So - what is the best video editing software on the market for under £500?


This may have been asked before, however I can’t find a post that covers this topic comprehensively.
What would be very helpful is, if you guys with experience of various systems could kindly give your opinion in a score out of 10 on such areas as;

Usability (1= Rubbish impossible to use 10= Amazingly simple and intuitive)
Functionality (1= So basic its useless 10= Has every function the top pro systems have)
Performance (1= Slow and poor quality 10= Lightning fast and amazing quality)

Add any areas not mentioned above and any other comments.
Thanks


I'D START A POLL BUT DON'T KNOW HOW!

In my expirience all editors around £500 are fully capable and very hard to use fully.
Cheaper less fully featured programs are easier to use but do less.
Go look in the links on this site - lots of free trials to play with - it's mostly down to personal pref.

I like vegas, I find it inuitive with very powerful and flexible effects bus architecture, ultra stable, and can edit all sorts of media in one project - others may have different opinions.

It's like buying a pen if your were a writer.

Everyone has their own personal preference and what works for one person may not for someone else. Again, you need to download a few trials and try them out on your computer and see which one works best for you. I like the Adobe stuff such as Premiere Pro and Premiere Elements (the two editors), they also have Photoshop, After Effects and Audition plus a lot of other programs. This makes integration and transferring files between these programs much easier. On a scale of 1 to 10 in your poll I would give them the following...

Usability 8

Functionality 9

Performance 9

These are all personal preferences and as they do have quite a steep learning curve you really need to stick with these programs for some time.

If we're looking for software under $500 you could do worse than look at some of the free stuff out there.

Obviously for really serious editing you're going to need something with a bit of grunt underneath it and some good, professional functionality. But don't write off the free stuff.

Wax
A free tool with powerful editing and compositing abilities.
Usability 8 Functionality 6 Performance 7

Video Spin
Video Spin is the free video editing tool from Avid. This maybe a little simple for you
Usability 9 Functionality 4 Performance 8

T@B ZS4
T2B ZS4 is a free video editing and compositing tool from Zwei-Stein. Its not for everyone, but it could be for you.
Usability 7 Functionality 7 Performance 5

Vivia
Vivia is a basic editing software which is currently being developed and is in Beta testing. If you are using Linux or Windows you might want to check this out
Usability 8 Functionality 5 Performance 8

Jahshaka
Jahshaka is a free multi-use offline editing tool. Although it is still fairly new on the market.
Usability 5 Functionality 5 Performance 5

Avidemux
One of the more stable and complete free tools available.
Usability 7 Functionality 7 Performance 8

Blender
Blender is a powerful, multi-use editing/compositing and modeling tool. It's one of the best on the market and it's free.
Usability 4 Functionality 9 Performance 8

If you're running a Mac there's Hyperengine A/v which does trackless editing (very neat!) Usability 8 Functionality 7 Performance 8

And if you're on Linux there are tools such as KdenLive (Usability ?? Functionality ?? Performance ??) and LiVES(Usability ?? Functionality ?? Performance??) to look at.

Now I'm not suggesting that these are world class tools along side such luminaries as Final Cut, Premiere or Vegas, but for software that is stable and free, and which will do a lot of the reasonably simple editing things we all need, it might be worth giving them a try

Thanks.
(NOTE All ratings are personal preferences apart from the Linux one's which are not rated as I don't run a Linux box yet)

As for free editors, well if you were considoring spening 500 you wouldnt really be interested in free stuff....

In my albeit limited experience free editors are a bit rubbish.

I think it's certainly fair to say that free software is generally less functional than commercial stuff, although with the open source software out on the market today that's not always the case.

A quick glance at things like The Elephants Dream and Big Buck Bunny - which were done completely on free software - does indicate that with enough talent and ingenuity, even the free software can be made to sing and dance....

Freevideo4695
You’re a star, that's just what a novice like me needs!
You should review software systems professionally.

I may start with a freebie then get the credit card out.

Thanks to you and all the other responses.

hmmm................

Well for SFX and stuff Adobe After Effects is the best ive ever used but it costs arround $1000 USD which i think is arround 500 pounds anyway yeah in terms of usability, functunality and performance. Usebility would give it arround a 8 as it is easy to use and everything makes sence once youve figurd it out like at the start i was like wtf now its good and functunality 5 because its good for sfx but for just standerd take this part and put it with this part isnt so good but awesum for sfx when me and my mate made our vid we used pinicle for editing and just put the parts that needed sfx into adobe for just that shot(s) and that worked well and performance i have no idear as we were working with fairly high quality videos (15gig per hour) and our laptops are skool ones and are pieces of **** and they cant handle any good program