to avid an upgrade?

of sorts...yes.

can you explain these "sorts?"

First of all, have you ever used Avid?

nope.

Why Avid Xpress Pro? <BR> <BR> * Better editing. Multicamera clip grouping and ganging. One-Touch and Natural Match automatic color correction. Image stabilization with auto-zoom. Pan and zoom of oversized stills. Script-based editing. Real-time animated alpha channels. MetaSync for advanced metadata management right on the timeline. Only Avid Xpress Pro has all this-and much more. <BR> * Better format flexibility. Capture and output native DV25 and SD media. Mix DV , SD , and film resolutions in the same timeline. Enjoy exceptional, high-quality export flexibility to formats such as WMV, MPEG 2, and Flash. <BR> * Better film and 24p features. With Academy Award® winning Avid Film Composer tools built right in, you can view film metadata while you edit using industry-standard offline resolutions-you can easily track media all the way from rough-cut to conform. Script-based editing means that changing your screenplay updates your Avid timeline. Auto-sync and quarter-frame slip offer the fastest, most flexible workflow with external audio sources, such as DAT. <BR> * Better conform. For many editors, Avid Xpress Pro is all they need to go straight to screen. But, as an Avid editor, you have easy access to the world's most sophisticated film and video resources. Avid's Total Conform makes it all easy and fast to apply the professional finishing tools used on today's big-budget blockbusters. Save effort, time, and money-and tell your story the way it was meant to be told. <BR> * Better quality. High quality video I/O, processing, and title animation provide the highest quality SD images. <BR> * Better integration. Industry standards such as OMF, AAF and MXF enable seamless software integration with Digidesign Pro Tools and Avid 3D software, among many others. Integration with Digidesign 002 hardware offers an audio editing control surface and a hardware-based edit controller inside Avid Xpress Pro software. Add Avid Mojo hardware for uncompressed SD I/O; and accelerated video and effects output to both client monitor and tape. <BR> * Better networked storage. Avid Unity shared storage systems, the smartest networked storage in the business, lets you connect as many Avid editors as you need, for true collaboration at any scale. <BR> * Better value . Affordable Avid Xpress Pro software includes DVD authoring with Sonic Solutions ReelDVD LE; encoding with Sorenson Squeeze Compression Suite; and professional soundtrack creation with SmartSound SonicFire Pro. <BR> <BR>(taken from website) <BR> <BR>to me, the biggest advantage is its media management tools. If all you just do is the occasional roody-poo 2 minute long "music video", its not a big deal. but if you are do alot of editing, it is the cat's meow. <BR> <BR>2nd of all, its interface and presets are very intuitive. <BR> <BR>I guess it all boils down to whatever you are used to. But I learned on Premier, then migrated to Final Cut, then I started working on a Avid. I occasionally help friends with with projects that they edited with Final Cut, and I think its a pretty solid program, I dont dislike it. But I have one buddy that edits with premier, and after using Avid for 3 years, I would rather have a spinal tap that edit with that everyday. Its clunky and you have to go around the world to do simple things that Avid can do with simply dragging a preset over or making one mouse click. I am pretty sure he doesnt have the latest and greatest version of Premier Pro, but its fairly current.

I see said the blind man... <BR> <BR>Joe - Premiere Pro $500, Avid Exp Pro.. $1500 of course it's better! <BR> <BR> <BR> <BR>

The best editing software is the one you already know how to use. When it comes to editing DV they pretty much all can do the same thing even though it may be a bit more difficult with one program vs another. If you're in the business like toolfan those little short cuts become a big deal.

well i would like to upgrade to avid because thats what alot of bigger companies use to edit with. i need to learn FCP as well... another reason for upgrading to avid would be the HD editing.

they pretty much all do HD now. some have better render times than others. <BR> <BR>I was surprised how well Avid Xpress Pro (PC) handles HDV. Its like working with DV.

I would use final Cut for the mac or Avid dv express for PC

The only way to do anything is Final Cut. Pc's are crap machines for video. Get your self a mac with Final Cut and Motion and your projects will be bloomin'.

just add a mac and magic will happen... pooof!

Rich agrees!

I still miss those little moving barn door icons on the transitions in Premiere. Does the program still do that? Made it easy to decide which transition to use between each clip! In fact I think they had one that went pooof.

You can have a $100k Avid Editing Suite or a $10k Dual-proc Mac G5, but no editing program can not make up for crappy camera work, lighting, angles, composition, riding, or bad editing... <BR> <BR>pooof! <BR> <BR>p.s. yes the barn door effect is still around and now that I know it's not available on the mac.. I will make it my exclusive transition for all my vids. yeeeessss! <BR>

colby, what you're saying is that my videos suck since i use premiere pro 1.5 and that if i switch to mac, final cut and motion, my videos will be a lot better?

I can sense the cross-hairs of Joe's sights zero-ing in on Colby. <BR> <BR>And Toolfan will be soon be screaming "pull the trigger"! <BR> <BR>And Dave, you're wrong, if you stack enough transitions you don't need any source video!

It's a transition off at the old Member's Only warehouse..!

Pinnacle Studio Plus 9 <BR>Adobe Premiere Pro <BR>Adobe After Effects and <BR>Adobe Photoshop CS <BR> <BR>my housemate put this video together as her first project <a href="http://www.slidingglass.com/media/video/wake.wmv" target="_blank">www.slidingglass.com/media/video/wake.wmv</a> <BR>the footage was taken on an older analog, and the picture kinda came out bad in the capture

im just starting to learn avid express pro hd. finally!

you are wise beyond your years young jedi.....

Ohh great . . . . another one goes over to the dark side!!!

i can tell you one thing... its definitely not as user friendly as premiere pro 1.5 ... i cant put more than one effect on a clip, you cant adjust things as easily like in premiere (once its in the timeline), it cant deinterlace on export... i thought avid was better than this???

you have to hold down control(option on a mac) before you drag a 2nd effect onto a clip. <BR> <BR>go to the avid forums if you need help <BR><a href="http://avid.com/cgi/forumscgi/Ultimate.cgi?action=intro" target="_blank">http://avid.com/cgi/forumscgi/Ultimate.cgi?action=intro</a> <BR> <BR>As for the deinterlacing issue, why are you wanting to deinterlace? you can read alot of good things about the matter on the forums. <BR> <BR>"its definitely not as user friendly as premiere pro 1.5" <BR>learning anything new isnt easy. after a few months or weeks, when you fully learn avid, you will not like premiere pro. <BR>

I don't like PPro either, but I signed a 10 year 20 million dollar with Adobe... oh well. <BR>

Me to. OHH those million dollar deals. Sucks to be us,huh. <img src="http://www.wakeworld.com/MB/Discus/clipart/wink.gif" border=0><img src="http://www.wakeworld.com/MB/Discus/clipart/crazy.gif" border=0>

i got avid xpress pro hd last week....looks really hard. is avid the dark side? will that conflict w/ my multi-million dollar deal w/ adobe? <BR> <BR>w00t <BR> <BR>(Message edited by dakid on July 19, 2005)

why do i want to deinterlace??? uhh... because interlaced video looks like poop on a stick (IMO). i believe deinterlacing seperates your video from the moms and dads videos... catch my drift. (my camera doesnt shoot in progressive...) <BR> <BR>(Message edited by natxbrotha on July 20, 2005)

Deinterlacing 60i video on export???? That's a new one on me. Normally video looks best straight out of the camera. Editing it only degrades it from there. For all practical purposes it doesn't degrade it that much but it is there. Deinterlacing is the computer combining the odd &amp; even interlaced fields and basically guessing about the amount of motion blur needed in the finished frame. Most deinterlacing algorithms are pretty basic and deal simply with combining the single odd/even fields of each frame. More sophisticated software like the products from Realviz actually interpolate some of the info from the fields ahead and behind and allow you to adjust how much those fields impact the interpolated final frame. I have used their products as well as the deinterlace filter in FCP and have not seen any noticable improvment (or for that matter improvement period), nor have I ever seen anyone post that general deinterlacing can improve overall quality of SD video. If the deinterlace is done during compression for the web or another type of video output perhaps, but for full frame Standard Definition video - no. <BR> <BR>my .02

FYI - For web video, if your output size is 320 x 240 then you do NOT need to de-interlace because you are using 1/2 the fields. <BR> <BR>Cody - what are you watching the footage on? TV, PC monitor, etc? The reason I ask is because I've seen video on the web at 640x480 which has an issue with interlacing where the de-interlace filter would help.. <BR> <BR>

I didn't want to call anyone out on this...Glad you guys could do it for me. <BR> <BR>"i believe deinterlacing seperates your video from the moms and dads videos" <BR>you believed wrong. <BR> <BR>Garbage in, garbage out. Digital video degrades after it is manipulated too much. You aren't gonna turn crappy footage into gold by "deinterlacing" it or by adding some sort of magic filter/effect. Dont confuse what your source monitor is showing during a still frame of video with how video is gonna look. A still and and motion video work on 2 different planes.

first, im not shooting in 60i, im shooting 30i (or 29.97 interlaced). second, i was trying to export some video to 720x480 for the web. i guess i should have said that little sentence differently... <BR> <BR>"i believe deinterlacing seperates your video from the moms and dads videos." <BR>what i should have said was "in my opinion..." <BR> <BR>any altering in post obviously will degrade the video... so using a field monitor/waveform monitor, good lighting, etc... will be the way you want to go, then you can color grade it and all that extra jazz in post (magic bullet, discreet combustion, AE, FCP, or whatever) to make it look how you want it to... <BR> <BR>sorry for making this uproar... <BR> <BR>just curious, but what approach do you take in editing as far as color grading(correcting) goes?? or do you? <BR> <BR>its cool that you guys tell it like it is, i appreciate that (honest). <BR> <BR>do you guys have some videos i can watch online? its fun discussing what techniques were used and all that stuff.

Cody - Right, so in your case where you have interlaced video at 720x480 on the web you would want to use the deinterlace filter. However you don't need to export that large of a video for the web. If you follow my step-by-step instructions to encode videos here: <a href="http://www.dpcfilms.com/HowTo/articles/CompressingVideos/index.asp" target="_blank">http://www.dpcfilms.com/HowTo/articles/CompressingVideos/index.asp</a> , you'll see that with Windows Media Player you can play your file in FULL Screen mode with decent results. <BR> <BR>I have some home videos you can check out here: <BR><a href="http://www.dpcfilms.com/videos.asp" target="_blank">http://www.dpcfilms.com/videos.asp</a> <BR> <BR> <BR>

To be honest with you......I go ABSOLUTELY CRAZY one of my camera guys bring in stuff that is crappy. Whenever I hear the phrase "we can fix it in post" I start reaching for my pistol. <BR> <BR>Color correction (I like "color correction" better) is a necessity. This is really there an Avid will shine. Particulary a Avid Nitris. You can tell that there is ever-so-slight degredation in quality when color is tweaked. Over tweak it and you will see artifacting, it almost looks like gain. How do you avoid this? Use a monitor or know what you are doing. Cameras are consistant, cameramen are not.

kung fu, im not exporting wakeboarding stuff i shot... its for an adapter and people want to see the best resolution possible (usually a 20second clip). otherwise i wouldnt be making it that big, because thats just crazy! if it was like 5 minutes of footage it would be like 600mb or so after export (using some compression). <BR> <BR>i've been learning to color correct different ways for about a year now... and now i would like to learn it on the avid instead of AE and premiere pro. from tests i've seen any kind of image manipulation done in avid has better quality results (less artifacting) than premiere pro in my opinion. <BR> <BR>cool vids dave. <BR> <BR>

Cool, thanks! <BR> <BR>FYI - AE is used for special effects which can't be done by Avid, Premiere, or Final Cut Pro. You'll find that a lot of Mac user also use AE for this purpose. <BR> <BR>If you check out my murray video you'll see a good example of AE in work (refig door sequence). <BR> <BR><a href="http://www.dpcfilms.com/VideoPlayer.asp?i=110" target="_blank">http://www.dpcfilms.com/VideoPlayer.asp?i=110</a> <BR> <BR>

im a closet mac user...shhhhhhhh........ <BR> <BR>as much as I hate them, damaged or just plain film effects are done best with AE. I've played with some real expensive plugs on a Nitris and surprisingly I think some of the free 3rd party plugs for Vegas are better. <BR> <BR>If you ever need Avid help, call me while I am at work(so I will have an avid in front of me) at 662-494-8859 ext 193. I like to think that I am pretty proficient with an Avid.

toolfan, how 'bout starting from step 1 to about step 5,387,452? thanks. <img src="http://www.wakeworld.com/MB/Discus/clipart/lol.gif" border=0>

you got free long distance?

toolfan, you ever use apples shake? i hear it's the mac daddy of compositing software thats affordable.

never have. but ya, it a pretty powerful program.

Cody, lets get you squared away on what you're shooting. first what cam are you using? <BR> <BR>29.97 is drop frame timecode used when the project will be broadcast on NTSC based television and has nothing to do with framerate. 60i video as well as as 30p can both use 29.97 timecode. To my knowledge there is no consumer or prosumer camera that shoots in 30i (which by definition would be 15 frames per second on playback.) I know some of the Sonys and Canons have that pseudo 30p recording mode where the frames are doubled into 30p on tape but those would already be de-interlaced. Is that what you're talking about? If you're shooting in the "standard" mode on your camera you should be shooting 60i. <BR> <BR>Color correction is just another tool that if used properly will give your video a more Pro look. FCP's is excellent (they pretty much stole the interface from Avid I hear). I use it a lot to match the color balance between different shots, bring down the levels on blown out whites and bring out the shadows in high contrast shots. I prefer to keep it simple but color correction can be a highly complex procedure involving waveform/vectorscopes and is more tech then I want to be at this point. If you start with a pro video monitor and lead in your footage with colorbars you can eliminate a lot of the guesswork about whether what you're seeing is a true representation of your color. Toolfan said it best - GIGO

yah rich im a tard... i learned that in intro class a couple years ago... shame on me! but thanks for the help, forgetting can be painful.

adobe premier pro