Which Video Editing software

[Duncanh]

Total newbie to video editing.
I'm going to start transferring all my old home video tapes to digital then edit them and produce DVDs etc for my extended family. I've got analog 8 tapes and MiniDV tapes for two different cameras and think I've sorted how to get them on the computer (using an old video camera connected by firewire to the computer.
Deciding what editing software to use. Need something reasonably simple but with features to edit and add some effects but nothing clever. I'll be doing it on my iMac (do have a Windows laptop as well) so obvious first thought is to use iMovie but in the future I'm considering moving but to just Windows machines (whole different discussion !!!) so I'm leaning towards Adobe Premiere Elements 2018.
Any recommendations please ?
Also if anyone has transferred analog tapes what format is best to import them and any other advice ? Totally confused when search on google.
Many thanks.

 

[Replytoken]

You might want to see some of the suggestions in this thread at another forum where I post: Best Free Basic Video Editor .

Good luck,

--Ken

 

[Roelof Moorlag]

I'm a newbie on video-editing also and i looked at all those free video editors (to save some bucks) and it turned out to be very (very!) frustrating.

Eventually I bought Premiere Elements 15 and it was a releive. The clips imported quick, i was able to look at a preview of the movie in progress without hickups, the rendering was quite quick, easy userinterface, etc.
No frustratrion anymore!

 

[frozenframe]

I've done what you're preparing to do, albeit several years ago. Premiere Elements would be a good choice, I've never used it, instead I've used Corel VideoStudio. Actually back then I used Ulead (Corel bought them out), Media Studio Pro. It was a competitor to Premiere, Final Cut, ect. Currently I still use the current version of VideoStudio. It does a great job, and is not difficult to learn. It's priced about the same as Premiere Elements. The down side is that it is for Windows only, does not work on Mac.

I also used my camcorder as a pass-through converter, along with a very lightweight utility called WinDV. I think it also was a Windows only program. It can still be downloaded, however is no longer being developed due to the HD, UHD formats now. I really liked it due to the very minimal if any dropped frames.

The "best" format to transfer your analog to digital is DV-AVI. This is the closest you can get to actual raw video. It is slightly compressed, and the file size is large, around 13 gig per hour of video. Your tapes are not going to be high-def, the frame size will be the standard def of 720x576 (UK) frame rate of 25fps, so anything larger would be upresing and you loose quality. The frame rate is critical so try to make sure you are using that 25fps rate. Anything more, your program will have to make those out of thin air, and you'll have stuttering, jerkiness, ect.

You could capture them as MPG files, which would amount to DVD quality video. I think you would still have good quality and not near the file sizes. Just do not expect to produce some of the current Hi-Def, or UHD videos from them.

 

[Duncanh]

Ken - Thanks, helpfully reading.

Roelof - Thanks, great to hear user experience, think I'll probably go with Premiere Elements.

Ron - You're a star, thank you very much. I've searched the internet but you've summarised in a few paragraphs all the info I was looking for and I can understand it !! Thanks again, now to get on with it. cheers.

I think this must be one of the best forums around.

 

[Cerianthus]

Not an easy user interface (at least to me) but davinci resolve has a free version that is pretty good with a lot (not all) possibilities.

 

[Linwood Ferguson]

+1: Resolve is the most powerful free editor (and probably more powerful than a lot of expensive ones), but the learning curve is VERY steep.

 

[Duncanh]

Just looked on resolve website, seems very comprehensive particularly for free. As the user interface is not easy and a VERY steep learning curve not sure if it's a good choice for me. I don't shoot videos now (except the odd one on the iPhone for record purposes), want to just create reasonable (not clever) videos from my old stuff so don't really want to spend ages learning editing software, sooner spend my time learning to improve my post processing of my still images. I'll download resolve and also a trial version of Adobe Premiere Elements and give them try. Thanks.

 

[Linwood Ferguson]

I ended up doing resolve for almost the same purpose as you - old VHS tapes. The primary reason was that Resolve is and was one of the best color grading (color correcting) tools for video, and these old videos had horrific color. One of the few features they disable in the free version is noise reduction, which was not much of an issue; it still had its full complement of color tools including all the motion tracking (adjust a person's face, it will track the face and keep adjusting) and ramp up/down features (e.g. make one color setting here, another there, and it will ease in and out between). So I suffered through learning enough to use it to work on the color, and did get some decent results. But it's not a point and click tool, for sure. The manual alone is about 1100 pages!

 

[Duncanh]

Thanks. Brought Adobe Premiere Elements 2018 so had the option if I move back to Windows don’t have to learn new software. Not used in earnest yet.
Thanks again.