Video Editing Software

[JudyKay]

Amazing as PTE is, there are still times I want a video editor to create clips for PTE.  I have played with various freebies and Adobe Premiere Elements.  Video editing isn't intuitive for me and I have done as little as possible over the years using Adobe PE, VideoPad, Handbrake, etc.  I dislike them all. I want simple, fast, easy, low learning curve and cheap.  PTE does most of what I do, and I don't need full blown Adobe Premier Pro or anything like that.

I am sniffing strongly at Wondshare Filmora.  

Suggestions?

 

 

[wideangle]

Hi Judy

I had the same sort of feelings as you, and, after looking around, opted for Movavi Video Suite. It covers all my needs and much more besides.

I have found it to be exceptional value for money (not a subscription) in terms of the different modules it offers, which include a Video Editor, a Video Converter, a Screen Capture module and others.  You can purchase the Video Editor on its own if you wish.

The Video Editor module is intuitive to use and Movavi provides some good video tutorials as well.

I'd certainly suggest downloading a trial to make your own judgement.

Regards

wideangle

[goddi]

Greetings Judy,

Since you mentioned Filmora, I downloaded/installed their latest version. Looked promising. But...I see it is a trial version. I gave it a short try but really did not like it for a few reasons. The video preview image was really degraded...lots for splattered colors (hard to explain). I tried to just drag one clip over the other to have a simple transition fade. It would not  let me. In PTE, simple.

Anyway, if Igor will just concentrate on improving the 'Convert' process, he will have a real winner and more useful process to deal with videos. I recently took a 90 minute video tape and created about 40 or so clips for a show using the PTE Convert/Trim process.

One problem is the Trim function. After you set the Trim indicators, the little up/down arrows next to the green arrows should help to move the Trim indicators to a more accurate position. I don't  think they are working well. Even though the Start Time changes, when you click the green arrow to reset the position, it does not do that.

And once you have the Trim indicators (left and right) set, it would be nice to be able to preview only that portion to doublecheck the trimmed clip. You  can't.

Once you Convert/Trim a video, you have to start all over again. You can't trim out one section of the video and Convert it and then Trim another section of the same clip without having to  close the Convert Window and start over again with that same original clip and trim out another portion of that clip.

Wouldn't it be nice to have video stabilization???

Simple things like that make it frustrating and should be improved. I have tried many outside programs but they all have negative aspects. I like to stay within PTE to do the video editing process, even if it now is pretty crude. Video is becoming more important to the slideshows.

Like I said, I've tried many other video programs and have just about given up. Let me know if you come with a winner.

Gary

[JudyKay]

Thank you all very much.  I am spending a couple days trying all kinds of things and going through tutorials on each.  I am still leaning toward Filmora because it seems most intuitive to me and does a lot and produces could video.  I am not impressed with the image stabilization though.  Maybe no software image stabilization is really good--that is it minimally degrades quality of the original video.  I guess that is a tradeoff between stable and sharp.

[MUR]

Hi JudyKay

I use Avidemux, a simple and free software that is enough for common tasks

MUR

[goddi]

1 hour ago, MUR said:

Hi JudyKay

I use Avidemux, a simple and free software that is enough for common tasks

MUR

Greetings MUR,

I gave Avidemux a quick try. Its output is MKV. Do you then run it through the PTE's Convert process?

I ask this because the trimmed clip I made using Avidemux (MKV) did not seem to degrade in quality from the original clip. However, when I ran the MKV trimmed clip through the PTE Convert, the quality seemed to be degraded, even though the MediaInfo for both (the MKV trimmed/converted and the original trimmed/converted files) were pretty much identical.

Do do you Convert the MKV clip or not? I get good results just using the PTE Trim/Convert process but setting the trim's beginning and ending is really crude and not precise.

Gary

[Lin Evans]

Hi Judy,

Filmora is fine - easy to understand and pretty straight-forward in operation. The only weakness I've found is its handling of green screen which is no more sophisticated than PTE's approach regardless of all the hype in advertising.  Those who praise the green screen editing capability of Filmora obviously are clueless about good green screen chroma key processes. Othewise it's a very good product in my experience. I also use a number of other products including Premiere which I find obtuse and Avidemux, VideoPad (the freeware version) and Handbrake. Of these I find Filmora to be more intuitive.

Best regards,

Lin

[goddi]

Lin,

I've given up on Filmora. I can't import any video clips. I uninstalled it and reinstalled it. No go. Very strange. But the first  time I imported a video clip, the preview was a mess. After that, could not import anything. I just wish Igor would improve the PTE video processing. Don't like to go outside to other programs for video processing. Always a pain,.

Gary

[Lin Evans]

Hi Gary,

I'm not certain what's going on with your experience. No problems on my Win 8.1 system with installation or use of Filmora - the videos and previews are fine on my system.

Best regards,

Lin

[goddi]

1 hour ago, Lin Evans said:

Hi Gary,

I'm not certain what's going on with your experience. No problems on my Win 8.1 system with installation or use of Filmora - the videos and previews are fine on my system.

Best regards,

Lin

Lin, Yea, kinda weird. I found two different Filmora download files. One was 'filmora_setup_full846.exe' and another one was 'filmora-idco_setup_full1901.exe'. Both give me an error message during the install and the install stops at 97%. Too bad, I was looking forward to giving it a try.  Gary

 

 

[JudyKay]

@goddi  Filmora is working flawlessly for me.  I think you found some old versions.  You want: filmora_setup_full1901.exe  Try that.  


The Filmora preview player is fairly low-quality, 512 X 288, to keep it speedy.  It doesn't look nice, unlike PTE. On export from Filmora, the quality is as full as expected.  I always marvel at the amazing thing Igor has done with PTE that no one else matches.

@Lin Evans  I have never played with PTE's green screen chroma key processes.  That will be soon on my to-do list.  I also learned from Filmora the amazing capability of running two videos and masking parts of each (for example to have a person talking to themselves--two characters simultaneously--or 100 more-practical applications).  I realize how much more robust PTE would be in this process, but haven't actually tried it yet.  Has anyone else?  The possibilities for this in PTE would seem to eclipse Filmora. 

[Lin Evans]

PTE is like the majority of green screen video products - it can handle a perfect green screen chroma key extraction just fine, but the vast majority of green screen videos are not perfect in that when they were made there were variations in the lighting or shadows thus creating a nightmare for trying to remove the green halo around subjects. Very sophisticated chroma key extraction software such as Adobe AfterEffects has provisions for dealing with this but PTE, Filmora and others just don't have that level of sophistication so it's very difficult and sometimes impossible to remove green halos without making the subject partially transparent. In some cases where color isn't all that important it's possible to use grayscale or sepia after doing the extraction to hide the green halo but if you want really good extraction it's necessary to use a more sophisticated process such as found in the better video software.

Best regards,

Lin

[goddi]

28 minutes ago, JudyKay said:

@goddi  Filmora is working flawlessly for me.  I think you found some old versions.  You want: filmora_setup_full1901.exe  Try that.  

 

Judy,

I found that version and I tried to install it. Got the same error message. I said Ignore and finished the  install. I was able to import one video but could not do anything with it. Other videos just  won't import and freezes. I have Win10. Not sure what that error message means but there is something going  on....

Gary

[JudyKay]

Odd.  Similarly, I tried really hard to get Davinci Resolve on my PC, but never could get it to start.  It works fine on my Laptop, but I want it on my PC! 

PS.  I found Davinci Resolve to be amazing, but a nightmare of a learning curve.  

[goddi]

Judy...

Very odd. I can get Davinci Resolve to work on my PC. But I gave up on it because I can't figure out how to use it. It seems to allow imports of only mp4s. MPGs don't even show up. And  if I can get an MP4 imported, I get a 'Media Offline' warning. I have no idea what is going on. I just hope Igor will improve the PTE video processing. 

Gary

[Lin Evans]

Gary,

You may want to try Hitfilm Express - (free and powerful).  There are numerous online tutorials and it has a great reputation....

Lin

[goddi]

On 8/9/2018 at 8:36 AM, Lin Evans said:

Gary,

You may want to try Hitfilm Express - (free and powerful).  There are numerous online tutorials and it has a great reputation....

Lin

Lin,

Thanks for the recommendation for Hitfilm Express. I have been playing around with it. It took a bit to figure it out but it looks pretty good for trimming. My only negative at this point is that it does not import MPEG-2 video format. You have to purchase that ability. But other than that, I have been successful in trimming and exporting other format clips.

One thing that took a while was to set up a Preset for Exporting. They offer several but the exported files that kept coming out way too big. The Preset's bit rates are apparently too high. So I figured out that if I selected the Constant setting for bit rates, I could set my own bit rate to 10. The file size was more reasonable and still good quality. And retaining the 'Keep Source' for other properties seemed to work out fine.

I liked that you can set the trim for a clip frame-by-frame to get your precise edit.

The HitFilm's MP4 export format is 'AVC'. It seems to play well in PTE. But, my question is, do you have to still do the PTE Convert of the Hitfilm's 'AVC' to make it 'MPEG-4 Visual'? My clip from HitFilm's bit rate was 10 mb/s (46 Mbs) and its PTE converted bit rate is 12.6 mb/s (59 Mbs). Do you see anyway in Hitfilm to export a clip as 'MPEG-4 Visual' to avoid having to convert exports from Hitfilm, if that format is required?

Gary

[Lin Evans]

Hi Gary,

I don't use it myself, but everything I've read about it is positive. I think there may be a forum dedicated to it where you can get more details, but I don't have the link.

Best regards,

Lin

[tom95521]

For a free video editor I use Garmin VIRB Edit. It is designed to add GPS overlay to videos but that is optional. You can import MP4 (not AVCHD) and JPEG files. It has a basic timeline with trim/split, rotate 180, and mirror (rotate/mirror missing in PTE). One nice feature is the speed conversion. If you want to do a change speed (post capture) to slow motion the range is 12.5% (1/8x) with timelapse/hyperlapse of 800% (8x). It also has a title generator, audio track, and a few basic transitions. It does not have image stabilization. I have used it on a > 1 GB file without it crashing. I just ordered a Yi 4K action camera so will be using the editor more in the future.

https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/573412

I also use ProDAD ReSpeedR (not free). It does slowmotion/timelapse and image stabilzation.

https://www.prodad.com/Slowmotion-Timelapse/ReSpeedr-V1-29772,l-us.html

Tom

[JudyKay]

For what it is worth, I have been using Filmora now for a while, producing about 24 hours of fairly polished video.  I highly recommend it for entry to lower-mid level production--anyone who is not creating video professionally.  The learning curve is very low.  The price is low.  It does excellent video screen capture, OK audio processing (no enveloping), and has far more capabilities and features than advertised.  The online Youtube tutorials are really great.  Short.  Sweet.  Spot-on. Energetic. Engaging.

PTE does amazing video processing but is not designed to be a video editor.  I see Filmora as a tool specializing in some things PTE isn't designed to do, that creates resources for PTE.  That is how I use it. It does cost about $50 USD.

[tom95521]

Hi Judy,

I agree. Filmora is a simple video editor but also has advanced features like audio noise reduction, image stabilization, and color correction. The action cam tool should be great for correcting videos before importing into PicturesToExe. I should have my Yi 4K in a few days and will test filmora on my videos.

Thanks,
Tom