Video Editing Recommendations?

Posted by: Ladmo

Video Editing Recommendations? - 31/03/2007 11:52

I have a bunch of family vids on DVD (I moved them from my camera to the DVD's with the sucky supplied DVD interface on the (dare I say it?) Sony camera).

I would like to edit them, cut out the crap, and maybe splice some together, and then burn them to a new DVD to share with family.

Any suggestions for an easy to use prgrram that would allow me to do this?
(No copyrighted material was harmed in the writing of this post...)
Thank you
Posted by: Cris

Re: Video Editing Recommendations? - 31/03/2007 12:35

My Dad uses Pinnacle Studio to pretty good effect, but you would have to check out the DVD output options it offers as he doesn't use that part of it. It's one of the best all round options I have seen.

I use Final Cut Express, a great option if you have a Mac. I also find iDVD takes most of the guess work out of burning good DVD's. If you don't have a Mac then Adobe Premiere is spot on, I have used it in the past, very advanced but the output is impressive, it's also much easier to pick up than Final Cut.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Cris.
Posted by: Dignan

Re: Video Editing Recommendations? - 31/03/2007 17:12

Quote:
My Dad uses Pinnacle Studio to pretty good effect

Ugh. Granted, the last time I tried Pinnacle's products was a few years ago, but they seemed pretty terrible to me.

Quote:
If you don't have a Mac then Adobe Premiere is spot on, I have used it in the past, very advanced but the output is impressive, it's also much easier to pick up than Final Cut.

While I wouldn't call any Adobe product easy to pick up (although you're being relative), I've used Premiere before and thought it was okay. I'd recommend getting Premiere Elements, though. Unless you want to break the bank.

I've said it here before, but my favorite DVD authoring tool is DVDlab. Through them, I found a fairly inexpensive (compared to the insanely expensive like Premiere) program called Edit Studio. The good news is that there's a free trial of both programs.

I think the biggest challenge for you is going to be figuring out exactly how you're going to go about this, given that you're starting with DVDs. You're taking compressed video, and in most cases you're probably going to be compressing it again. I'd investigate to see if there's a way to do this without doing any recompression, but I've never gone that route myself, so maybe someone else here can offer some advice.
Posted by: andym

Re: Video Editing Recommendations? - 31/03/2007 18:25

Quote:
I think the biggest challenge for you is going to be figuring out exactly how you're going to go about this, given that you're starting with DVDs. You're taking compressed video, and in most cases you're probably going to be compressing it again. I'd investigate to see if there's a way to do this without doing any recompression, but I've never gone that route myself, so maybe someone else here can offer some advice.


Every edit system I've used in the last 6 or 7 years that supports DV projects does not recompress unless it has to. As long as the input and output profiles match. But like Matt says, you're already starting off with pretty crappy quality.
Posted by: JBjorgen

Re: Video Editing Recommendations? - 01/04/2007 02:11

I don't know beans about video editing, but I know my brother has used Sony Vegas for projects in the past. Just throwing the name out there for consideration.
Posted by: Dignan

Re: Video Editing Recommendations? - 01/04/2007 03:01

Quote:
Quote:
I think the biggest challenge for you is going to be figuring out exactly how you're going to go about this, given that you're starting with DVDs. You're taking compressed video, and in most cases you're probably going to be compressing it again. I'd investigate to see if there's a way to do this without doing any recompression, but I've never gone that route myself, so maybe someone else here can offer some advice.


Every edit system I've used in the last 6 or 7 years that supports DV projects does not recompress unless it has to. As long as the input and output profiles match. But like Matt says, you're already starting off with pretty crappy quality.

I guess I'm just wondering what method he'd use to get the video off the DVDs. Can he just launch Premiere and import the VOB files?
Posted by: Cybjorg

Re: Video Editing Recommendations? - 01/04/2007 03:22

I've got three words for you: Final Cut Pro.
Posted by: boxer

Re: Video Editing Recommendations? - 01/04/2007 09:59

Quote:
I have a bunch of family vids on DVD (I moved them from my camera to the DVD's with the sucky supplied DVD interface on the (dare I say it?) Sony camera).

I would like to edit them, cut out the crap, and maybe splice some together, and then burn them to a new DVD to share with family.

I've just done exactly what you are asking using Nero and VideoReDo, the result is rather better than I expected, taking it from a DVD: Normally I'm working from DV, or capture with Plextor for my older home movies.

N.B. Ripping from the unripable: AnyDVD does it for me, every time.
Posted by: sein

Re: Video Editing Recommendations? - 01/04/2007 11:51

Quote:
I don't know beans about video editing, but I know my brother has used Sony Vegas for projects in the past. Just throwing the name out there for consideration.

The Gadget Show reviewed some basic video editing packages recently and they liked Sony Vegas Movie Studio the best compared to iDVD or Adobe Premiere Elements. It surprised the reviewer as (like me) he had hated previous Sony software, but it was the easiest to use, most fun to play with and cheap.

I generally trust what they say, they seem to be clued up.
Posted by: boxer

Re: Video Editing Recommendations? - 01/04/2007 12:39

Quote:
I generally trust what they say, they seem to be clued up.


But with the most irritating presenters on the box IMHO!
Posted by: drakino

Re: Video Editing Recommendations? - 01/04/2007 16:48

Quote:
I've got three words for you: Final Cut Pro.


Thats a tad overkill for a home movie editing and burning session, unless he was planning on adding some high end special effects and screening the movie in a theater :-)
Posted by: andym

Re: Video Editing Recommendations? - 01/04/2007 19:37

Quote:
Quote:
I've got three words for you: Final Cut Pro.


Thats a tad overkill for a home movie editing and burning session, unless he was planning on adding some high end special effects and screening the movie in a theater :-)


To be honest, Final Cut Express has pretty much all of those features anyway. In a nutshell the difference between Express and Pro is: Batch Capture, 3 way colour correction, Script Editor and support for resolutions/formats other than DV/HDV.

It's a shame you can't get Pro on its own now, it's bundled into Studio so you end up with Motion, Soundtrack, DVD Studio Pro and Compressor, which is great if you're setting yourself up as a production house, but if all you want is batch capture it's a significant jump up from £150.
Posted by: Dignan

Re: Video Editing Recommendations? - 01/04/2007 21:16

Quote:
Quote:
I don't know beans about video editing, but I know my brother has used Sony Vegas for projects in the past. Just throwing the name out there for consideration.

The Gadget Show reviewed some basic video editing packages recently and they liked Sony Vegas Movie Studio the best compared to iDVD or Adobe Premiere Elements. It surprised the reviewer as (like me) he had hated previous Sony software, but it was the easiest to use, most fun to play with and cheap.

I generally trust what they say, they seem to be clued up.

Sony's software does suck. I'm pretty certain that they bought Vegas.
Posted by: Dignan

Re: Video Editing Recommendations? - 01/04/2007 21:17

Quote:
I've got three words for you: Final Cut Pro.

Of course, we're making all these suggestions, and we don't know if we're dealing with a Mac or PC platform...