Sony Vegas Platinum Edition or PE4 ???

[hollogram]

Hi,
My first post on the forum. I am just about to embark on my first couple of video editing projects on a PC (the last time I edited video it was 1993 or something). I am very comfortable with technnology and use Photoshop CS3 quite a bit. Before I embark on my first project I need to choose my video editing software. Budget is around the £100 mark or less. I have a sealed copy of PE4 on my desk and have downloaded Sony Vegas Move Studio Platinum Edition.

So ....... PE4 or Sony Vegas Move Studio Platinum Edition ??

I've heard good things about both. I was going to go for PE4 but then I read about the corruption issue so looked at Vegas as an alternative. I've just read the corruption issue in PE4 is sorted but still think Vegas might be the one to go for.

I expect to be editing a few videos a year and whichever one start using I will want to stick with. Lastly I need to decide today as have a deadline for the first video which is getting nearer by the day and I haven't started yet.

So - any suggestions / comments welcome.
Thanks.

[Chuck Engels]

Welcome to the group Hollogram Glad to have you drop by!

What is the source of what you will be editing? What type of video camera, still photos, mpeg files?
What do you want to produce with the software, DVD, Flash, for home, web?
What are your system specs, alot depends on your computer too

[Steve Grisetti]

I agree with Chuck. There is no one-size-fits-all solution.

Start with what types of files you want to edit and consider what you want to output. Different programs do different things better.

[hollogram]

Hi,
Source will be DV plus some stills to be output on DVD. A couple of wedding videos, some snowboarding dvds and the odd short film.
Nothing commercial but hoping to produce polished dvds once I'm done.

Hardware:
Athlon 64 X2 4800+ (2.5GHz)
2Gb PC2-6400 Ram
ATI 1950 Pro graphics card
Asus M2N-E SLI motherboard
SATA hard drives.

Does this help ?
Thanks

[Steve Grisetti]

MiniDV footage, captured over FireWire, is the ideal PC-based editing source, so you'll get great results from both programs.

Vegas+DVD Studio includes DVD Architect Studio, one of the best low-end DVD authoring apps available. So, if your priority is building DVD structures, that's probably the way to go.

Premiere Elements' strength is in its editing interface. With PrEl you have an unlimited number of video and audio tracks, a powerful motion path creator and a timeline that ripples flawlessly, so your tracks always stay in sync, even if you insert or remove a clip from the middle of your project. Premiere Elements does require you to optimize your photos to no larger than 1000x750 pixels in order to get effective slideshow results, but it also works beautifully in conjunction with its sister program, Photoshop Elements, which contains a batch function for optimizing photos.

Beyond that, it's just a matter of which interface you feel more at home with. Premiere Elements 4.0 is a major overhaul of the interface, which makes finding your tools and features much more intuitive. Vegas's strength has always been its terrific stability and its tolerance for a variety of source files. But these things fall more in the category of personal preference, and you may just want to download demos of each to see which one makes you feel more at home.

[hollogram]

Thanks for the feedback Steve. I haven't been able to find a trial version of PE4 and once I break the seal I won't be able to get a refund. By the looks of things it isn't going to make a huge amount of difference. Maybe I'll toss a coin.

Thanks for your help - a really useful forum. Hopefully I'll be able to give some advice once I've got my head around things.
Cheers.

[Steve Grisetti]

Well, the biggest advantage to Premiere Elements, of course, is that you get to be a part of this, the friendliest, brightest and most helpful community of amateur videomakers in the world!

[Chuck Engels]

Maybe you might want to take a look at some of the videos in the Gallery that were created with Premiere Elements, the contest videos would be a good start.
There are also forum member videos at http://www.chuckengels.com/PremierVideo/index.html Steve and I have some there as well, most done with version 2 and earlier.

[hollogram]

Just to let you know that I unwrapped PE4 last night and so you will be hearing lots more from me I imagine.
4 hours later I had 4 minutes of video (I'm sure the final version will be a lot more polished but I just wanted to get the hang of things) - http://www.hazycosmicjive.com/video/Wedding_Test.mp4. 4 minutes down, 20 minutes to go - it's going to take a while! Very enjoyable but wish I had better quality footage to work with - a bit late for that now. PE4 is pretty easy to use as a beginner. I'm guessing there will be lots of hidden features it will take me a while to find. The manual isn't the best I've every seen. Mainly because it is really 'wordy'. I think a few more pictures would help. If anyone has any recommendations of a decent PE4 book then let me know.

Thanks,
Chris

[Steve Grisetti]

Very nice work, Chris.

I think you're going to have a lot of fun with this program!

[Rockdoc]

Chris,
If you do better with a book in hand, then I think most of the regulars here would agree that Steve's and Chuck's book Premiere Elements 2 in a Snap would be your best bet on getting familiar with the Premiere Elements line of software. Most of the stuff is likely applicable (with minor modifications) to PE4. But you probably aren't going to be able to get out of a book specifically for PE4 what you can get here at muvipix. The tutorials, the media you can use, and the help in this forum are pretty much unmatched anywhere else I have seen (IMO).

Jennifer

[Chuck Engels]

Wow, great start for a beginner. Don't forget about our Products section here at Muvipix http://muvipix.com/products.php?maincat ... bcat_id=10
That link is to all the free stuff, there is a whole lot more on the other pages that you can download individually for a single price or you can download the whole mess if you purchase a 1 year subscription.

The book is very good also, even though it was written for version 2 Premiere Elements hasn't made any significant changes. The book is still very easy to apply to any version and is the best resource on learning keyframing that there is (IMO). Also check out the articles at http://www.videoinasnap.com there are some on keyframing and other cool stuff (on the Archive page).

Welcome to the club

**And thanks for the great testimonial Jennifer **

[hollogram]

Thankyou for all the advice and encouragement. Will check out the resources etc. at the weekend.
Cheers,
Chris