video editing software

[twoforone100]

We all have access photo editing soft ware but what kind of video editing software do we want? Yes this is for swinging related videos.. to block out faces on videos. Also who makes the best photo editing software like " photoshop"?

[Coupleerotic22]

First, it has been years since I have done serious digital editing, I still play around but not as a full time gig.

Best software? Well it depends on your budget and your platform.
Mac or PC? Or if you really want to go upscale you get a dedicated system, but that is serious coin. You may or may not need hardware based on what you have and the quality desired. (See hardware at end.)

For a Mac - not much beats Final Cut Pro, ($999 for Studio) which comes as part of Final Cut Studio (FCS). Studio is a suite of tools, including Motion, which would allow you to blur faces or logos out of frames. Final Cut Express is cheaper, but capabilities are limited, not sure you can accomplish what you want with it. As for the rest of the Final Cut Studio, it has sound editing, compression tools, color correction software and advanced DVD editing and production. It may be more than you need. But it is difficult to beat. Just make sure you have a powerful enough Mac to run it. I have used this suite and love it.

Also there are Adobe Premier and After Effects. Used in Combo ($1699) they are very powerful and would do what you want plus alot more than you likely need. It also has some nifty Flash tools to move to Flash video. This combo is better IMO if you want to do a good amount of effects works, which you probably don't. I like this suite, but usually use in conjunction with FCS to get transitions and other thing I am trying to accomplish.

I don't know any free or cheap software for the Mac - best bet for what I think you want is FCS.

For the PC
Adobe has the same too suite for the PC.

Cheaper route. I have used Power Director and Pinnacle Studio, both under a hundred bucks and pretty good. But far less flexibility than those I have previously listed. hey work great for punting things together, but it won't be long in all likelihood that you want to do something that these tools can't do. If you just want to do straight AB roll edits, then these should be fine. They do have some tools allow for blurring etc. But I have not ventured into the tool sets too much, I have better tools to do that so I just have not experimented with it much. At times you will have to do it the way the program wants and not how you want, but that is the trade off for the price. Great tools for simple, down and dirty work.

Avid used to make a suite on par with FCS (then Final Cut Pro or FCP) and Adobe, but I have not used that in years, not sure if they still make it. It did not stand up to FCS, but they did have PC version and was almost as good as FCP.

Dedicated Systems - In the past I have used the Cube, SPhere, Toaster and Pinnacles Hardware system. These are quite a bit more expensive and very likely overkill unless you plan on producing video for a living. Not even sure how many of these are still in existence. FCP has killed off a good amount on this market. The great thing about these systems was they came with all the hardware, switchers, controllers, storage, and are designed for sophisticated production including multi camera live switching. Can easily start in the $30 grand range (that was several years ago, not sure what the cost are now)

Finally - hardware. There are a number of options. Prosumer cameras these days have some pretty good built in input/output options. You can plug straight into a Mac from the camera and capture at a high enough quality for most needs. Same for PC but you would need to by a card for the PC. If you really wanted to you can purchase higher end hardware such as I/O decks etc, but probably not needed.

[twoforone100]

Originally Posted by Coupleerotic22

First, it has been years since I have done serious digital editing, I still play around but not as a full time gig.

Best software? Well it depends on your budget and your platform.
Mac or PC? Or if you really want to go upscale you get a dedicated system, but that is serious coin. You may or may not need hardware based on what you have and the quality desired. (See hardware at end.)

For a Mac - not much beats Final Cut Pro, ($999 for Studio) which comes as part of Final Cut Studio (FCS). Studio is a suite of tools, including Motion, which would allow you to blur faces or logos out of frames. Final Cut Express is cheaper, but capabilities are limited, not sure you can accomplish what you want with it. As for the rest of the Final Cut Studio, it has sound editing, compression tools, color correction software and advanced DVD editing and production. It may be more than you need. But it is difficult to beat. Just make sure you have a powerful enough Mac to run it. I have used this suite and love it.

Also there are Adobe Premier and After Effects. Used in Combo ($1699) they are very powerful and would do what you want plus alot more than you likely need. It also has some nifty Flash tools to move to Flash video. This combo is better IMO if you want to do a good amount of effects works, which you probably don't. I like this suite, but usually use in conjunction with FCS to get transitions and other thing I am trying to accomplish.

I don't know any free or cheap software for the Mac - best bet for what I think you want is FCS.

For the PC
Adobe has the same too suite for the PC.

Cheaper route. I have used Power Director and Pinnacle Studio, both under a hundred bucks and pretty good. But far less flexibility than those I have previously listed. hey work great for punting things together, but it won't be long in all likelihood that you want to do something that these tools can't do. If you just want to do straight AB roll edits, then these should be fine. They do have some tools allow for blurring etc. But I have not ventured into the tool sets too much, I have better tools to do that so I just have not experimented with it much. At times you will have to do it the way the program wants and not how you want, but that is the trade off for the price. Great tools for simple, down and dirty work.

Avid used to make a suite on par with FCS (then Final Cut Pro or FCP) and Adobe, but I have not used that in years, not sure if they still make it. It did not stand up to FCS, but they did have PC version and was almost as good as FCP.

Dedicated Systems - In the past I have used the Cube, SPhere, Toaster and Pinnacles Hardware system. These are quite a bit more expensive and very likely overkill unless you plan on producing video for a living. Not even sure how many of these are still in existence. FCP has killed off a good amount on this market. The great thing about these systems was they came with all the hardware, switchers, controllers, storage, and are designed for sophisticated production including multi camera live switching. Can easily start in the $30 grand range (that was several years ago, not sure what the cost are now)

Finally - hardware. There are a number of options. Prosumer cameras these days have some pretty good built in input/output options. You can plug straight into a Mac from the camera and capture at a high enough quality for most needs. Same for PC but you would need to by a card for the PC. If you really wanted to you can purchase higher end hardware such as I/O decks etc, but probably not needed.

Yes down and dirty is what I am looking for...one camera..party scenes... on a PC..... really something just to edit out the junk...and to blur a few faces... thanks... any thing more you can tell me about how much space ram and such I need.... thanks

[Coupleerotic22]

Okay. Go with PowerDirector by Cyberlink. It is cheap (less than $100 for the suite - and do get the suite, its only a few dollars more than the stand alone app), it will do what you want, but it is a fairly manual process.

The trade off between this and more expensive suites is that some of them have "smart" tools (either native or plug-in) that can assist you in tracking motion.

In PowerDIrector you must manually set key frames to move the blur (here is a tutorial to help - YouTube - ‪How to Create A Censor Blur (PowerDirector)‬‎ )
That can be tedious and time consuming if you have a lot of movement, pans, zooms or multiple targets to blur, etc.

In some of the higher end suites like FCS have motion tracking that tracks the image and moves the filter effect (blur) seriously reducing your production time.

Hope that helps.

[Coupleerotic22]

Oh, I forgot a few things. Some less expensive inline video editing (IVE) tools start to choke if you have too many keyframes. IT does not effect your final output but can seriously slow down production. I have not done much keyframing with PowerDirector, but I would image you might have this problem if you have a large number of keyframes. It is just another trade off in price v performance.

Everything I am about to say is about trade offs. Time vs Money. The higher end systems cost more, but can save you a ton of time and frustration, depending on th equality you are working with or trying to achieve, video length and how often you need to edit video. I am not pushing you toward high end, just letting you know what the pluses/minuses are.

Hardware:
Requirements will vary based on what the quality of the video is (HD or standard) and the length of video.

The best and fastest CPU you can afford is always recommended for IVE.

Whatever the minimum amount of RAM is required. Double it at least, quadruple it if you can (and that is over and above what you need for for whatever else you have running, including the OS).

Hard disk, add at least 25% to the minimum size required. Again it varies based on quality and length of video. You need some extra because IVE bogs down paging in Windows.

Video card - there is usually a minimum requirement for cards or the software won't even work. Just check the software's site for what is required. . At the minimum set up you will be slowed waiting of the card to push the video to screen. Again exceeding minimal requirements reduces production time.

Capture - I am not sure what source quality you will be working with, but if it is lo end, you can get away with Fast USB or Firewire. IF it is HD you might want to invest in a separate I/O card.

Time - the biggest thing that people do not realize about video editing is that most of your time is spent waiting not editing. Capturing, waiting on effects and transitions, rendering etc are the bulk of the time spent in IVE. That is why I keep saying exceed minimal requirements. IF you are ok starting a capture or render and walking away for a few hours, or have the patience to wait on transition effects etc, then you can survive with lo end. The less time (or patience) you have the more high end you should go.

The same is true for software - an effect that can be done in 2-3 steps on a higher end system might take a dozen on lo end. And higher end systems give your more flexibility, more video channels for example, which means you can do multiple channel work at the same time as opposed to working on one element, rendering that and then moving to the next edit.