Thread: I am after a good editing program...

Hello All!

I have been looking around for a good video editor for over a month now and I have found it very hard to come to a conclusion on what to buy. So I decided to join these forums and ask.

I am just starting to get into DV stuff and and so I am looking for a good editing program that is reliable and not too expensive, doesn't require a university degree to operate, won't hog all of my computer's resources, has a great sound editor and can do some more technical things such as single frame editing (e.g. like for rotoscoping). I am also after features such as colour grading, green screen/blue screen, reversing of footage, and a good customizable DVD menu system. I doubt that there is any progam that has all of those things. Is there any program (or programs) that you could suggest?

I have looked quite a bit at Pinnacle Studios and Premiere Elements but after reading a lot of reviews there seems to be a few setbacks with both of them. I have downloaded the trial version of Vegas 6 and it seems to be fairly good but it can't do all that I am after.

Has anyone got any suggestions? Thanks in advance.


Geekman

The only thing I see that vegas wont do is the rotoscoping (but I may be wrong, feel free to interject if anyone else knows better). I think the only way to rotoscope is with a decent paint/photo program, actualy Im interested to find out myself so if anyone else has info on rotoscoping please post.

Yeh, Vegas 6 can do most of the things but it can't do DVDs (you have to buy the DVD maker that goes with Vegas 6) and I don't think that it can do green screen. Can it?

Premiere elements will do all of that except the rotoscoping. However if you spend the extra £30 (ish) and get Photoshop Elements with it then you have everything you need.

As for the "won't hog all my system resources" statement though. You'll be lucky

Vegas has a felixible 'green screener', the colour keyer, will key on any colour.

Premiere elements had some bad reviews that has put me off. Just little things that I think would make it a pain to use. Also the fact that is takes up a few GB of harddrive space doesn't make me happy about buying it. But alas it seams to be the only one that can do rotoscoping.

Vegas 6 has a "green screener?" I can't find anything on that in the help files. Maybe I am just blind.

Do any of you know of a progam like Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro that can import video into a film stip? I have a program called Animation Shop which can import film into a strip but it can only save it as a gif which doesn't have very good quality.

One program that I downloaded the trial of which seems to be fairly good for effects is EffectsLab. I don't know what the full version is like. Have any of you heard of it?


Geekman

In vegas under the FX tab look for "Chroma keyer" (green, blue whatever colour screener).

ah yes, thank you. It is quite neat that.

Hey thanks guys. I decided to go with Vegas 6 and bought it the other day. Just got to await for its arival :\

Cheers,

Geekman