Video editing software for beginners?

[Aereldor]

Greetings.

I've been editing videos at a rudimentary level using iMovie on my ancient MacBook Pro for some time now. Due to its similarity to Final Cut Pro, I was considering investing in a new Mac, but I chose to build a PC as a gaming platform instead. I'm considering dual-booting OSX and Windows just to be able to use Final Cut Pro, but I wanted to look at Windows alternatives first.

I have a fair amount of experience with iMovie, but not much of it seems to translate into software like Adobe Premiere or Sony Vegas Pro, both of which require a considerable amount of time to learn, and are also rather expensive.

I was wondering if anyone could recommend a capable, user-friendly, and cheap/free video editing program for Windows- preferably one that supports GPU acceleration to take advantage of my GTX 960. If anyone's familiar with iMovie, I'm looking for something with similar functonality, except with a few additional capabilities such as having more than two clips on screen at any time.

Regards,
Aereldor.

[noisebomb44]

i would get sony vegas steam edition, its 40 euros right now on sale, and even though its hard to begin with a professional program i would still do it because then you learn how to use a powerfull program from the ground up.

Although maybe i recommend you to do it because thats what i did, from windows movie maker to sony vegas

http://store.steampowered.com/app/330070/?l=swedish

[Aereldor]

4 minutes ago, starcoaster said:

Hitfilm 3 Express. It's also free.

Hitfilm 3 express looks great! Thanks for the recommendation.

[Aereldor]

1 hour ago, starcoaster said:

it's what i use, it's a bit intimidating at first, but it's quite intuitive, there's a wealth of resources for learning and it's very very easy to use. It comes with a load of basic effects.

search Portal Combat on youtube to see what it can do, the Hitfilm team made it on 3 Express

I checked that out. It's incredible that it's a self-contained engine for both editing and VFX, all for free. Most people I know use two different programs for editing and effects- usually a combo of After Effects and Premiere Pro.

Hell, I might even buy their Star Wars effects package.

[Aereldor]

On 2/12/2016 at 4:19 PM, starcoaster said:

it's what i use, it's a bit intimidating at first, but it's quite intuitive, there's a wealth of resources for learning and it's very very easy to use. It comes with a load of basic effects.

search Portal Combat on youtube to see what it can do, the Hitfilm team made it on 3 Express

Alright, so a problem I faced with HitFilm 3 was a lack of support for the Dolby AC3 audio format that my camera records audio with. The formats require $9.99 as licensing fees, and for that price I might consider Sony Movie Studio 13 Platinum- Steam Edition for just a little more.
 

On 2/12/2016 at 3:33 PM, noisebomb44 said:

i would get sony vegas steam edition, its 40 euros right now on sale, and even though its hard to begin with a professional program i would still do it because then you learn how to use a powerfull program from the ground up.

Although maybe i recommend you to do it because thats what i did, from windows movie maker to sony vegas

http://store.steampowered.com/app/330070/?l=swedish

I know that Sony Movie Studio 13 was designed from the start to be noob-friendly, but does the same apply to the 'platinum' edition? It's a steal of a deal right now where I live, at about the equivalent of $15. How is the 'Platinum' version different from regular Sony Move Studio 13?

[JUJUJU655624667]

DaVinci Resolve

[Aereldor]

1 hour ago, JUJUJU655624667 said:

DaVinci Resolve

I thought DaVinci Resolve was a colour correction plug-in. Did they build it into a complete software?

[noisebomb44]

2 hours ago, Aereldor said:

I know that Sony Movie Studio 13 was designed from the start to be noob-friendly, but does the same apply to the 'platinum' edition? It's a steal of a deal right now where I live, at about the equivalent of $15. How is the 'Platinum' version different from regular Sony Move Studio 13?

According to a steam review the "platinum" version is more advanced and you on it you can basically do 99% of the things you can do with the real deal

"There is apparently a version called "Movie studio 13" (not platinum) and it does not even include the "advanced editing mode". All I can say is; THANK GOD I DID NOT GET THAT ONE! "

I would read the steam reviews to get a decent picture of what it can do, and what it sacrifices for the extremely low price, i think the sale has ended though

[Aereldor]

4 minutes ago, noisebomb44 said:

According to a steam review the "platinum" version is more advanced and you on it you can basically do 99% of the things you can do with the real deal

"There is apparently a version called "Movie studio 13" (not platinum) and it does not even include the "advanced editing mode". All I can say is; THANK GOD I DID NOT GET THAT ONE! "

I would read the steam reviews to get a decent picture of what it can do, and what it sacrifices for the extremely low price

The first review was pretty negative. Apparently, it cuts out an overwhelming amount of content to hit that price point.
 

Quote

Not Recommended

3.0 hrs on record

Posted: 6 October, 2015

I just had a chat with the Sony support and I'm very disappointed ... I could not find the effects plugins that are advertised on there Home page for the Movie Studio 13 Suite. They told me that this version here on Steam is a DIFFERENT VERSION than the Version advertised on their Homepage. This means that this software is seriously crippled and that the "great" offer is just a reduced content strategy to lure people into buying.

Note to Steam/Valve: Please make shure that you indicate if the software is different compared to the otherwise available version on CD/DVD. This is cheating!
---------------------------------
Just an addition
During the 2 hours of my test this software crashed about 7 times with amost no editing, just testing the different fx

My needs are simple, but iMovie could do a lot of stuff, including picture-in-picture effects, and even basic Chroma-keying. Also, Sony Vegas Pro 13 doesn't mess with my camera's AVCHD-format movies nearly as much, and HitFilm doesn't support it at all, so I thought something from the Sony Vegas family might be a start.

[noisebomb44]

1 minute ago, Aereldor said:

The first review was pretty negative. Apparently, it cuts out an overwhelming amount of content to hit that price point.

Ive never used a lot of sony vegas effects, so i dont know if its really a big deal, but if you need them there are probably other programs who have more of them

[Aereldor]

19 minutes ago, noisebomb44 said:

Ive never used a lot of sony vegas effects, so i dont know if its really a big deal, but if you need them there are probably other programs who have more of them

I'm also going to try DaVinci Resolve 12, but I do like the deal on Sony Movie Studio 13 Platinum. Could you tell me how it is with basic editing, ease-of-use, effects, chroma-keying, and multiple picture-in-picture effects? (iMovie is limited to 2). Also, does it have a basic EQ, volume, and fades for audio tracks?

[barkloaf]

I would suggest VSDC or Videosoft Dev Center. It's a free program. It can do basic edits, it's easy to use, I'm pretty sure you can lay effects, it can chroma-key, and it has really simple-to-use picture-in-picture effects. It's not that good of an audio editor, but I think it can fade tracks. It also supports many codecs.

 

Here is the link: http://www.videosoftdev.com/free-video-editor

12 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

I'm also going to try DaVinci Resolve 12, but I do like the deal on Sony Movie Studio 13 Platinum. Could you tell me how it is with basic editing, ease-of-use, effects, chroma-keying, and multiple picture-in-picture effects? (iMovie is limited to 2). Also, does it have a basic EQ, volume, and fades for audio tracks?

 

[noisebomb44]

12 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

I'm also going to try DaVinci Resolve 12, but I do like the deal on Sony Movie Studio 13 Platinum. Could you tell me how it is with basic editing, ease-of-use, effects, chroma-keying, and multiple picture-in-picture effects? (iMovie is limited to 2). Also, does it have a basic EQ, volume, and fades for audio tracks?

Ive never used that version of sony vegas, ive only used sony vegas 12 but ive heard a lot about 13 platinum

Apparantly its just like the normal sony vegas versions on a basic editing level, which is pretty okay at doing basic things, but you have still got to learn a few things before you can do basic things like cutting (i believe its the "s" button) or fading (just overlapping tracks)

Ive never used a lot of effects, so i have no idea

Here you can see how chroma keying is

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=551217833

Not sure about the pip effects, i never use those anyway

I believe it has every sound criteria you wanted