Brian Posted July 12, 2004 Share Posted July 12, 2004 Anyone got any recommendations for a desktop video editing solution that works? I bought Pinnacle Studio 9 with the external USB Moviebox (£135) a couple of weeks ago and it sucks, bigtime. It digitises fine and edits OK some of the time (at least when it doesn't crash or when it simply ignores what you want to do). However getting anything useful out is a right PITA. Using the make DVD feature will make a disc but most of them won't play in external players without skips and freezes. Making an MPEG file works but I'm currently trying to convince the external box to give me a PAL signal as opposed to NTSC. Unless I get a sensible response from Pinnacle it's going back to Amazon. I can make DVDs that work but I'm having to take an MPEG file, stick it through some external software and then use another bit of software to burn the disc, not the all in one solution I was hoping for. The 109 minute show recording I've been working on took me 7 hours to make a disc going that route! I need to be able to take in video as either an analogue signal, PAL and S-Video or a DV signal, edit it with basic effects and output it to DVD and tape (analogue and DV) Please don't suggest buying a Mac! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tony Posted July 12, 2004 Share Posted July 12, 2004 you aready know the answer buy a macemacs are very reasonable and with final cut express make for a very affordable editing system that doesn't crash all the time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuRobson Posted July 12, 2004 Share Posted July 12, 2004 you aready know the answer buy a mac<{POST_SNAPBACK}> seconded, iMovie is abit s**t, but final cut express is great for the cost £119 I think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ace Posted July 12, 2004 Share Posted July 12, 2004 Well, if you are determined to stick with a PC - Adobe Premier is a good piece of software for video editing. I am fairly sure that the latest version ships with an exporter which allows DVD's to be made! Still not as good as final Cut Pro though! :-/ Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuRobson Posted July 12, 2004 Share Posted July 12, 2004 I'm not sure Premier has DVD export - I think you'll need there EncoreDVD software for it too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dominicgross Posted July 12, 2004 Share Posted July 12, 2004 If you've got some money stashed under your bed you could do a lot worse then getting yourself a nice iccle Pro Tools TDM rig, add this to a fairlight and your sorted!!! B-) :blink: Failing having £100 K hanging around: premier is pretty damn good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryson Posted July 12, 2004 Share Posted July 12, 2004 Please don't suggest buying a Mac! Well, if you don't want the correct answer.... And creating DVDs is always time-consuming and more trouble than it's worth at the moment - I'm using FCP3 and iDVD (I can't bring myself to shell out for DVD Studio Pro) at the moment and even then it's sllooooowwwww. DVD glitches on burnt ones are pretty common on all systems, too. Have you looked at Avid Express DV? I'm assured it's very good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted July 13, 2004 Share Posted July 13, 2004 I'm running premiere v6.5 at the moment. I've been very happy with all the versions I've had so far (I've tried the others - esp pinnacle) but they are more geared up for the home movie user. premiere has a feature set that is quite complicated and it does take time to learn. I didn't find it too daunting, but I only know what I need for my style of video work - I'm sure if I was using it a different way I'd have to learn different skills. If you're working with DV it is brilliant - dv in, edit and then (as long as you have a dv recorder, or widgeted camcorder) it dumps the finished product back on to dv in full dv quality.as for dvd - premier can produce mpeg-1 and mpeg-2 and the adobe encoder is integrated with DVDit!LE which you get with it. main issues for me, not really premieres fault is I have to close premiere to free up some system resources and it takes ages to process the end result. I still like it - but it's what I've grown up on, so I'm not too objective. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enbee Posted July 13, 2004 Share Posted July 13, 2004 I'm currently running Avid DV and its a good solid piece of software. haven't had many problems with crashes etc. I would have to say though that any of my important editing happens on a mac. if you can't afford avid I would definatly reccommend premier as a next best Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted July 13, 2004 Author Share Posted July 13, 2004 Thanks for the info so far guys. Going the Mac route isn't an option, I've got far too much invested in the PC platform. Avid DV might be an option as I'm familiar with the way Avid works on high end systems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted July 13, 2004 Share Posted July 13, 2004 Brian, You don't mention what you budget is for this project.. or what you have available, for example If you have a DV deck / camcorder yuo could use that as a reasonable analogue > DV bridge, download Avid Free and use that for nowt with the familiar Avid user interface. But this doesn't include any MPEG-2 encoding ability. If you need the MPEG-2 feature then you have Xpress or Xpress Pro, If you don't have a dv deck then Xpress Pro with DNA Mojo but that is slightly more than £135 from Amazon. Personaly I have Premiere and Avid Free on my laptop. If I'm cutting something that is a self contained project I will use Premmiere simply beccause that is the first NLE I learned on and operationaly I still think AP when I'm using an Avid, If I'm working on something where I want to export anything to another edit platform then I will use Avid Free, simply beccause neither of them do EDL management particularly well (Premiere beccause they never got the hang of it and it's designed for home users, Avid beccause they want you to buy XpressDV (Which has EDL manager packaged with) What is this for? James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted July 13, 2004 Author Share Posted July 13, 2004 Budget - well I thought £135 was reasonable but when I figure in the amount of time I've spent on this project I'd have happily spent more than that for a solution which worked. Project - it's a simple (!) top and tail of a show recording. Stick on some opening titles and a credit roller, make each scene a chapter on the DVD and away you go. Or so I thought. I bought the Pinnacle because of the Moviebox USB. It's got a built in MPEG encoder and connects via USB2 so I can move it around. It has composite video/stereo audio and S-video In and Out. Using it off-loads huge amounts from the PC. My biggest problem with all of this hasn't been the editing side apart from when Pinnacle Studio crashes. It's been the DVD creation side. I've spent hours rendering a project only for it not to play, even in software DVD players. Anything I do in future will also be fairly simple editing. I just want something that works. Pinnacle Studio is the only program I have used in the last year which crashes; at least with win2k running it doesn't take the whole machine down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted July 13, 2004 Share Posted July 13, 2004 Unfortunatly If you wanted a recomendation for a product that does this without crashing then I would have to recomend the Avid range simply beccause it's tried and tested, Xpress DV works, but you have to do your analouge I/o in the dv over firewire domain. Xpress Pro with Mojo would do exactly what you want, nice, quickly and reliably but the reliability comes at a cost. Xpress DV lists at about £430, Xpress Pro is £1200 and the mojo?, well stateside RRP is $1700 Of course this is a substantial saving over a Media Composer or DNA Adrenaline but these generaly work reliably Of course this assumes you have a PC or laptop capable enough Avid currently recomend minimum RAM as Xpress DV 500 MBXpress Pro 1GBXpress Studio 1.5GB Good Luck James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted July 13, 2004 Author Share Posted July 13, 2004 Unfortunatly If you wanted a recomendation for a product that does this without crashing then I would have to recomend the Avid range simply beccause it's tried and testedTrue, I used to look after a few dozen of them. Xpress DV works, but you have to do your analouge I/o in the dv over firewire domain..... Xpress DV lists at about £430Not out of the question. I've seen analogue to firewire boxes for around £150, add £430 for Xpress DV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ace Posted July 13, 2004 Share Posted July 13, 2004 Just out of interest - another piece of software that I am hoping to use for my next video editing project is 'Cinelerra' (http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3). It is completely free, open source, runs under linux and allows you to use a cluster of rendering nodes in the background! Definately not a solution to what you are after, but I thought it was worth pointing out to anyone else that may be interested! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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