Newbie Q: Editing Video

[ngray77]

Pre-ordered the Mk2, and it'll be nice to have a camcorder around. That said, I don't work with Video, and I'm looking for a simple way to edit it.

I suppose the 'go to' choices are Premiere Elements and Pinnacle Studio.

I'll have h246 out of the MkII, and I also have some MPEG-2 off of our old Panasonic SDR-H18. Don't have anything older than that.

With that said, and knowing that my highest goal is to make videos that I can:
-Hand out as DVD's to family
-Post QT or Flash movies on our family site
-Get 'scaled' videos for my iPhone

What would you all suggest?

[bsaber]

Premiere Pro should do what you're looking for, not sure about Elements never used it. Sony Vegas is worth looking into too.

[davidfig]

How about Cyberlink PowerDirector 7.

[Zepher]

Look into Edius Neo.
http://desktop.thomsongrassvalley.com/products/EDIUSNeo/index.php

[osv]

you can get sony vegas 8 for about $130, but it doesn't include the dvd authoring package... download some of these software apps that have free 30-day testing, then try editing up some of the raw mk5 test footage that people have been posting up on the 'net.

make sure that whatever you choose has all of the export capability that you'll need... flash encoding can be hard to come by.

Cyberlink PowerDirector 7 Ultra will do smart rendering with avchd, see if it'll do smart rendering with the h.264 files from the canon camera.

[DeCeccoNET]

If your mac, Final Cut Pro (or express) without hesitation... if your on a PC I'd go with Adobe as it should give you a better sense of non linier editing, AND be part of a strong workflow production suite (encore, photoshop, etc.).

I've never used vegas personally, and I found pinnacle to be lacking and too proprietary when I tried it a while back compared to the other offerings.

[FlyingPhotog]

Adobe Premiere = seamless ability to pass things back and forth between it and Photoshop...

[ngray77]

Adobe Premiere = seamless ability to pass things back and forth between it and Photoshop...

This could be a real plus. Do you know if Premiere Elements does dvds and the other stuff (iphone, flash)?

[ngray77]

NM.. Elements 4.0 does DVD & blu-ray, as well as iPhone and flash.

http://videoediting.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=253590-1
http://www.manifest-tech.com/media_pc/adobe_prem_elem_4_sum.htm

Disk - Burn DVD and Blu-ray
Online - Direct upload to YouTube, FTP to other websites
Personal Computer - Export for viewing on PCs
Adobe Flash Video
MPEG
DV AVI
Windows Media
QuickTime Mobile Phones and Players - Export for mobile devices
Apple iPod and iPhone - H.264 640x480
Audio Podcast - H.264 / MP3
Creative Zen - WMV 320x240
Microsoft Zune - WMV 320x240
Pocket PC - WMV 240x176
Smartphone - WMV 224x128 landscape, 176x144 portrait
Sony PSP - H.264 320x240
Mobile Phone - 3GP - MPEG4 176x144, 320x240, 352x288 H.263

[bieber]

If you've got a GNU/Linux machine somewhere, Cinelerra will get you a professional-level video editor for free

[Zepher]

Premiere Pro CS3 does not support the AVCHD format, which is what quite a few SD card based camcorders use.
You have to transcode the files into a usable Premiere format, like DV.

[bsaber]

Sony Vegas can do AVCHD format.

[ngray77]

Quick update... bought premiere elements 7. Playing with a few static image slideshows now, will post an update this weekend I think.

[naqs]

it really comes down to what you find easiest to use, I've used premiere, avid and final cut but that's for more advance stuff. If you are just making home videos then anything should work If you are used to photoshop I'd recommend premiere elements as the adobe software has its similarity's which makes it easier to learn.

[athrasher]

I'd go with Premiere (Elements or Pro) just to get a feel for working in a standard NLE environment, so if you want to move up it won't be such a huge transition.

[ngray77]

update... PE locks up when I try to burn a DVD in my newer lite-on drive. When I trycto make a flash movie, it renders a file, but it's just a black frame that won't play. I might have set up the player HTML wrong, but I tried two different scripts with the same result.

I installed a 'codec pack' , resl alternative, quicktime alternative, and flv viewer a few months ago. I'm going to try removing those.

[gking]

The quick and easy video editor is the free Movie Maker that comes with XP and Vista.
What is the video format from the camera?