Video Editing Software

[Jason]

We've talked a little bit about various recording softwares but what do you do with it after you've recorded your stuff? I don't need to tell you that there's a lot of options out there and it can be a bit daunting to see what's what and what will do the job you need.

Today I'll briefly go over a couple of the more common programs out there and maybe a couple you're not too sure about.


Windows Movie Maker

Or Windows Live Movie Maker or WMM or Movie Maker or whatever it's called these days is an easy one. If you've got Windows installed you probably already have it. It's been a staple of the home pc video group of software for years and will probably continue to be so because it just works and is pretty easy to use.

It has an interface that goes along with the basic windows themes so it's pretty easy to navigate. The newer version have a lot of presets and a handy "Recommended For This Project" button that will save your project to the mp4/wmv with the settings of your choosing and you can even make some custom save settings.

Editing is a little tricky on the new version as they've done away with the timeline view but it's not too bad. You can still add transitions, effects, animation, subtitles, voice overs, music tracks and all of that.

Bigger files sometimes do take a little longer to pre-render which can be a bit frustrating if you just need to get it done right then and there but that's not a "feature" that's available only on WMM.

Long story short, if you just need to covert some videos with light to moderate editing, this is a good way to go. And it's free. Can't beat the price.


VideoPad

From our good friends at NCH Software. The folks that bring us Prism to convert video and Debut to record it and about a hundred other tiny little programs we get VideoPad. It's their take on software like Camtasia, Vegas, Pinnacle and that other one I can never remember cause it never worked.

It's a slightly more feature rich environment than Movie Maker and can easily tie in with any other piece of NCH software and will download and install it right away if you need to do something VideoPad just can't. It doesn't have quite the range of options when it comes to effects, animations and transitions that Movie Maker has and it's not as friendly to work through but it does have the timeline view which I really like for editing.

It can save to just about any format you want with plenty of preset save options for frame rate, dimensions, bit rate and container. However some features are locked after the free trial period expires.

You can snag a copy at the NCH Software website and give it a test drive. The "Home Edition" will run you around $40 and the "Master Edition" for $70.

The Home Edition isn't as fully featured and doesn't support external plugins but if you're only looking for a little cropping, adding some backing tracks/voice overs and really like that timeline view... this is a good one.

Oh yeah, it's pretty lightweight too. Doesn't eat up a lot of resources.


Camtasia

This one I hear a lot of people rave about and I tried it for a while and it did do a pretty good job. I used it to do some of the editing on the Baten Kaitos videos you may have seen... the blurryness it should be said was not because of this software but of my own sillyness in recording. For a better idea of what it can do, look at the Smash TV video from Ragnatz and I.

It'll do everything and does it all pretty well. It has a lot more features when it comes to... well everything. Animations, transitions, effects, audio edition, multiple tracks, multiple video tracks. It's a force to be reckoned with.

However so is the price. You can expect to spend over $300 for this software. It's great... but it's not $300 great.


VirtualDub

Here's another standard. VirtualDub works more as an encoder/converter than an editor really. I use it to record my console game footage and do some final encoding if I'm adding a seperate audio track for voice over stuff. I also use it to resize and deinterlace video as it's got just about the best damn filters for that that I've ever seen. The cropping is also pretty excellent.

Where VirtualDub falls short for the average user however is in the editing department. It was built to work only with AVI files... thus if you download it right out of the box you can only open and save to the AVI format. Now I personally don't have a problem with that. Fraps records to AVI so it'll go fine there... and since I use VDub to record my footage it's an AVI there anyway. If you want to open other goodies though there are hundreds of plugin packs out there that will allow you to read just about any kind of file you can think of.

The interface falls a little short for the "power user" as well though. The editing is basically a crop or trim method without any type of transition/animation at all.

Still without the more advanced features like that it is a pretty powerful little (very tiny really) program and does an excellent job. I've been using it for final production work for a while and it'll do some batch processing which is super handy... though admittedly it was a little difficult to find out how to do some of the things in the program. Maybe I can make a tutorial.

Oh yeah, another downside is that it generally wants to save files in as lossless a format as possible. While that's not too bad the files can be quite HUGE so you may want to find your own AVI encoders like Xvid to run the files through to compress em down a bit.

Also... Free. As in money.


Wondershare Video Editor

This is a new one I recently came across and I gotta say... I'm pretty impressed. It bridges the gap between VideoPad and Camtasia. More features than VP and less then CamT but still plently able to do what you might need.

It has a lot of filters, transitions, animations, overlays and editing options.

It saves in a multitude of formats and can even upload directly to YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, DailyMotion and make DVD ready files. I also like that it gives you an idea of how big the file will be before you save it so you can easily compare formats without having to save and check multiple times.

An easy to use interface that's pretty easy on the eyes, good quality output with good compression without loss of quality.

So far the few videos I made with it have looked just fine and the YouTube uploader worked pretty well too. I was able to upload a few test videos that went up as Private and they were ready to go without any issues at all.

Here's a nice thing too... while it's not free it is waaaaaaaay more affordable than Camtasia. You can get a one year "subscription" for $20. That gets you a license for a year and all the updates that come along in that time for $20. You can get the lifetime license for a minuscule $40.

When I compare this to VideoPad and Camtasia... this one is really the way to go. More features than VideoPad for less money... nearly the same functionality as Camtasia for almost 10% of the price. Don't take my word for it. There's a trial at their website. Right here as a matter of fact. Though the trial does put a huge watermark on the final product it's enough to see what it can do.


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That all being said... my current method of recording runs roughly as follows...

1. Video gets recorded either with Fraps on PC or VirtualDub if it's a console game. Audio will be recorded separately with GoldWave or later in post and be edited and cleaned up in GoldWave a well.
   
2. If the video is from a console, it will be processed with VirtualDub for any cropping and resizing that may be needed and it will always be deinterlaced.
   
3. Any editing that needs to be done to the video (i.e. cutting out battles or things like that) will be done either in Movie Maker, VideoPad or Wondershare. Currently it's been VideoPad but I'm going to move to Wondershare.
   
4. If the video is from a PC, the audio from said video will be processed through GoldWave with my commentary to create a single audio track with the voice over feature in GoldWave. This keeps me from having to get a second program like Audacity to auto duck the game audio.
   
5. After the audio has been processed the merged audio track will go into VirtualDub with the finalized video file where the new audio will be placed on top of the video. The final product is ready to go at that point. It will be saved and uploaded when ready.