Best reasonably priced video editing software?

[Rockstaru]

I've been looking at getting a new camcorder lately, and I've largely decided on the Canon HG-20 (Newegg.com - Canon VIXIA HG20 Black 1/3.2" CMOS 2.7" 211K LCD 12X Optical Zoom 60GB Hard Disk Drive High Definition Camcorder, Canon HG20 Reviews - Hard Drive - Camcorders - Cameras - Technology Reviews - washingtonpost.com). The problem I'm running into, however, is finding a good software suite that can edit AVCHD video. I've checked out and used the Tech Committee's HD camera a couple of times, and usually I just end up using Premiere (installed on some of the digital studio computers.) Obviously I'd love to just go with Adobe Premiere, but I really don't want to drop $1,000 on CS4 (and I'm not going to pirate it.) That being said, is there a good video editing/DVD authoring software suite out there that's not too expensive that will work with AVCHD format? I've read about Sony Vegas, and while that did sound enticing, as I understand it, that only works with Sony camcorders, and I'd want something more versatile.

Edit: As far as DVD authoring goes, I really need something that will let me create my own custom menus (background, custom buttons, highlights, etc.), and custom chapter markers (for some reason everything I look at is incredibly vague on this--it'll say that it allows chapter editing, but then it turns out it will only automatically drop chapter markers at certain points, like Windows DVD Maker.)

[Rockstaru]

Small followup--Regardless of whatever camera I decide on, what are some necessary (or useful) accessories to have? I was thinking of a good shotgun microphone (like the Sennheiser MKE 400 - Amazon.com: Sennheiser MKE 400 Shotgun Microphone - Black: Musical Instruments or the Rode VideoMic - Amazon.com: Rode VideoMic directional Video Condenser w/microphone: Musical Instruments). Also obviously a good tripod would be necessary--is there any sort of preferred brand or model as far as these go? The last thing would be a decent case for it all; I figure that shouldn't be too hard to find. Is there anything else I would really want to get just to start out (i.e. lenses, etc.)?

If it helps any, my intended purpose for this is primarily recording concerts and theatre productions.

[Knyghtmayre]

People pay for software?
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/...estudiopp9.jpg
The Vegas Movie Studio Platinum Pro Pack takes video and audio production even further with added tools for professional-level sound design, as well as more video effects and transitions. This powerful collection has everything needed to edit video in nearly any format including high definition. Pro Pack has integrated features for advanced video compositing, color correction, and 5.1 surround mixing. Use the included Sound Forge Audio Studio software* for precise audio editing and Cinescore Studio software to generate royalty-free soundtracks in minutes.
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/...diopp_main.jpg

Sony Vegas Platinum 9 Pro Download Link

[Darus Grey]

Vegas is pretty much your cheapest option, the next step up is premiere(followed by FCP and AVID), there really isn't anything else worth using.

There is Cinelerra - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia which is linux open source and has many pro level features, but people have mixed experience with it. If you want to spend no money it IS a great option though.

Comparison of video editing software - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Is very nice chart for comparing btw.

[Baelorn]

Just going to echo Vegas. I have it and I love using it(and yes I paid for it).

[Araelus]

A word of warning if you go for Adobe Premiere. It's amazing and whatnot, lets you do a ton of interesting things (I use the CS3 suite) but it is designed for industry work, to function best with uncompressed data input. So you need tons and tons of storage space. Make sure whatever program you are going to use (regardless of what the box says) works with AVCHD video.

(And for DVD authoring, Adobe CS3 Encore is very buggy. Have you gotten to try CS4 at your Tech Committee?)

People pay for software?

Yes, yes we do.

[Pikarya]

Vegas.

And no, no *we* don't.

[Rockstaru]

A word of warning if you go for Adobe Premiere. It's amazing and whatnot, lets you do a ton of interesting things (I use the CS3 suite) but it is designed for industry work, to function best with uncompressed data input. So you need tons and tons of storage space. Make sure whatever program you are going to use (regardless of what the box says) works with AVCHD video.

(And for DVD authoring, Adobe CS3 Encore is very buggy. Have you gotten to try CS4 at your Tech Committee?)


Yes, yes we do.

Yes, I've usually used CS4 for editing projects in the digital studio up until now. It's a very slick program and interface, but the computers it runs on are not that wonderful--Mine's a bit more robust (4GB RAM, 2.4GHz Q6600 Quad, Nvidia 8800 GTX. Unfortunately it's a Dell, not my choice, so I can't OC it the way I'd like to.) The cost of Premiere is just a bit too prohibitive though, so I was looking for something that would do the job at a bit cheaper pricing.

Thanks for the advice!

[Boyiee]

I'm going to start making movies of games that i play.

Would really really like some suggestions on best recording software to record ingame stuff, like fraps or something, and I guess I'll use the options posted here for editing.

Thanks in advance. Mostly FPS and WoW btw I'd be recording, I have a pretty beast PC and want to take advantage of it.

[Araelus]

I've had only good times (good times) with FRAPS - the full unlocked version is about $40 if I remember correctly. You'll need to tweak the Windows sound levels a bit until you get the right volume for recording, though. It allows for any FPS your system can handle, and if you are running the game and FRAPS on two different cores you should see no FPS loss when recording.

Plug the FRAPS output into VirtualDub (great free encoder/decoder) and you can get uncompressed or whatever other format you want, besides some proprietary things.

VirtualDub easily digests the weird compression format FRAPS uses, and you can apply some basic effects at that point, or edit out individual frames easily.

[Boyiee]

How do I run fraps on my other core?

[Araelus]

It should do this automatically - but if you notice a drop in performance, go to Windows Task Manager > Processes tab.

Right click on FRAPS.exe and select "Set Affinity..."

This will open up a box with (up to 32 CPUs haha) that you can select what cores (or true separate CPUs if you have 'em) that the program is allowed to run on.

With my machine, an old Core2 Quad, it defaults to the second core only "CPU1", whereas FFXI (for example) runs across all four cores "CPU0-3"

A sidenote - running FRAPS and VirtualDub at the same time can crash one or the other, and I don't know why. There's no reason to do so, really, just something to watch out for.

Also, FRAPS will lower your game's framerate to a maximum of whatever FPS it is recording at, so if you set it to X FPS and hit record, the game will be reduced to a maximum X FPS.
Don't worry if you go from 60 → 30 suddenly, just check the "Movies" tab and see what FPS is selected. Defaults are 25, 30, 50, 60, and a box you can enter any rate in.

There are some other tips and tricks to FRAPS, but it's all in the help files, mostly has to do with what maximum window sizes it can record.

[Boyiee]

120 it is lol

edit: Fraps causes a fatal error to wow no matter what settings i use.


CURSE YOU VISTA

no but really its pretty gay. As soon as I hit record, gone.

Fraps is defaulted to CPU1, WoW uses all cores, would changing fraps to cpu0 change anything? Also, there are 2 fraps in processes, the .exe im assuming is the affinity I want to change?

[Araelus]

...there ... shouldn't be two fraps in the process list. Maybe it's a Vista thing (on XP pro here) along with the crashing (argh) and it'd be the .exe I suppose.

What is the extension on the second fraps?

Also, is the yellow FPS counter from FRAPS showing up ok in WOW before it crashes on recording? Can it take screencaps properly?

[Boyiee]

its fraps.dat, no biggie.

The FPS works fine in wow, and idk what I did but it suddenly stopped crashing. Retarded, but works. Also looking into camstudio now a a friend recommended that. Amazing that fraps is about 1.5gb for a 30second recording. Lucky i've got 600gb to burn.

[Araelus]

I'm glad it started working properly. :D Vista can be like that, errors vanish mysteriously.

Assuming CamStudio accepts Xvid encoding for input, that's a good lossy compression which is smaller than FRAPS. Loses some visual clarity on red colors, however.

I think you already realized this, but file size depends heavily on framerate (and resolution). 120fps has to look gorgeous but I hope you don't want a really long movie.

At 26fps x720p, I get about 1GB:60sec in the FRAPS codec. Uncompressed video is horrible, though, I've ended up using about a terabyte per hour of footage for Adobe CS3 input.

[Boyiee]

I run 1650x1080 I guess running 50-100fps is kinda a lot but I doubt I'll be reducing my res. I have the HDD space for it, I'll just have to take those videos and compress them/get rid of them faster.