Five Windows Editing Programs for under $100

Posted by Derek · March 31st, 2008

While anyone with a PC and Windows XP or Vista can edit video using the built-in Windows Movie Maker software (Keith’s WMM analysis), it simply cannot compare with the features and options offered by the stand-alone editing programs on the market. WMM is free for a reason. It is designed to give beginners the easiest and most straightforward tools for cutting together media without confusing the user with more advanced tools. Luckily, PC users have a wide range of really great editing programs to choose from, many of which are less that $100. I would like to analyze five pieces of software that can be bought for under $100 and hopefully demonstrate that it is possible to achieve very professional looking editing jobs without the pricey and complicated professional editing packages.

The five programs are Ulead VideoStudio 11 by Corel ($89.99), Adobe Premiere Elements 4 ($99.99), Pinnacle Studio 11 ($99.99), Sony Vegas Movie Studio 8 ($99.99), and Roxio Easy Media Creator 10 ($79.99). So what can you do with these programs that you can’t do with WMM? More than one video and audio track, more efficient interfaces, advanced video and audio effects, and more powerful import/export capabilities.

Perhaps the most important feature of these products is the ability to add multiple audio and video tracks. What this means is if you were designing a MindBites training video on underwater basket weaving and you wanted to split the screen in half and on the top half show your hands twisting wicker and on the bottom show your friend’s hands twisting different wicker you could easily overlay the two videos on separate tracks. The same goes for audio. If you want the sound of the wicker twisting underneath “New York State of Mind” by Billy Joel, you can do so by placing the audio clips in different tracks. The usefulness of multiple tracks should not be overlooked even for beginners, and WMM does not offer more than one audio and one video track.

The interfaces of these five packages are another area of improvement over WMM. They include the ability to preview raw video clips in a separate window while playing media from the timeline simultaneously. This is useful because you can look at raw footage while scrubbing the timeline in search of the spot where this footage will be placed, saving the user tremendous amounts of time. In WMM you can only view one video clip at a time in the monitor, so you lose a lot of efficiency. Also, when you modify a video file, it needs to be rendered to view properly, and these programs offer on the fly rendering that lets you preview adjustments before committing to the render.

All five programs include a wide range of effects that can be applied to audio and video tracks. Effects are not just transitions and options like “sepia tone” and “black and white”. Advanced effects allow for color manipulation, key-frame animating, and many different ways to stylize video and audio tracks (i.e. add base or treble, reduce noise, equalize waveforms, scale video size, emphasize certain colors, etc.). Again, WMM falls short in this department and is limited to very basic effects like blur, fade, and rotate. Importing and exporting video is also more suitable in these programs. While WMM is limited to importing Windows-based video types (.avi, .mpeg, .wmv), these five programs allow for a larger spectrum of support with file types like .mov, .mp4, and in some cases .flv. On the export side, they have many more compression options than WMM, and most have one-click exporting options for online video, DVD video, and the very important lossless .avi which saves the integrity of the video you created by applying no compression (absent from WMM). The programs also offer some form of HDV (high-definition video) editing, which can be very useful if the user has invested in HDV equipment.

There are many other features specific to each software package, but the big picture is these programs offer more options than free software which make editing easier and ultimately result in more professional looking and sounding final products. Even for the novice editor, it is a worthy investment to look into one of these inexpensive products as an alternative to the free editing tools for PC. Which program would work the best for you? A little research can explain the similarities and differences between the five programs, and all five offer trial versions which, is strongly recommended before you make the purchase.

Sphere: Related Content  Email This Post Email This Post

Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Posted in Video Production and Publishing |

Leave a Reply

Editor Log In