Hi everyone:

As I'm starting to take on more complex projects, I really can't deal with the FC7 format problems, (ie
dealing with formating/conversion issues) that's been hampering my other projects, and leaning very very
heavily of working in a PC than mac enviornment for post production work.

Currently I work with Power Director, which I love, but recognize the need to upgrade to a high end software. Power Director doesn't have multicam and it is very funky, when ever I need to trim and insert videos. I'm unable to trim a video when I have to lock it in place. And when I unlock the vid to cut,
it often moves all the video when I trim....

Avid would be ideal, but it's a bit above my budget, A colleague suggested Vega, as an intermediate software to use, until I can save enough $$ to invest in Avid. Some had suggested Premier, but
mentioned it may not have the functions that I'm looking for (see below).

So I thought before I start going this route to invest another software, I wanted to get more info, and opinions. What better way than for me to ask everyone here for your recommendation of the best pc video editing software that handles the following with great ease. Here are the key attributes that I"m looking for in the software.

1) Multi cam editing.

2) No hassles working with different video format/codec,fp. Whether different cameras (working with SonyNX5U/Panasonic AG150, SonyNX5U /JVC Gy100, Sony EX1 with SonyNX5U, etc),

3) Little or no video conversion is needed.

4) Can be project interchange (work with different editing software if necessary, FC7, Avid, Adobe, Vega, etc)


5) Ease of triming or moving clips within the time line without worrying about locking/unlocking the video track, and run risk of moving tracks out of synch.

Thanks so much for your time, and your patience.

Sincerely,

Robert

Edius for 1, 2, 3, 5. Don't know about 4 as I work with only one NLE. I would get the HDspark output card with the software for realtime output to a HDTV monitor. http://www.videoguys.com/Item/Grass+Valley+HDSPARK+with+EDIUS+PRO+65+Software/634333030363.aspx

The Adobe Creative Suite is going to be a very solid choice. Premiere has gotten very good and the integration between After Effects, Photoshop & Audition is great.

It ticks all your boxes and it seems to be what FCP editors are migrating too. It also seems to be emerging as a bit of an industry standard so a fairly safe bet.

This is coming from a long time Vegas user as well. LOVED Vegas but the last few version have just been very unstable for me.

Thanks Burke:

I had downloaded the free Vega pro 12 trial software and already I can see it doesn't accept the raw mov files from the JVC Camera, which surprised me, for I was led to believe it could read the file. Does sony have problem reading mpeg4/mov files, just as Apple's software have trouble reading raw Sony files?


Robert

Thanks Mark:

I had downloaded the Edius version 6, and although I can see how it can accept both mov and AVHCD, the interface is not as intuitive as I thought would be for figuing out the editing and multicam. Have you tried 6? What do you think of it?

Robert

Edius 6.5, system requirements are a lot less then with adobe's products, going into multicam is a matter of pressing one button, it takes anything you trow at it with no conversion needed. One feature that's usually not mentioned but has been worth it for me and that's the field editing option, you can move your project between your desktop to a older and slower laptop and back, (and edit in realtime with intermediate files) perfect if you need to continue your editing on another location.

EDIUS Pro 6.5 | Grass Valley (http://www.grassvalley.com/products/edius_pro_6.5)

the interface is not as intuitive as I thought would be for figuing out the editing and multicam. Have you tried 6? What do you think of it?


Edius is not as shiny as adobe's or fcpx interface but that's something you get used to quickly once you experience how fast and rock solid it can be. About editing in multicam, I just need to press one button and I"m off, like with any new NLE, you will need time to switch, coming from Fcp then premiere will most likely make you feel right at home as much is similar, Edius otoh requires much more time to adapt to. (I came from premiere so I know :))
There are however many great tutorials found on the internet with some very good ones about colorcorrection, 2 sites I have used a lot for reference are:

http://www.videoproductions.com.au/html/non_linear_video_equipment.html
or this one: "https://vimeo.com/27292117"

and important, the Edius forum has been a Godsend for me, any question I had when I made the switch has been answered, it's a very helpful and active community

I also vote for Edius. I have Edius, Vegas 12 and CS6 and Edius is the best multicam of the group by a long way. I have a button set on my Shuttle Pro V2 for multicam so I only have to press one button to go in or out of multicam. You can also just press F8.

Edius is my main video editor, Vegas for audio don't really use Premiere as I got CS6 for all the other applications like AE, Photoshop etc.

As Nao says the Edius forum is very helpful and there are several members who run Edius on MAC hardware running Windows too. The latest Edius codec package will run on MAC so file transfer to MAC software is a possibility. I am just PC so have no personal knowledge of this capability.

Ron Evans

Sorry I feel like an idiot trying to use Edius

I'm having a hard time doing the basic of just importing the clips to line them up and start prepping it for multicam.

Each additional video I dump on the track, it wont stay in the same time frame but push back.
So for example if I put sony video on track one at time point zero. When I add the JVC in video track 2.
instead of it being placed on time point zero, it would automatically go to the end of where Video track 1 is (10 min) as it's start point.

And when I try to trim, or mark the inpoint of each video to line them up by the clap board sound, I don't see it being marked for me to make the trim.

Robert

It would be useful for you to watch the training videos first.EDIUS - Basic Introduction Tutorial (Free) (http://www.onscreentraining.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=41&category_id=14&vmcchk=1&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=81)

You will see a video ( V ) and audio ( A) on the left of the timeline. These define where the video and audio files can be placed in tracks. At the top of that column there are also a ( v ) and ( a ) that allow you to bring in just an audio or a video file. The other thing to learn about is whether insert or overwrite is on as this will define how clips are added to the timeline. The other thing to note is whether ripple edit is on or off.

The basic training is worth looking at before you do anything else as this covers most of the fundementals.
Once you have learned the basics multicam is easy to move to.

Ron Evans

Thanks Ron:

I'm downloading the video now, and hope this will do the trick.

Thanks!

Robert

Robert, I had the same learning curve problem when I moved from Premiere 6.5 to Edius. I don't consider myself anywhere near a skilled editor. But after about a day of messing with Edius things began to come together. As others have mentioned there are many good Edius tutorials out there. My experience with Vegas was exactly the opposite. It just seemed completely foreign to me.

I'll admit it's hard to fight this feeling of helplessness in trying to come up with a solution and appreciate the words of encouragement Mark.

If you are into learning a new Editor, and don't want to spend big dollars, consider Lightworks.

Its free to about $60.00 for additional codecs. Actually designed by editors.

Lightworks (http://www.lwks.com/)

I haven't tried Edius lately, but with both Edius and Premiere in the past, I always felt constricted by GUI. I started using Vegas on a lark, but the user interface is so free feeling that I cnn't seem to get myself back to anything else. And, beginning with Pro 11, Vegas has adopted standards that allow many favorite plugins from other developers to be used.

Here's another blog I found with a lot of tutorials grouped, it seems it's not updated anymore but still useful.
Canopus Edius Pro tutorials VIDEOLINKMANIA (http://videolinkmania.wordpress.com/2011/07/22/canopus-edius-pro-tutorial/)

hope this will do the trick.

I heared fcp is similar to premiere in regard to interface and workflow, that's why you will have a hard time just to get the basics right with Edius, Edius works best with keyboard commands and using the mouse and with 2 pc screens for editing and a tv to get a full screen output using a spark pro card.

I had even trouble just to cut clips when I started using it, even-though I had been using premiere for a few years. For me it felt not intuitive at all but I stayed with it and with the help of the edius forum I got up to speed after a few weeks of intensive use and now I can edit as fast as I think. Edius does has it flaws, it's not that good in the audio department but it's a very fast and stable realtime cutter and is one of the best for multicam editing. It also doesn't require a cutting edge pc and it's not a memory hog. It might not be 64bit (yet) but it will give you realtime editing in the highest preview quality and with the right motherboard (so you can use intels quick sync) it will give you very fast h264 output.

The real time output via HDspark card (hdmi connection) to an hdtv or monitor is another nice feature of Edius. Although my hdtv is not a high end special purpose editing monitor, I can get close enough for my needs with color bar adjustment. The HDspark card can come packaged with Edius at a decent discount or bought separately. I got mine from dvinfo sponsor videoguys. They gave an extra 5% discount for being a dvinfo member. I think I paid around $800 for Edius and the spark card. This was a good deal IMO due to my experience of paying around $1,300 for Premiere 6.5 and Matrox RT2 output card which regularly crashed. My bad experience with Premiere is what encouraged me not to stay with their products, although I think they finally worked all the bugs out. But once burned I won't go back. I have never had 2nd doubts about my Edius purchase.

Thanks Chris and Noa:

At this point I'll try anything that I can feel comfortable and that I can adapt to quickly. The Lightwork sounds promising in the description I read and worth downloading too.

Days like today wish it was like in college where all I had to do is walk over to a buddy's dorm room and
ask to give a hand to help me figure out this stuff. (Sorry for sounding silly)

Mark I'm not familiar with the Hdspark card, is that something unique to Edius?
Yes one colleague had mentioned he had been burnt by Premire too, which makes
me gun shy to go with them, but at the same time if I have to farm out future editing
projects to other editors, I wonder if going with Edius files pose problem in converting
to a working file to them?

Vegas has long been the step child of fhe NLE family. It originally was developed as a sound editing program, and gradually added Video. For years most editors considered it consumerish, yet I have found nothing that I can't do with it. And everything I want to do, there seems to be three or four ways to accomplish it. It really gives a feeling of creative freedom.

Like the other editors, Vegas 12 is now only 64 bit. Almost any plug in you can get for FCP and Premiere is now, or will be available for Vegas in the future. And it is my experience that you can run it on pretty plain machines and get a decent experience,. I run an "off the shelf" Del Core Duo Quad, with 8 gig of memory and have nice results. I also run it on a Dell Vostro Laptop, Core DUO, with 2 gig.

I have edited in Vegas with HDV footage, DSLR footage, and Sony AVCHD on the same time line without issue.

I do notice that those who profess to have problems in Vegas have their machines overloaded with hardware, giving me the impression that Vegas designers did not have power machine users in mind as their prime users, but with 12, there doesn't seem to be as many complaints. Vegas does update regularly as user complaints are addressed.

Edius has a full range of output codecs that most NLE's will work with as well as their own HQX and HQ codecs that now can be used on a MAC. The HQ and HQX files from Edius can be edited on Vegas or Premiere if they are loaded on the PC. Since I have all of them on my PC they appear as available codec of input and output on my NLE's. Edius will also happily use PRores files too as well as mov something that Vegas has had problems with in the past. So going back and forth to a MAC is not such a big problem.

SParkHD is a card that provides the preview monitor image over a HDMI connection to a TV. It is very useful for color grading to a true YUV TV color as opposed to the RGB of a PC monitor. Useful for multicam in that it shows the current chosen main output image where the PC monitor will show all cameras as well as the main output.

As to performance there is no comparison between Edius and the others. My PC is an i7 2600K, 16G RAM, 500G boot, 500G temp , 1T RAID 0 for active files, 3 x 2T for storage,NVidia GTX560. With Edius 6.07 ( that's what I run at the moment) I can edit multicam realtime with 5 tracks of AVCHD native files. Both Vegas 12 and Premiere cannot do this without reducing quality and frame rate considerably. If you are just editing one track then they are just fine too.

Ron Evans

+1 What Ron said.

Thanks. Chris, Ron & Mark.

I do feel a little better after reading your postings.

As crazy as this may sound, another way for me to get a better feel of each software is take footage from an earlier project and put it thorough Edius and Vegas to try out the different features before the trial runs out.

In another posting, I did see someone send a link to clipwrap. It cost $50 but this software would easily convert AVHCD vids to an acceptable format that fc7 can accept. Have you heard of this software, and if you have, does it work?

Robert

I think you're being prudent to download the trial versions to try before you buy. As Burk Webb pointed out earlier, Premiere is becoming very popular for former FCP users. PPro ain't what it used to be...in a very good way...so I think it is worth trialing it along with the other candidates. I've not used the others so can't compare; I just know that I get my work done quickly and easily using PPro and the other apps in Creative Cloud.

It definitely would fulfill the requirements you laid out at the beginning of this thread. I routinely do live performances with 4-5 Canon XF cameras, a couple of GoPro's, and separate BWF audio. No conversions; all imported straight into PPro, and except for the GoPro's it is just click-click and everything's synched up for multi-cam. It usually takes longer to copy files off all those CF and SD cards than to do my basic edit. Two versions of the event are edited and rendering out to whatever number of formats and resolutions I may desire in as little as an hour after I power on the editing box.

If you go the Creative Cloud route, you get the complete suite of apps at your fingertips for similar or less price than some NLEs alone, sans the additional apps. One may not need every app for every project, but it is great to know that you have just the right tool for a tough problem, like AE or Audition, just a click away.

Anyway, I think for the needs you laid out, PPro -- or really Creative Cloud -- is worth looking at.

Can't give you input on Clipwrap as I am all PC based. As Pete says you should try them all before deciding what you like. But from your original post, if that is you priority list, then Edius is the best choice. If you need lots of interchange on the MAC then Premiere would be the choice. To work as fast as Edius or even get close, Premiere or Vegas need a very powerful PC with an expensive GPU to get the CUDA cores for hardware acceleration. You may be able to buy a complete PC to run Edius for the cost of the fast GPU alone !!!! If multicam is really important for you then there is also no comparison as Edius is far more capable than the others. There is a learning curve as with all new software but once learned Edius is very fast and easy to use. I have all three for different reasons. Edius for video editing, I have Vegas for multitrack audio and because it comes with DVDArchitect for disc authoring. I have CS6 Suite for Photoshop, AE etc etc. If you are on a MAC there is some advantage as Pete mentioned in buying the Cloud for CS6.

Ron Evans

Edius rocks. Done hundreds of projects with lots of sequences. Its fast and does not miss a beat and just edits just about any format with any other format on any timeline piece of cake. Rendering out h.264 files fof the web or makiing dvds super fast.

Just a follow up question with Edius.

Can Edius handle video that either have different frame rate or slightly different codec?

Yep piece of cake.

I am slotting native raw 1440/1080 50i 25mbps HDV with 1920/1080 25p 35mbps GoPro ProTune with Canon DSLR 1920/1080 50mbps 25p H.264 and 1920/1080 25p AVCHD all on a 25p 1920/1080 with colour correction easy as.

Rendering out a 1920/1080 H.264 file from 5 minute mixed format timeline takes like 2 minutes 20 seconds.
EDIUS uses the built in H.264 encoder on Intel's Sandy and Ivy bridge CPU's. :-)

I have over 40 projects from different clients on the go with some having over 40 sequences on the timeline, it just works. Rendered out hundreds and hundreds of video clips from it over the years.