Video Editing Software

[Gongalong]

Hi folks,

 

I'm after recommendations for Windows based video editing software. Currently we use a mix of Adobe Elements (an older version) and MovieMaker.

 

The Head of ICT would like something a bit better than MovieMaker, so I'm just checking whether we should upgrade Elements, or try something else? (is there anything free?)

 

TIA

[plexer]

Main recommendation seems to be Serif Movie Plus which is what we use, they'll give you a trial.

 

Ben

[Bananas]

Seconded, un until recently I despised the Serif stuff, in fact a lot of it I still do but Movieplus is a real GEM. Well worth the money

[plexer]

I too used to think the same but the instructions and tools they provide for making a network deployable version are really good.

 

Ben

[localzuk]

Another Serif MoviePlus recommendation here. Its easy to use, doesn't generate *massive* project files like Elements and doesn't have the instability of Movie Maker.

 

Deployment is so simple, they've really put effort into making it school friendly!

 

Plus, its pretty cheap. We got 600 licenses for £1500, and that included a free video camera, 5 individual copies for staff to use on their own machines, and 5 printed manuals.

[Bananas]

Oh yeah not a problem with that side of things. I meant more from a usage PoV I don't like things "master pages" when building websites and I also had huge problems when students were linking 2 websites they'd created together. If they ticked the embed box or linked a website as a file (which seems logical, you have another index.html file to link, it's a file ergo link file) then when you publish the work it goes horribly wrong, errors all over the place, half publishes one site and half the other with no pictures and you just TRY finding out what the problem is.

 

I spent a day trying to figure out why none of these portfolios would publish till I found that. It's just little things like that that bug me about it. Deployment tools are excellent and it is fairly idiot proof too......

 

I haven't found any problems like that in Movieplus though it really is EXCELLENT. I haven't had one single scream of it's crashed taking all my work with it (unlike Movie Maker, XP version)

Edited June 29, 2012 by Bananas

[FragglePete]

I use Sony Vegas Studio at home and it's pretty good. The education site license is only about £500, but I haven't been able to persuade them to get it here yet.

 

We've got the site license for CS4 Master Collection which includes Premiere Pro, but it's just too heavy handed for a School environment. Most of the students use Movie Maker!

 

Pete

[cookie_monsta]

 

Plus, its pretty cheap. We got 600 licenses for £1500, and that included a free video camera, 5 individual copies for staff to use on their own machines, and 5 printed manuals.

 

you got all that for £1500? is that primary or secondary pricing? can i have the name of the sales guy please?

 

Chap im dealing with at Serif wants £599 for 30 licences for a primary school....not extras or anything

[sonofsanta]

This is not necessarily more powerful than Movie Maker, but is free and online so students can access it from home (which seems to count for big brownie points with my IT teacher, at least)

WeVideo - Collaborative Online Video Editor in the Cloud

[localzuk]

you got all that for £1500? is that primary or secondary pricing? can i have the name of the sales guy please?

 

Chap im dealing with at Serif wants £599 for 30 licences for a primary school....not extras or anything

 

Secondary pricing. The base price is about what you say, but adding an extra 100 licenses is like £100 or something.

[plexer]

We paid £1500 for 32 licences, feelign robbed now.

 

Ben

[localzuk]

We paid £1500 for 32 licences, feelign robbed now.

 

Ben

 

You got ripped off there somehow! All the resellers have the following prices listed... So, I did get a good deal, but it isn't *that* different to the prices below when you also look at their 'full suite' pricing, where each extra 100 licenses costs £100.

 

Serif MoviePlus X5 - Single Boxed ProductWIN£39.95

Serif MoviePlus X5 - 10 User PackWIN£259.00

Serif MoviePlus X5 - 20 User PackWIN£499.00

Serif MoviePlus X5 - 30 User PackWIN£599.00

Serif MoviePlus X5 - 50 User PackWIN£799.00

Serif MoviePlus X5 - 100 User PackWIN£1,399.00

[Bananas]

This is not necessarily more powerful than Movie Maker, but is free and online so students can access it from home (which seems to count for big brownie points with my IT teacher, at least)

WeVideo - Collaborative Online Video Editor in the Cloud

 

I'm LOVING that. We use Google extensively mostly for the students email but also apps and it's beautifully integrated into Google and Google Drive. Thanks very much I love it!!

[RTFM]

It's ok recommending Serif because its cheap but at the end of the day is that 'industry standard' and adding value to the students? They'll use Serif in school, leave and then have what experience of real life video editing software will they have?

 

Somewhere between 'none' and 'very little'.

 

It's sometimes a case of stepping back and thinking, what will add the most value to the students in later life? I'm not sure Serif does that. Just a personal opinion.....

[Steve21]

It's ok recommending Serif because its cheap but at the end of the day is that 'industry standard' and adding value to the students? They'll use Serif in school, leave and then have what experience of real life video editing software will they have?

 

Somewhere between 'none' and 'very little'.

 

It's sometimes a case of stepping back and thinking, what will add the most value to the students in later life? I'm not sure Serif does that. Just a personal opinion.....

 

Isn't the point to learn the underlaying skills of how it works. Not how to click a certain button though?

 

It's like saying don't use open office, as everyone uses ms office. End of day whether you have a button with a cow, or a button with a dog. If it does the same thing it's the same skills surely?

 

Just think relying on a single program isn't always the best option, especially when you'll find every "industry standard" program is only standard in a small area. Take business/accounting etc. Is excel standard? access? sage? insert 5milllllllion more programs.

 

Some would say teaching kids to click a button is setting them more back then teaching them what a button does.

 

Just my opinion though

 

Thanks,

Steve

[RTFM]

Isn't the point to learn the underlaying skills of how it works. Not how to click a certain button though?

 

It's like saying don't use open office, as everyone uses ms office. End of day whether you have a button with a cow, or a button with a dog. If it does the same thing it's the same skills surely?

 

Just think relying on a single program isn't always the best option, especially when you'll find every "industry standard" program is only standard in a small area. Take business/accounting etc. Is excel standard? access? sage? insert 5milllllllion more programs.

 

Some would say teaching kids to click a button is setting them more back then teaching them what a button does.

 

Just my opinion though

 

Thanks,

Steve

 

Valid points but in the case of video editing why use a package then, why not use movie maker? It's a very simple video editing package but you can still crop / add transitions / sound effects / titles.

 

I just think getting students familiar with a more complicated package (for example adobe master collection) will benefit them more in the future than something like serif.

 

At my school we had the full serif suite, we still do as some teachers can't bare to be dragged away from it, we also purchase adobe CS4 master collection and the work being done in media, film studies and photography using adobe eclipses any work in school done in serif (often by the same students in different subjects).

 

I believe we are adding more value to students allowing them access and experience of packages like photoshop, illustrator, indesign, premiere and dreamweaver than if we just had serif.

 

I know I have digressed slightly away from just video ediing into a broader discussion but I consider the whole thing very much linked.

 

It's just frustrating seeing pupils held back on occassions because the teacher can't keep up with them using adobe so forces the use of serif and the work / student suffers.

 

It is partly down to money but then they do say you get what you pay for and I don't believe anyone would honestly say a full serif package is as good a product as an Adobe master collection (whether it be cs4, 5.5 or 6). Perhaps I'm wrong....

[localzuk]

It's ok recommending Serif because its cheap but at the end of the day is that 'industry standard' and adding value to the students? They'll use Serif in school, leave and then have what experience of real life video editing software will they have?

 

Somewhere between 'none' and 'very little'.

 

It's sometimes a case of stepping back and thinking, what will add the most value to the students in later life? I'm not sure Serif does that. Just a personal opinion.....

 

Schools teach transferable skills, not individual packages. We have to remember this when someone tries to insist on a program being 'industry standard'. It may be industry standard *now* but in a few years time?

 

And why not WMM? Because it is unstable and not a nice package to use to teach those skills. The sheer size of files that Adobe Premier and Premier Elements produces rules it out for widespread use here.

Edited June 29, 2012 by localzuk

[RTFM]

Schools teach transferable skills, not individual packages. We have to remember this when someone tries to insist on a program being 'industry standard'. It may be industry standard *now* but in a few years time?

 

In a few years time wouldn't you have swapped packages to something more current as part of a rolling cycle anyway? Teaching transferable skills is obviously what schools should be doing, but at the same time schools need to produce results and from my experience quality of work done in Adobe CS4 is better than in Serif X whatever version we have, X4?

 

I'm only using Adobe CS4 as my example as it's relevant to me as we have it in school.

 

And why not WMM? Because it is unstable and not a nice package to use to teach those skills. The sheer size of files that Adobe Premier and Premier Elements produces rules it out for widespread use here.

 

We have plenty of free space currently on our SAN's so file size's doesn't concern us as much, obviously this changes from school to school depending on your hardware so granted, something to consider before buying.

 

Having said that for a 3 - 5minute video (which our KS5 produce for media and film studies) the main file sizes to consider are the original video media rather than the Premiere project itself. The render files themselves can't be ignored admittedly but still nothing to worry about too much from my experience.

 

 

Ultimately I'm not arguing the principal people are pushing about not teaching a software but teaching a skill but I am arguing that you can do both and give the students some better experience and end results.

 

My view may be tainted by the teaching staff within my own school and the frustrations with them but I will still stand by my point that in my opinion Serif isn't as good an overall software package as Adobe.

[timbo343]

We have started using cyberlink power director. Had no complains at all with it.

[localzuk]

In a few years time wouldn't you have swapped packages to something more current as part of a rolling cycle anyway? Teaching transferable skills is obviously what schools should be doing, but at the same time schools need to produce results and from my experience quality of work done in Adobe CS4 is better than in Serif X whatever version we have, X4?

 

I'm only using Adobe CS4 as my example as it's relevant to me as we have it in school.

 

So if the industry standard package is gonna change, why teach to it, at a cost of 5x as much as Serif?

 

We have plenty of free space currently on our SAN's so file size's doesn't concern us as much, obviously this changes from school to school depending on your hardware so granted, something to consider before buying.

 

Having said that for a 3 - 5minute video (which our KS5 produce for media and film studies) the main file sizes to consider are the original video media rather than the Premiere project itself. The render files themselves can't be ignored admittedly but still nothing to worry about too much from my experience.

 

Our experience has been very different. Average project from Premiere Elements - > 1GB in size for a tiny video + source videos. Same project done in Serif, < 100Mb, including all the source files.

 

And then there's backups of all those files.

 

Ultimately I'm not arguing the principal people are pushing about not teaching a software but teaching a skill but I am arguing that you can do both and give the students some better experience and end results.

 

My view may be tainted by the teaching staff within my own school and the frustrations with them but I will still stand by my point that in my opinion Serif isn't as good an overall software package as Adobe.

 

And our budget doesn't need to stretch to that. We own CS3 Design Premium, and Serif. Master suite for our site would be over £10k, as we have more than 500 PCs. We've not found anything that Adobe can do that Serif can't, that is relevant to the courses being taught.

[RTFM]

So if the industry standard package is gonna change, why teach to it, at a cost of 5x as much as Serif?

 

In our experience you'd pay for the end results, which as I have said are much better in CS4 than in Serif. Perhaps that's the teachers who are using the packages? We have the same teachers using CS4 as did Serif and the quality of work being produced has increased dramatically from those courses. The courses still using Serif havent really changed at all in terms of quality of work in the same time scale. As I say, perhaps thats the teachers? Maybe the software plays a part? Maybe it's the pupils using it or a combination of all 3....

 

Our experience has been very different. Average project from Premiere Elements - > 1GB in size for a tiny video + source videos. Same project done in Serif, < 100Mb, including all the source files.

 

And then there's backups of all those files.

 

As I said, and I know this changes from school to school, the file sizes don't particularly worry us if the work is of sufficient quality to warrant it and we have the space for the students to have the sorts of file sizes your speaking of. A project of 1gb isn't exactly massive though and when coursework is only 3-5minutes long as it is on the courses we teach, the projects aren't going to be 'massive'.

 

We purposefully bought the space on both our SAN's to handle this though with the knowledge we have a lot of media courses which do produce some fairly large file sizes. 1gb per student doesnt sound like a lot until there are 60 students, and that's just one course so yes, file size is a consideration but if you are planning on using the software, you buy the hardware to support it. That goes across all subjects / software packages though, not just the example of Serif vs Adobe.

 

And our budget doesn't need to stretch to that. We own CS3 Design Premium, and Serif. Master suite for our site would be over £10k, as we have more than 500 PCs. We've not found anything that Adobe can do that Serif can't, that is relevant to the courses being taught.

 

We paid £10k for CS4 Master Collection nearly 3 years ago, with the level of use it has had and the work it has helped to produce it was money well spent. We probably wont be upgrading from CS4 for another 12 - 24 months I wouldn't have thought. Like i said though, our media, photography and film courses didn't produce the type of work they do now when they used Serif even though it's the same staff teaching them.

 

It will obviously vary from school to school depending on budget, teacher capabilities etc.

 

 

You can also put Adobe on Mac's, if a school has some maybe thats a consideration, I dont think you can with Serif can you?

Edited June 29, 2012 by RTFM

[RTFM]

By the way, apologies if this is all taking the thread off topic @Gongalong, maybe this debate will help you to decide what is best and give you some things to consider beside just which package is best

[plexer]

I'll have to correct myself and say the £1500 we paid was for 32 licences of the whole suite not just Movie Plus.

 

Ben

[Chris_Cook]

I think it depends a lot on the course. For teaching a full course on video editing or media studies it probably makes sense to use final cut or adobe premier. If your doing a module that's a couple of weeks long, then you may not have the time to teach a full video editing package. It might be that the project is to produce a video about a topic and not be about learning video editing. Also, in a busy school the teachers may not have time to learn new software.

 

Its all about having the right tools for the job. Given good source footage, I think you can get some pretty good results with serif.

 

And frankly, Windows Movie Maker can't die soon enough.

[glennda]

Pugh do the site license for Sony Vegas Pro site license for £2500 with just Movie Studio 750

 

Both unlimited users.

Sony Education Site Licenses | Sony | Products | - discounted software for education establishments