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Video editing software in 2020? MP4 specifically?


JL Sargent

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There are cheap ones and expensive ones but you have to memorize about at least 100 terminologies to know what you are doing. I personally use Magix Vegas Pro which is about $600.00.

Your Windows machine will do it for nothing.

JJK

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  • 3 months later...

Premiere Elements, Power Director, Pinnacle...all competent and turn out stuff in the right hands as good as the multi thousand dollar spread. I've produced hundreds of videos going back to 2 inch quad, and Final Cut, Premiere Pro, and such are more fraternity stuff to impress employers who think your ability to master overly complex and click happy software somehow means you must be a pro. Granted, stuff like Adobe FX is really necessary in some top end videos, but only a fraction. Take your pick, then learn to edit. I learned by "editing spaghetti," 8mm film with scissors and scotch tape. It is  not about software, but about skill. As mentioned, there is plenty of freeware that will work nicely in the right hands, but a hundred bucks gets you excellent titling, pan, scan, and zoom, and more than enough transitions to make your audience sick if you have no taste. I am pretty much about cuts and dissolves myself. 

Dave

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11 minutes ago, Mallette said:

I am pretty much about cuts and dissolves myself. 

Works for me.   I never did any 8/super 8, but a lot of 16mm reversal (ektachrome). Those were the days. I watch our local news stations and they don't tell a story with their shots at all. Now the cost is nil (no film/processing costs) and they have the same four or five shots they repeat. Makes me ill.

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2 hours ago, Marvel said:

I never did any 8/super 8, but a lot of 16mm reversal (ektachrome).

7242? That was the goto "film at 11" stuff for TV. We shot a lot of it, but finally managed to  get them to pay for ASA 8 Kodachrome negative which required  nuclear fusion to  light but was SO pretty. 

Dave

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Had to do positive for the news... mag stripe for sound. Turnaround time was crucial.

 

I hated when the first video gear came out. I was srill shooting film when I changed careers, but the video gear was stupid heavy  they had got the film camera weight down to where I could carry it, lol.

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Video editor for android? Seriously? I'd rather eat glass. Even with 64gb RAM a very fast processor, and WD Black SN750 NVMe SSD drives I can just almost get real time render of HD video. God knows what agony producing video on android would be like. Windows or Mac are bad enough.

Dave

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I have been recruited to shoot some very hastily written videos for where I work (training videos about Covid-19). Shooting them with my phone... hate it.

 

Found an app for better video/camera controls. $15... and people complain about the high price. I still can use my old version of Premiere Pro to edit them. I quit buying after I got CS4. I suppose I could use Cinelerra. It's open source and free.

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I use Power Director 18 most of the time. I have the entire Adobe applications including Premiere Pro, but find it way too click happy and slow unless I need something really special. Even then, I only do the segment that requires that level and then do the rest in faster, smaller footprint programs. At least in my work, phone video is totally not acceptable. However, the difference between the output of a 100.00 editing program and the high price spread is simply not visible. 

 

Dave

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11 hours ago, Mallette said:

At least in my work, phone video is totally not acceptable. However, the difference between the output of a 100.00 editing program and the high price spread is simply not visible. 

 

This is where I'm stuck. While still at the college doing IT work, I was able to get everything Adobe made. Pre cloud based, the Adobe Master Collection listed at $2400. I got it for $400!!!

 

I haven't touched 90% of it, but it's all mine.

 

I have no access to any kind ov video camera other than my phone, and it isn't my job.

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3 hours ago, Marvel said:

I have no access to any kind ov video camera other than my phone, and it isn't my job.

Video is easy enough these days if one still keeps a camera around. Of course, being an old timer whose had a real camera every since I was a teenager, I still do. Phones are fine for snapshots but when I want to take real photographs I go for the DSLR. A year or two older model Pentax is as cheap as phone and lasts much longer...plus does HD video. Of course, good lenses are no cheaper than ever, but they still last forever so I've collected a few. I am also a fan of "big honkn' strobes" and last year bought a 400 watt second one I've yet to full exploit. Attached picture covers about a quarter of a mile. Of course, could have lit it up more with a tripod and multiple firings. 

CossatotNightsml.png

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1 hour ago, Mallette said:

Video is easy enough these days if one still keeps a camera around. Of course, being an old timer whose had a real camera every since I was a teenager, I still do. Phones are fine for snapshots but when I want to take real photographs I go for the DSLR. A year or two older model Pentax is as cheap as phone and lasts much longer...plus does HD video. Of course, good lenses are no cheaper than ever, but they still last forever so I've collected a few. I am also a fan of "big honkn' strobes" and last year bought a 400 watt second one I've yet to full exploit. Attached picture covers about a quarter of a mile. Of course, could have lit it up more with a tripod and multiple firings. 

CossatotNightsml.png

 

I don't agree with you at all that video is easy nowadays. Well I guess it is if you ignore stability, aspect ratio, color correction, flowing sequences, focus, contrast, color saturation, sound sync, fades, special effects, titles, composition, and memorizing the 300 or so technical terms all used by videographers and editors.

JJK

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2 hours ago, JJkizak said:

I don't agree with you at all that video is easy nowadays.

I believe you are making assumptions. I started out pulling focus with a focus chain. Used crystal sync on a Nagra 4L and modified a three deck 16mm magnetic film mixdown deck to output to a sync'd Nagra so as to have three sources to mix down. Problem was that if I made ANY mistake I got to start over from the beginning. The film was 12 ASA Kodachrome reversal best lit using small nuclear devices. Usually took about 20kw to light a small 15X15 or so area at night. Needless to say, all this was massively heavy and bulky and a 5 person crew would be shot to hell by the end of a day. THAT is what I consider hard. 3/4" Beta was an improvement, and things got better from there. Now, I can take my DSLR, a couple of very light LED lights (actually, the big honkn' strobe above at 30 flashes per second works nicely as well) and a good single point stereo mike and a lav and do a shoot on my own. Stability and white balance are so good I never have any need for corrections like you mentioned. Maybe after 600 or so films and videos I just get it right. However, I do NOT consider myself a videographer. I am a generalist. I hired my best friend who I met back in the film days to run my video department. He insisted on all the stuff you mentioned because it's what video people do. Not a soul except one of you would ever see the difference unless the video wasn't shot correctly in the first place. Audio engineer? Yes...I claim that and learned all the pricey stuff in Audition and such are also totally superfluous if you get it right in the field. You can't fix crap. I use Audacity. 

Images are me with my Nagra and EV642 mike. Using my own mixing chart with the rig described above. The Maggie is NOT the one I used and was newer. Mine was vacuum tube yummy. 

 

Just my humble opinion but made a good living practicing the above. 

Dave 

Slide037.png

Slide040.png

magnasync.jpg

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On 6/30/2020 at 10:03 PM, Mallette said:

Premiere Elements, Power Director, Pinnacle...all competent and turn out stuff in the right hands as good as the multi thousand dollar spread. I've produced hundreds of videos going back to 2 inch quad, and Final Cut, Premiere Pro, and such are more fraternity stuff to impress employers who think your ability to master overly complex and click happy software somehow means you must be a pro. Granted, stuff like Adobe FX is really necessary in some top end videos, but only a fraction. Take your pick, then learn to edit. I learned by "editing spaghetti," 8mm film with scissors and scotch tape. It is  not about software, but about skill. As mentioned, there is plenty of freeware that will work nicely in the right hands, but a hundred bucks gets you excellent titling, pan, scan, and zoom, and more than enough transitions to make your audience sick if you have no taste. I am pretty much about cuts and dissolves myself. 

Dave

thank you

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2 hours ago, Mallette said:

I believe you are making assumptions. I started out pulling focus with a focus chain. Used crystal sync on a Nagra 4L and modified a three deck 16mm magnetic film mixdown deck to output to a sync'd Nagra so as to have three sources to mix down. Problem was that if I made ANY mistake I got to start over from the beginning. The film was 12 ASA Kodachrome reversal best lit using small nuclear devices. Usually took about 20kw to light a small 15X15 or so area at night. Needless to say, all this was massively heavy and bulky and a 5 person crew would be shot to hell by the end of a day. THAT is what I consider hard. 3/4" Beta was an improvement, and things got better from there. Now, I can take my DSLR, a couple of very light LED lights (actually, the big honkn' strobe above at 30 flashes per second works nicely as well) and a good single point stereo mike and a lav and do a shoot on my own. Stability and white balance are so good I never have any need for corrections like you mentioned. Maybe after 600 or so films and videos I just get it right. However, I do NOT consider myself a videographer. I am a generalist. I hired my best friend who I met back in the film days to run my video department. He insisted on all the stuff you mentioned because it's what video people do. Not a soul except one of you would ever see the difference unless the video wasn't shot correctly in the first place. Audio engineer? Yes...I claim that and learned all the pricey stuff in Audition and such are also totally superfluous if you get it right in the field. You can't fix crap. I use Audacity. 

Images are me with my Nagra and EV642 mike. Using my own mixing chart with the rig described above. The Maggie is NOT the one I used and was newer. Mine was vacuum tube yummy. 

 

Just my humble opinion but made a good living practicing the above. 

Dave 

Slide037.png

Slide040.png

magnasync.jpg

Sorry I was only referring to post editing with digital footage. Yes, film was a nightmare compared to nowadays. I had very limited experience with 16mm film outdoor and indoor.

JJK

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32 minutes ago, JJkizak said:

Sorry I was only referring to post editing with digital footage.

No problem, JJ. First digital experience was with the Video Toaster that started it all. It was like skipping a hundred years ahead. So blown away I went to the first conference in Minniapolis where I met Tim Jenison, the inventor, and Kiki Stockhammer, the girl in all of what we called "cheesy Toaster effects." Believe it or not, I just threw away the video toaster overnight bag that served me for decades until last week when the main zipper finally failed. Guess I should have at least took a picture. Wish the Toaster itself had lasted so long...MUCH superior to vector based PC of today. Few realized that video is STILL raster in nature. Converting to and from vector to bitmap is very CPU intensive and very clumsy. The raster domain did many things that are simply not possible in the vector. Most think that cutting something out and finding it always square is just the norm for a computer. Not at all. 
Anyway, irrelevant now as we are stuck using word processors for video editors. I used to load 400 frames of animation and move from one to the other instantly. That would choke a machine today. Animation on PCs is a nightmare.

OK, enough reminiscing. Past is past and I work with what we have.

 

Dave

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2 hours ago, Mallette said:

Past is past and I work with what we have.

 

I work with what I have, too. I've no problem with audio, as I have multiple programs for that (audacity, goldwave, fl studio and both versions of Harrison's mixbus). Also still have my teac 3340s and alesis adat-xt digital recorder and tascam dat.

 

With the pandemic, I've not been able to borrow any digital camera, so yes, I'm stuck with my phone. Is what it is...

 

And no time to play...

 

Always wanted a Nagra

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2 hours ago, Marvel said:

Always wanted a Nagra

Kudelski didn't just produce the finest equipment, they were works of are made by electronic technicians with the skills of jewelers. Pretty sure one would last a hundred years. A mono 4L like the one in the photo was 5k in 1975. But worth every penny of it as they were failure proof unless run over by a truck. Never had a failure in 3 years of rough field duty with that one. Wold recommend every audiophile that isn't familiar with Kudelski research that name. Prepare to be astounded just short of Paul Klipsch.

 

Dave

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