danboid Posted June 29, 2012 Posted June 29, 2012 I'm disappointed no-one has mentioned Blender yet as it has a perfectly capable and really quite easy to learn and use video editor built in, its totally free and open source and available for all major and minor operating systems- you do not need to know how to use any of Blenders 3D modelling or compositing features to edit video with it although it all helps. What blender lacks is an easy way to do simple animated 2D video titling but I solved this prob using GIMP + GAP - Linux users can compile the latest gap git easy enough but we're waiting on a new GIMP GAP release for windows afaik so that you can export pngs or tiffs with transparencies then import the frames into Blender to do credits etc. without having to master Blender in full. Maybe there is a different, free app for video titling that could be used under Windows to accompany Blender? I suspect you could pull it off with a paint app and ffmpeg with some command line fu and patience but thats not such a kiddy and consumer friendly solution as GIMP/GAP which lets you point and click your creation. 1
danboid Posted June 29, 2012 Posted June 29, 2012 As for other great free video editors, Linux users can enjoy KDEnlive which has been compared to Sony Vegas and soon both Windows and Linux users will be able to get Lightworks, the original profressional video editor dating back to '89 used for many feature films, soon to be open sourced! 1
Gongalong Posted July 2, 2012 Author Posted July 2, 2012 Thanks all for the great quantity and quality of replies! Very much appreciated, along with the discussions also
Bananas Posted July 2, 2012 Posted July 2, 2012 As for other great free video editors, Linux users can enjoy KDEnlive which has been compared to Sony Vegas and soon both Windows and Linux users will be able to get Lightworks, the original profressional video editor dating back to '89 used for many feature films, soon to be open sourced! The free version of Lightworks is pretty much crippled on codecs. Just tried it with some MOV and 3gp files from my phone and just comes up with unlicensed format - balls I was looking forward to using that, I don't want to have to format factory all my files first. Dammit!
Achandler Posted July 2, 2012 Posted July 2, 2012 Sony Vegas might be cheap but is a nightmare to deploy! As for the argument about the industry standard, we have both installed and pupils choose which to use. Some cannot grasp using Adobe products and prefer Serif, others prefer Adobe. If our pupils were all forced to use Adobe, then i imagine the average grade would decrease, if they were all forced to sue Serif then I imagine the top grades might decrease. it's down to two things, cost and then personal preference. Most of the students won't ever do more video editing then that they learn in school, so the industry standard won't apply for them. The ones that will go on to video edit, I feel sorry for as well as by the time they get there we'll be on to Adobe 10 at the rate Adobe are publising! 1
danboid Posted July 2, 2012 Posted July 2, 2012 (edited) Bananas - Thats a shame to hear about Lightworks beta not opening your movs - you should report that as a bug if you've not already. I presume they play fine under VLC or whatever you normally use do they? 3gp is such poor quality I'm not surprised Lightworks aren't bothered about supporting that as its unusable for any semi-serious purposes - I wouldn't waste their time asking about it personally. As for converting your files- there is winff which is free for both Windows and Linux as is Lincoder, which should run on OSX too I'd imagine as its just a Java front end for mencoder. Achandler: Sony Vegas may be cheap but KDEnlive is not only totally free, its fully open source too and if you did have some Linux machines then its installed with one simple command under all popular Linux distros hence very easy to install and learn/use. I'm waiting for Lightworks to get released for Linux before I try that but I expect KDEnlive will be easier to use for beginners and kids (and everyone else too). KDEnlive is more than powerful enough for teaching kids the basics of video editing so I'd recommend anyone who's not locked into Windows for their video editing check it out. Edited July 2, 2012 by danboid
Bananas Posted July 2, 2012 Posted July 2, 2012 (edited) Sorry Danboid but you're wrong it's not a bug they don't support those codecs in the free version at all it's on their website I looked at the product comparison of the paid for vs free versions. As for the 3gp sorry mate but you're dead wrong there too those are from my Samsung Galaxy S2 and they're shot at 720p so hardly crappy and unusable at all. From a codec PoV it might not be the best/most versatile but you're wrong on quality front, very very wrong maybe back in the early days with a Nokia phone but the quality is amazing tbh! Anyway it's a codec paid for issue not a bug. I'm quite taken with the cloud based jobbie posted earlier works really well, fast and doesn't need much in the way of local resources very nice. I might have a go with Lightworks occassionally if I transcode my files first or I might even pay for a copy as it's so cheap but OOTB experience with the free version not good for my purposes sadly. As for directly transcoding Format Factory is fantastic, easy to use produces great results and is genuinely free. I'll have a look at what you suggest will see if it's any good but my general experience of AV stuff and Java = bad but with it just being a front end it's probably ok. Ta Edited July 2, 2012 by Bananas
danboid Posted July 2, 2012 Posted July 2, 2012 (edited) Bananas! Whoah! Chill out on the 3GP thing please! I'm just giving a few free software hints and tips mate! You seem to be right though - I thought there was a res or bitrate restriction on 3gp but a quick scan of its wiki makes no mention of such restrictions. Nonetheless, 3GP is not a format I would recommend anyone ever intentionally transcode to, mainly due to its limited support on both hardware and in software. xvid/avi is best for compat where quality is not a priority then I'd encode to webm if you want better quality and smaller file sizes but the file only has to play on computers. webm is my video format of choice because its open source, royalty free, high quality, good compression ratios AND You can play webm files under FF and Chrome without any extra plugins, so there! EDIT Remember to only use xvid and webm for distributing your final edits - you should avoid lossy formats like these during editing! Edited July 2, 2012 by danboid
Schappell Posted July 4, 2012 Posted July 4, 2012 (edited) At my workplace we use Pinnacle Studio 14 Ultimate, I would reccomend this. Its really easy to use. Here is their website - http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/us/Home/ Edited July 4, 2012 by Schappell
brewerd Posted August 10, 2012 Posted August 10, 2012 If you're still struggling for a free solution may i suggest VLC Movie Creator basic but easy to use, or the new windows live essentials Movie Maker, basically the movie maker replacement. I think they have released a new version this week too.
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