Beagle,
 I'm always reluctant to recommend Vegas, but I do think you will find it super easy to learn.

 The more variety of video work you encounter the more you may begin to appreciate programs that don't focus on seeming easy but rather have deep tool sets.

 I haven't stayed current on the hardware technology, but to answer your question about processing... any and every improvement in processing power will have tangible time saving benefits. The requirements for full featured video editing are still beyond a desktop system that doesn't use specialized hardware acceleration.

 It's not like audio tech where we seem to be fairly satisfied.


 Many programs don't use all the processing power of desktop hardware. For example Final Cut has very deep features but didn't (and may still not???) have access to all the cores on a Intel chip. So, you had shops with 8 or 16 core machines and the inability to use them all.

 I use Premiere at home and most of our work a day clients use Avid hardware based systems or hot rodded Final Cut native systems. A few of my most tech savvy friends run Premier on the 16 core Mac and seem pretty happy.



 I would also point out that if you intend to keep it simple that Movie Maker or any quick cut edit app should work really well these days.


 I suggest you dive in by learning about codecs, transcoding, the problems that arise when trying to edit with capture or native codecs, the practical benefit of using intermediate codecs when editing, and the frequent necessity to render final output files with distribution codecs,

 It is very useful to learn how these concepts are used contextually to define a shops work flow.

 These days many cameras capture in a codec that is also popular as an distribution codec... but you will find it is best to edit in some intermediate codec that suits your editing system... you'll need to learn about transcoding to facilitate that.

 If you don't get a firm understanding of codecs you will bump into hard to understand issues as you work with different sources of video footage. Don't fool yourself and think you know about codecs until you have exhausted all attempts to grasp the definitions and application of those terms.

 I'm serious, if any of those terms seem hard to look up and learn about ask me and I'll elaborate as best I can.

 I'm emphasizing the concept of intermediate codecs because I frequently encounter working professionals who spent 60k learning how to edit video at a specialty institute that don't know what an intermediate codec is... and ironically most of them actually use one each and every day... but they only know one single workflow and it cripples them when a new source of footage shows up.

 Have fun.


 best regards,
mike

And where do I get that yellow round hat?

Gaffpro can't say I prefer vegas, but definitely think it's a great program. part of the reason i use Premiere Pro over vegas is the integration with other programs i use like After Effects. If there was a way to link vegas and After Effects projects the same way as i do with Premiere, I would likely use vegas more. There are things i like about vegas better and things i like about Premiere better. Like anything, how you are going to use the program is makes a world of difference. No doubt that vegas is much easier to learn, but premiere is fairly simple too and may have a slight not on features. I have taught video editing classes for Premiere pro and elements and beginners seemed to get the hang of it pretty quickly. Another advantage of vegas is that it has historically required a less powerful machine to achieve the same performance as compared to comparable editing software. When i was traveling, I could edit on vegas with a very modestly spec'd laptop that would totally choke on Premiere. All in all, i highly recommend trying both demos since what works well for me might not be your cup of tea. best of luck

mike_mccue


Beagle,
I'm always reluctant to recommend Vegas, but I do think you will find it super easy to learn.

The more variety of video work you encounter the more you may begin to appreciate programs that don't focus on seeming easy but rather have deep tool sets.

Mike, for those of us who don't do much video, I wonder if you could explain better what kind of features Vegas is missing? The version I have (Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 10) seems to me to have a quite deep tool set, but I'm really sort of clueless about this stuff compared to you.

Do you know if Vegas will work with 2k and 4k images? And when it says HD - 720 or 1080? Thanks

eidit doesn't work: I'm asking because on the amazon site it says "Support for any aspect ratio (4:3, 16:9, etc" & nbsp ;

vegas will support 4k, but if i were cutting a 4k project, it is likely that I am working on it with a team and the odds of that team using vegas are slim to none. It's not so much a knock on vegas as a statement about the reality of what is used in the high end world. In that world almost all editing is done on Avid with the occasional Final Cut Pro, Premiere Pro and occasional Lightworks appearance by very faithful editors (Scorcesse's editor still uses Lightworks). Even After Effects loses a lot of market at this scale because Compositing programs like Nuke, Smoke and Flame rule the roost when we enter that territory. If you want to experiment with some 4k footage, Vegas will do, but i can't image investing in the high end kind of system it takes to properly and effeciently produce a 4k project and then putting good but still prosumer product like vegas on it.

great discussion and info  thanks everyone!

Beag, grab the Corel X4 demo while you're at it... it's fairly simple consumer-grade stuff, but with a few "advanced" features... like HD video, blu-ray burning, 3d output, multiple video/audio tracks, chroma key, intel & amd optimizations (inc. multi-core), cuda support, etc. And cheap at $50 download. From a compositional perspective it'll be limited compared to, say vegas... so for example, if you have complex soundtrack requirements requiring VST plugs for mixing, etc., you'll probably have to do that outside of X4 and import your soundrack into X4. From that perspective, the cheaper Vegas option might be a bit better, depending on needs (though I think the cheaper Vegas has some substantial limitations compared to it's big brother... like no multi-core support?)... but for basic import MPG/AVI/etc. video from a camera, non-linear editing, and multi-format output, X4 is a good value. There's no upgrade path as there would be w/ the vegas, however... 

http://www.corel.com/corel/product/index.jsp?pid=prod3910160&cid=catalog50008&segid=1153&storeKey=ca&languageCode=en