Video Editing Software Recommendation?

I bought a JVC 30gb HDD camcorder and it came with Powerdirector Express. I can upgrade for $45 to their better version. It records in MPEG files, so I need one that can handle that type. Anyone use cheap software they like? I just want to make videos for the kids, family and just mess around with it.

I've been using Ulead Video Studio 10 for my stuff but I also haven't done much comparison testing with everything else. If you have any features that you're looking for, I might be able to tell you if it does it.

Honestly, I don't know what I'm doing. I made a DVD last night with the software it came with and it was kind of grainy and digitized. Looking for clarity and ability to mess with putting photos as well as videos with background music in. Basically so the kids can show off their moto riding and taekwondo. Nothing fancy. I am not trying to make Iron Man 2. I was fine with Win Movie Maker, but it won't load MPEG videos. The software this camera came with is very similar, but tube won't take it and when you convert it, it gets junky.

Sounds like you need to alter some of the resolution settings in the software to take care of the quality issue.

Have you tried Windows Movie Maker? That's about as simple as it gets and it's included in XP.

Back in the day I worked in the industry, but don't know what's on the market now. There's a guy on the site from San Diego who is working as in editor now(can't remember who), hopefully he will see your post and chime in.

Looking at Win Movie Maker, the Import function allows MPEG to brought into Movie Maker. Did this not work for you?


File -> Import Into Collections -> Files of Types -> Select Video Files

Yea, that's what I saw, too. It doesn't even recognize my videos that say right on the thumbnails "MPEG". Trust me...Win Movie Maker is what I want to use.... I click my folder where all my videos are stored and it doesn't show any of them when I try to import to Win Movie Maker.

+1 on Ulead Video Studio.

Kayos said:

Yea, that's what I saw, too. It doesn't even recognize my videos that say right on the thumbnails "MPEG". Trust me...Win Movie Maker is what I want to use.... I click my folder where all my videos are stored and it doesn't show any of them when I try to import to Win Movie Maker.

Click to expand...

I could be wrong but i believe that windows movie maker only imports MPG2 files and I assume your new camera is MPG4. Pinnacle Studio is fairly simple to use but i found the older versions to be a bit buggy at times, i now use Sony Vegas Studio which is great. The recommendations on the ulead software are spot on, great software!

OK, let me do a little diarrhea of the mouth for a minute and maybe you all can help.

I can make the video with the software that came with the camera and it looks great and works fine.

When I convert it to a WMV file to go to youtube, it will only let me convert it to "color pocket pc". Which is a crappy file. If I try to do any of the Windows Media Video 9 (no idea what this means...I have Media Player 11), the only other options, it says "error, cannot create video". I uploaded the video to youtube

but you can see it is very poor quality.

Next....when you tell the program to "publish to disk", it takes you to another program to burn the disk (powerproducer). I tell it to burn in HD format (highest one) and it still looks grainy and digitized.

Third....If I convert it to AVI, it works great in WM player, but it is a gig per minute of video. Not a big deal, but can't upload that to youtube.

fermenator said:

I could be wrong but i believe that windows movie maker only imports MPG2 files and I assume your new camera is MPG4. Pinnacle Studio is fairly simple to use but i found the older versions to be a bit buggy at times, i now use Sony Vegas Studio which is great. The recommendations on the ulead software are spot on, great software!

Click to expand...

I'm currently using sony vegas studio which I think is great also. I used to use ulead video studio and I didn't really have any complaints about it either. They're both good IMO.

If you want to get ulead, you might try looking for a cheap firewire PC card that might include it with it. This was about a year ago, but I got a cheap firewire card (around $15) from newegg that included the full version of Ulead video studio 8. Granted version 10 was already released at the time, but version 8 was still very useable and for $15 you can't beat that deal since buying version 10 separately would have cost $75 or more.

a quick search pulled up this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815265003
for $16 you can throw away the firewire card and keep the software. There are cheaper bundles I found, but it looks like they come with version 5. If you go this route, do your homework first though and make sure version 8 will import the files you want. I imagine it will though.

While its not a full video editor like Ulead or adobe premiere. VirtualDub is a nice piece of freeware for converting between video and audio formats and trimming files. It takes a little getting used to and if you dont know much about the different formats available for video and audio you should read some of this stuff
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/video-guide-part-3,130.html

It looks like they're on 11.5 right now and there's a free trial download:

http://www.ulead.com/vs/features.htm

I was using version 9 for a long time and it LOOKS like the only thing they really did with 10 is support dolby digital sound mixing and added MP4 output (nice for IPODs).

Version 11 seemed to be all about doing HD formats.