Greetings Posted November 22, 2011 Report Share Posted November 22, 2011 Can you recommend any good editing software? I've been using Premiere 2.0 for years now but it doesn't support mp4/h.264/avchd or whatever the format is that the GoPro records in. Footage needs to go through a converter first which is a pain in the arse and takes ages. I used to get on with the old Premiere brilliantly, it's fine for the old HDV M2T files, useless for the modern stuff. I'm looking at something cheap or free, wouldn't mind getting the newest Premiere if it were a quarter of the price Sony Vegas is an absolute no-go, tried it in the past and found it to be the most annoying and counter-intuitive piece of software imaginable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andeee Posted November 22, 2011 Report Share Posted November 22, 2011 Get a Mac and go final cut pro ;D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weirdoku Posted November 22, 2011 Report Share Posted November 22, 2011 (edited) Get a Mac and go final cut pro ;D You don't have to have a mac to edit videos. A mac doesn't also mean it's a better for editing videos either. I personally use Sony Vegas Pro 10, not free but I'm sure you can figure ways out on how to get it. EDIT: Just re-read the original post, vegas no go. I found it to be the easiest to get used to compared to premier. Edited November 22, 2011 by weirdoku Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JD™ Posted November 22, 2011 Report Share Posted November 22, 2011 (edited) You don't have to have a mac to edit videos. A mac doesn't also mean it's a better for editing videos either. You do, however, have to have a mac to use Final Cut Pro which was his suggestion. I feel a little dirty for sticking up for Andeee. EDIT: INB4 any Hackintosh or other suggestions - they're illegal so we wouldn't wanna discuss them, eh? Edited November 22, 2011 by JD™ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aener Posted November 22, 2011 Report Share Posted November 22, 2011 There's quite a lot of Linux options, but if it's just for one video that's not really worth the effort. If you were going to do many, it might be worth converting, or at least setting up a Linux partition. (Linux and software is free, and that's assuming you would rather do that then get some Windows software from under the table. Newer version of Premiere gets my vote if you do that.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Revolver Posted November 22, 2011 Report Share Posted November 22, 2011 I've been using Premiere 2.0 for years now but it doesn't support mp4/h.264/avchd or whatever the format is that the GoPro records in. That sounds oooooooooold. You should somehow get hold of a copy of Premiere Pro CS3 or later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eddbmxdude Posted November 22, 2011 Report Share Posted November 22, 2011 Another vote for Vegas if you don't mind underhand tactics to get it I used to think the same as you but struggled on with it and I'm so glad I did. Its so much easier than Premier I thought. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manuel Posted November 23, 2011 Report Share Posted November 23, 2011 That sounds oooooooooold. You should somehow get hold of a copy of Premiere Pro CS3 or later. Unfortunately even cs4 that I have doesn't support it unless you run it through a little program first (doesn't reencode just changes the file format/whatever) No biggie but a bit lame. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greetings Posted November 23, 2011 Author Report Share Posted November 23, 2011 So I'd probably best stick with what I'm using? Definitely not going to use Vegas again, it's rubbish. And despite my PC being fairly powerful (2.83 C2Q) it struggled with playing back the timeline smoothly. Tried CS3 and it supported the MP4 files but that too couldn't play the footage back smoothly. So it sounds like I'm stuck with converting MP4 to MPEG-2. Quality loss isn't big but it wastes quite a lot of time, especially if you're handling 15-minute 720p60 files. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob_P Posted November 23, 2011 Report Share Posted November 23, 2011 This is a good piece of converting software - http://www.xilisoft.com/hd-video-converter.html Are you rendering the video to play it back smoothly? Might be a stupid question Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1a2bcio8 Posted November 23, 2011 Report Share Posted November 23, 2011 (edited) Unfortunately even cs4 that I have doesn't support it unless you run it through a little program first (doesn't reencode just changes the file format/whatever) No biggie but a bit lame. Actually it can work but you need a stupidly fast machine to compensate for that fact it doesn't naturally support it. Encoding tends to be a bit unreliable as well. You're not a business so torrent it. I think you might be a student though (?) and this entitles you to the, sometimes, 90% savings on Adobe products... Edited November 23, 2011 by Ben Rowlands Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greetings Posted November 23, 2011 Author Report Share Posted November 23, 2011 This is a good piece of converting software - http://www.xilisoft.com/hd-video-converter.html Are you rendering the video to play it back smoothly? Might be a stupid question That's what I use for converting, it's quite a good piece of software. As for rendering I'm not sure. If not, then it would be because rendering would take hours. The discount on Premiere CS5 is about 50% for students which still makes it stupidly expensive for casual use. Besides, I'm no longer a student. As for torrents, I won't lie that I tried but the HD codecs are not implemented in the installer (which is always a trial) and they will download automatically from Adobes serves only after you provide a valid serial. This is a bit ridiculous, there should be a version of Premiere for personal use only. I'd gladly buy something like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manuel Posted November 23, 2011 Report Share Posted November 23, 2011 Actually it can work but you need a stupidly fast machine to compensate for that fact it doesn't naturally support it. Encoding tends to be a bit unreliable as well. You're not a business so torrent it. I think you might be a student though (?) and this entitles you to the, sometimes, 90% savings on Adobe products... no no, I dont think my CS4 can even open the file. once the little program has changed the container or whatever it runs smooth as silk - its the same actual video codec in use it just doesnt realize it can do it. There is no loss as its not actually changing the video coding at all just the file structure/container/whatever. I use mpegstreamclip to do the container rewrite and then its chocks away. aditional: after a little re-reading yes CS4 crashes horribly with GoproHD footage as it doesnt like the container, you can just do a "save as" in quicktime to fix this, but mpegstreamclip has a batch mode .... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob_P Posted November 23, 2011 Report Share Posted November 23, 2011 Yeah nothing will play back smoothly unless you have rendered it. Makes it much easier, maybe leave it doing over night. It takes even longer if you rotate footage or add any kind of effects. Even on really quick machines it takes an age Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aener Posted November 23, 2011 Report Share Posted November 23, 2011 If you stick with Premiere, but smooth playback is the issue, look in to proxy editing. I never actually tried it since I had money at the time and bought a reasonably decent tower, but if you read through both pages of that it seems pretty simple, and VERY effective. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greetings Posted November 23, 2011 Author Report Share Posted November 23, 2011 Yeah nothing will play back smoothly unless you have rendered it. Makes it much easier, maybe leave it doing over night. It takes even longer if you rotate footage or add any kind of effects. Even on really quick machines it takes an age Must be something new, M2T which I've been using since 2006 doesn't need rendering (talking about HD here) unless effects are applied to the footage. Those render at the rate of 10/20fps so take almost no time at all to play the timeline back. On the other hand, MP4 in CS3 rendered at around 1fps and required rendering of the WHOLE timeline, in a 3min vid at 60p that would have taken 1 hour per minute of footage. It doesn't make sense, even if MPEG4 needs a more powerful machine, the fastest CPU currently on the market is only 2x more powerful than the one I've got. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dann2707 Posted November 23, 2011 Report Share Posted November 23, 2011 If you stick with Premiere, but smooth playback is the issue, look in to proxy editing. I never actually tried it since I had money at the time and bought a reasonably decent tower, but if you read through both pages of that it seems pretty simple, and VERY effective. Is that like the theory of scaling the quality down whilst editing then scaling it back up once you're done? Its been a very long day so.I do apologise if im way off the mark... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aener Posted November 23, 2011 Report Share Posted November 23, 2011 Is that like the theory of scaling the quality down whilst editing then scaling it back up once you're done? Its been a very long day so.I do apologise if im way off the mark... Yeah. Edit lower definition clips, get it all snazzy, save the timeline, open a new one, import the timeline, exchange low definition clips for high, render. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake. Posted November 24, 2011 Report Share Posted November 24, 2011 (edited) I used this to make up a video last night, and it seems pretty good considering that it was free. It downloaded and started up for me about 5 seconds after I pressed download... Quite easy to use once you get going but there's some stuff that's not as good but that's what you'd expect from free software. When you use title overlay to put text on top of the videoclip, you've got to move the title overlay in that section then move it back down to where it was on the timeline then the video plays normally. It's a bit annoying but works. Edit: Forgot to add link... http://www.nchsoftware.com/videopad/index.html Edited November 24, 2011 by OnzaKid Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
isitafox Posted November 24, 2011 Report Share Posted November 24, 2011 (edited) I used this to make up a video last night, and it seems pretty good considering that it was free. It downloaded and started up for me about 5 seconds after I pressed download... Quite easy to use once you get going but there's some stuff that's not as good but that's what you'd expect from free software. When you use title overlay to put text on top of the videoclip, you've got to move the title overlay in that section then move it back down to where it was on the timeline then the video plays normally. It's a bit annoying but works. Edit: Forgot to add link... http://www.nchsoftwa...opad/index.html I agree with this, videopad is a great bit of kit as a free version and if you want more features (not sure what they are) it only costs about £20 if I remember correctly. Has no problem with the 720p quicktime files from my kodak zx and it encodes pretty quickly, also really easy to cut smaller bits out of a large clip and save them as seperate clips. Worth trying the free version, my vid here was edited using it (though not with HD footage as it rapes my laptop). Edited November 24, 2011 by isitafox Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
piperfraz Posted November 24, 2011 Report Share Posted November 24, 2011 (edited) Get a Mac and go final cut pro ;D That's supposed to be £400 or something! Where do you get it? Edit: Final Cut Pro, not a mac..... Edited November 24, 2011 by piperfraz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Revolver Posted November 25, 2011 Report Share Posted November 25, 2011 Edit: Final Cut Pro, not a mac..... It begins with P, and sounds like Nirate Bay. Disclaimer: Niracy is a crime, don't do it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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