JC Callender
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PS:
The greatest thing about Vegas Pro is that you can use so damn many plug-ins with it. The Vegas GUI is also ridiculously intuitive and fast fast fast.
It is 100% format, frame rate and resolution agnostic. Dump anything on the timeline, no pre-render necessary, ever.
The drawbacks are the fact that Vegas doesn't play well with anything but a tiny handful of GPU's so pack a big fat CPU and a crap ton of RAM if you want it to be fast on the render. It will blaze through most MP4 based codecs with GPU or CUDA but that's about it.
The other drawback is that Vegas 9 Pro was the last version to have really dependable and cooperative "print to tape" capabilities.
Since I still have that version, it's not an issue, so if a client wants a tape copy, I throw the completed project onto a Vegas 9 timeline and PTT.
Hard for me to name a single program as a favorite because different programs have different strengths and weaknesses.
Overall my go to software for editing was always AVID, as far back as the early 1990's.
But that's because back then most of my work was either feature, docu, national ad spots, MTV and television programming and AVID fit the bill.
Now, with more internet based work, I find that I prefer Sony Vegas Pro for quick and dirty projects, although now MAGIX has purchased the licensing and it's called MAGIX, but I still have Vegas Pro 12 and still use it quite often.
But I also love DaVinci Resolve, even though at my advanced age I'm not spending the big bucks for the high end control interface hardware that goes with it.
I sometimes switch back and forth between Vegas Pro and Resolve on the same projects.
I have Premiere Pro and I've used it but I got off the bandwagon after CS5 because I don't want their subscription based (CS6) software, so if a client has it (CS6 subscription) and they want me to use it, I'll do that but I won't own it.
I don't use Final Cut to any great extent. I know it and know how but I get everything I want from AVID that Final Cut can do, and I feel AVID does it better. I was never ever impressed by Final Cut 7 and its ancient 32 bit kernel. I never understood why anyone was.
Final Cut X is finally supposed to be damn good but again, it's a lot like Vegas Pro and I already have that. But at least FCP X finally went 64 bit like everyone else did.
As a guy who first trained on old flatbed film editing equipment (Kem, Steenbeck) and later on linear videotape, I've seen and used almost everything. I even had to learn EditDroid and LaserEdit in one day to complete a project for Lorimar.
I also own a copy of Lightworks but I confess that the learning curve is daunting for me. I need to sit down with a Lightworks guru to walk me through it. Lightworks is perhaps one of the eight hundred pound gorillas, if their list of clients and projects is any indication.
The biggest notable about it is that it's available for Win, Mac and Linux...I cannot think of any other edit proggie that can make that claim, and the free version is pretty amazing. But like Da Vinci, if you pony up the thousands for the hardware, it's even more amazing.
Now that I am semi-retired (eyesight issues) I wonder if it's worth me 0bothering to learn Lightworks, but I recommend that anyone getting into the business learn the following:
AVID, FCP X, Premiere Pro and Lightworks.
Learn them all and get good with them all.
And get good with Photoshop and GIMP both, and learn Maya and at least one other piece of image compositing SFX software, too.
I may just go ahead and pay an expert to walk me through Lightworks for a week anyway just because it's good brain food anyway, even if I don't get hired to work with it ever. Thirty-five years in the industry, much of it with AVID and I am comfortable with that.
I just like the idea of making Lightworks "my bitch" because I want to say I can.
If you're a beginner, use iMovie for Mac or get Vegas Movie Studio for Win, you can't go wrong and they're both super cheap but super powerful.
An iPhone is a phone that can shoot great video but it is still NOT a "video camera" anymore than a DSLR is a video camera.
A video camera is a video camera.
My FAVORITE video camera? An ARRI Alexa. I've used them at least two dozen times but I rented them.
A complete Alexa with good glass runs well into the hundred thousand dollar range or higher, too rich for my blood at age 62.
But they're super tasty...sigh.
For a beginner? Best entry level HD video camera?
Canon VIXIA HF R800
It's two hundred bucks ($200-250) but you can shoot news, reality TV, papparazzi and even corporate or event video with it.
No, it's not professional grade but you'll see pros faking it with one in a pinch all the time, like when they need to shoot an easy setup car interior shot, for instance.
Double your money and go with a Panasonic H-CV770, get a load of the features on this one. It even allows you to use an external mic (or a wireless audio receiver) for pro audio.
Or go 4K all the way with the PANASONIC HC-WXF991K for about 800 bucks.
Hope that helps!
Not being too computer savvy, can you give me an example of a Vegas Pro plug-n?
All I've got to go on is imovie. Even without a broad array of experience I can still say it's not very user friendly, but I don't edit movies a lot so I'm not willing to drop the money on something better.
~ Hope that helps!
Wow, thanks for all of this great advice!
You sure know your stuff.
Friend of mine swears by Da Vinci - he's tried getting me to use it (I output stop motion, sometimes with sound) and Premiere CC 2018 finally does for me what Windows movie maker (don't laugh) used to do easily. Photoshop is a go-to for me - but I use CS5.5 as well as CC18
Of course I forgot to mention Adobe After Effects. Even if you don't want to buy the entire Adobe suite, or get on the newer subscription based versions, even an older copy (CS4 or CS5) of After Effects is extremely powerful, and well worth the money.
After Effects is somewhat daunting but once you get used to the learning curve you will be amazed at what it can do.
Simply put, After Effects is "Photoshop for motion picture footage", that's all there is to it. It's even more than that but just to start with, it is like having the power of Photoshop for a moving image.
You sure know your stuff.
Friend of mine swears by Da Vinci - he's tried getting me to use it (I output stop motion, sometimes with sound) and Premiere CC 2018 finally does for me what Windows movie maker (don't laugh) used to do easily. Photoshop is a go-to for me - but I use CS5.5 as well as CC18
Thanks, very helpful advice! I'm just starting out and will using it mainly to showcase work projects, so will be using my iPhone for a little while. I find iMovie underwhelming so want to purchase a program that's not too expensive but effective. I'm probably going to purchase a gimbal on Cyber Monday, more than likely the DJL Osmo 2 or Zhiyun Smooth 4. Pretty awesome realizing what smooth footage you can get from one of these, which cost around $120!
Simply put, After Effects is "Photoshop for motion picture footage", that's all there is to it. It's even more than that but just to start with, it is like having the power of Photoshop for a moving image.
It's not that Windows Movie Maker was terrible, it was just very limited, that's all. ~
Appreciate all of your great advice! It looks like AVID recommends 32 GB memory but will accept 16 GB (Windows), and I'm guessing that most worthwhile editing programs will probably demand the same. Can you recommend an economical computer that can handle this kind of program? I really don't need it for much else.
Nope, I cannot recommend ANY "economical" computers for something like video editing because the term implies that you can get something for "nothing" or for "relatively little" when video editing, graphics and compositing are more demanding tasks than even the most sophisticated gaming programs.
Complex layered video and graphics timelines will bring an economical computer to its knees.
And, if you adjust your render output to compensate, you wind up sacrificing bit depth, or bit rate, or resolution, or some combination of all three.
Simply put, "GIGO"...garbage in = garbage out.
The simple math dictates that one cannot cut corners without risking GETTING cut on the return path somehow.
You will need the best and fastest processor, quad core minimum with a large cache, the fastest RAM and the best and fastest video graphics cards, and you will want to use a 64 bit OS and 64 bit versions of the software. (32 bit is DEAD)
You're going to want multiple hard drives, with the largest cache available and you're going to want a motherboard with the fastest throughput.
And personally speaking, while I know people do edit on their laptops, I liken it to using a garden tractor to plow the back forty for the wheat crop. You can't go wrong with the Hewlett-Packard HPz enterprise level workstation models.
The HPz line has been the default recommendation by AVID since HP first started making them in the late 1990's and while HP consumer level computers are dodgy, it appears that HP has always been totally serious about their HPz line of professional machines.
Start with Videoguys.com and check out their 2017 recommendations.
I know that they don't recommend Win 8/8.1 but I have had zero issues, but I do intend to migrate to Windows 10 and I recommend it for anyone. If you're building or buying new, you're going to wind up with Windows 10.
By the way, there's plenty of tips to streamline your Windows 10 OS to make it run even faster and better.
The most obvious one for any power user is to go directly to the advanced system settings and, inside the PERFORMANCE tab, turn OFF "Let Windows decide what's best for my computer" and select "Adjust for best performance".
That's just the tip of the iceberg.
Good to know, thanks so much!
If the money is an issue, consider looking for secondhand or refurbished HPz enterprise workstations.
They're really tough as nails and refurb models can be very very cheap.
Cheap, as in maybe around a thousand bucks versus two or three thousand (or even $4-5K) for this year's exact same model.
The motherboards on the z Series machines are all the equivalent of mil-spec because as advertised, they have to meet mission critical performance and durability standards. A lot of businesses and agencies that procure them also toss them after five years because they are budgeted to do so and they cannot amortize them for tax purposes anymore after five years.
So out they go, and these outfits spend the budget to acquire the new ones, but that doesn't mean that the old ones are spent and worn out. Generally when you get one, the hard drives are missing, so you have to load new ones and install your OS yourself.
I've seen people get ten or even fifteen years out of an HP-z Series workstation and they're still functioning when they let them go, so it's worth looking into.
A lot of them were built to work on Windows 7 most likely but I assure you they're going to work fine with Windows 10.
Good to know, thanks! This is really great advice because I do want to make quality videos and best to know the cost before buying a bunch of bull **** that I'll have to get rid of anyway.
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