We all tend to look through things with rose-coloured glasses sometimes. I'm going to make some recommendations BUT if you have a program you already use and like then STICK WITH IT. There's no point in spending extra money for a "better editing program" if what you have keeps you happy.
Scenario 1; The Budget is tight.
Lets face it, when thinking about RC plane videos, video editing is a side pursuit to flying. Every dollar you spend on a video editor and a computer to do it is a dollar less than you can spend on your planes.
Windows Live Movie Maker is the clear winner being free and working fine on any windows-based system. Vegas is a good runner-up though. It's got a nice and rounded set of features that allows you to take things a step further and make your videos look different to so many others using WLMM for their Youtube videos.
Scenario 2; Throw together a Video and get it up on Youtube.
The 2 clear-cut winners here are Windows Live Movie Maker and Cyberlink PowerDirector. Both are exceptionally easy to use for the basics of cutting together your video, adding a title, throwing in some transitions, adding some music and uploading it onto youtube. Powerdirector offers a much wider variety of titles and transitions if you shoose to make your own but both offer to quickly and easily add a theme to your movie that adds titles and transitions on your behalf with only the text to be filled in.
Scenario 3; Add a little flair to your videos
Powerdirector, Vegas and Premiere Elements all allow you to do this, just to differing degrees of personal skill level and computer specs. Powerdirector is probably the best "all round" but each of the others also have their advantages to make them desirable. All will zoom and stabilize, have a variety of titles and transitions and a healthy range of effects to choose from.
Scenario 4; The family will want to use it too.
The results are just a backup of scenario 2. Both WLMM and PowerDirector are easy enough to use that the whole family can get in on the action to varying degrees. Not only will both do your plane videos they will also do the vacation videos, easily create slideshows from digital stills, etc. The main difference in this area is that Powerdirector has event-specific titles on offer, lighting correction to help you spiff up those videos that came out a little dark and more in the way of effects that the kids will want to play with.
Scenario 5; You are looking to build video making into a hobby of it's own rather than just a sideline to your RC.
Adobe Premiere Elements is the winner here IF you can afford a computer to run it well. The range of options and features is just far superior to the other 3 offerings.
PowerDirector and Vegas are both close runner-ups but I'd go with a better version of vegas than the stock. Each has it's own advantages but the main one they have in common is the ability to run on lower-end computers. Both of these run well on my setup which isnt' really designed around video editing.
To bring my computer up to spec to run Premiere Elements well I'm looking at a better CPU, more ram and cleaning up my hard drives. Overall I'm looking at about $350 for this upgrade to do "ok". The only upgrade most people would need to run PowerDirector or Vegas on the average desktop computer is a video card with hardware video encoding to speed up the process. You dont[' need anything flash and there's offerings from both nVidia (gForce) and AMD (Radeon) that will do the job admirably for $140-$160 easy enough.
My opinion?
Based on making RC plane videos quickly and easily so you can show off via the internet?
Free; Windows Live Movie Maker. Honestly speaking? For a good 95% of people this is all you are going to need in order to cut out the bits you don't want, put together the bits you do want and get your video online.
Paid; Look, I would LOVE to recommend PowerDirector, I really would. At $20 more than Vegas it's worth it just for being so easy to use. There's nothing "wrong" with Vegas at all it's just that PowerDirector is by FAR easier to use for 95% of everything you will likely find yourself doing with it. The issue of it not wanting to work with multiple high-def files just makes it so I can't. Sony Vegas therefore wins that race.
It's more fiddly to use but it's still a powerful piece of kit that allows you to get your video onto youtube with the minimal of fuss.
Do NOT buy Peemiere Elements unless you intend to get much deeper into video editing and have the money to splash out on a computer to run it. Just because your computer runs games blisteringly fast it doesn't necessarily mean it will push Premiere Elements either. If Adobe could wrap their heads around using video cards more effectively I would have little trouble recommending this over Vegas. As it stands though, Vegas is far better for the average user if you want to take your first steps into a more professional-type setup for video editing.
Monday 26 March 2012
Sunday 25 March 2012
RC Plane Video Part 4; Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD 11
So a few of my friends, and guys on the RCPowers forum, swear by Sony Vegas. I wanted to use programs around the $100 mark and most of my friends are using Movie Studio 11 which is at $50. This means downloading the Trial version to look at. Until, that is, I looked at the product comparison.
The basic version of Vegas has everything I'm looking for. Hardware assisted encoding and preview, zoom, image stabilization and the other doodads I'm after. This means it's $50 price tag is going head to head with PowerDirector's $70 price tag. As with the 2 different versions of Powerdirector, the main difference between the basic and $100 version is editing 3D stereoscopic video.
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/vegassoftware
It's got some (many) good points
Like the others it has some issues to deal with though.
My verdict?
It is incredibly hard to find anything "wrong" with Vegas and every bad thing I can say about it revolves entirely around it's more complicated setup for basic editing than other programs. The program itself seems pretty bulletproof, works well on my middle-of-the-road system, never crashed and had plenty of features to explore and experiment with. Every time I ran into a roadblock with a confusing tool there were the tutorials right there that showed me how to do it, step by step.
Although it's more complicated, the tutorials make sure that just about anyone over the age of about 10 will have no real problems coming to grips with it. They might find it a bit drawn out and boring but the interface won't physically stop them from doing anything because of the complexity.
You'll notice that there's no finished video with this one like the others though. I was about 3/4 the way through before I decided it wasn't worth so much effort. Don't get me wrong, the resulting video so far I was quite pleased with and Vegas gave me every tool I needed to do everything I wanted to do.
It's just that so many of the things are achieved in such a round-about way that it feels needlessly complicated for a consumer-level video editor. If you are squeezing for dollars you can't really go wrong with Vegas and, as I said, although it's complicated some times you get used to it quickly. It works well on lower end computers which is a huge bonus too.
A solid piece of software and I can see why so many people are happy with it. Smooth, stable and feature-rich allowing you to produce some solidly good looking video for Youtube or your home movie collection. Some people are just going to find it too labour-intensive to come out with a slick looking result if they've used more simple editors in the past.
The basic version of Vegas has everything I'm looking for. Hardware assisted encoding and preview, zoom, image stabilization and the other doodads I'm after. This means it's $50 price tag is going head to head with PowerDirector's $70 price tag. As with the 2 different versions of Powerdirector, the main difference between the basic and $100 version is editing 3D stereoscopic video.
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/vegassoftware
It's got some (many) good points
- It's the cheapest commercial editor I'm looking at.
- Inbuilt tutorials that show you how to do almost everything.
- Compression is fast and clean.
- Preview rendering is reasonably fast and has options to let you customize the settings to perform well on your computer.
- There's a large range of transitions to choose from.
- There's a good range of title animations to choose from.
- Zoom is easy to use.
- Stabilization is basic but works well.
Like the others it has some issues to deal with though.
- Many of the features are needlessly complex to use, seemingly set up more for "professionals" than throwing together quick videos. Once you get used to the way it does things it gets a lot easier though.
- You can't cut/crop on the timeline, you have to use a separate tool to do it. Again, more complicated than is needed but easy once you get used to it.
- The most difficult to align with music because of the above.
My verdict?
It is incredibly hard to find anything "wrong" with Vegas and every bad thing I can say about it revolves entirely around it's more complicated setup for basic editing than other programs. The program itself seems pretty bulletproof, works well on my middle-of-the-road system, never crashed and had plenty of features to explore and experiment with. Every time I ran into a roadblock with a confusing tool there were the tutorials right there that showed me how to do it, step by step.
Although it's more complicated, the tutorials make sure that just about anyone over the age of about 10 will have no real problems coming to grips with it. They might find it a bit drawn out and boring but the interface won't physically stop them from doing anything because of the complexity.
You'll notice that there's no finished video with this one like the others though. I was about 3/4 the way through before I decided it wasn't worth so much effort. Don't get me wrong, the resulting video so far I was quite pleased with and Vegas gave me every tool I needed to do everything I wanted to do.
It's just that so many of the things are achieved in such a round-about way that it feels needlessly complicated for a consumer-level video editor. If you are squeezing for dollars you can't really go wrong with Vegas and, as I said, although it's complicated some times you get used to it quickly. It works well on lower end computers which is a huge bonus too.
A solid piece of software and I can see why so many people are happy with it. Smooth, stable and feature-rich allowing you to produce some solidly good looking video for Youtube or your home movie collection. Some people are just going to find it too labour-intensive to come out with a slick looking result if they've used more simple editors in the past.
RC plane video part 3: Adobe Premiere Elements.
Adobe Premiere Elements 10 is a pretty powerful piece of kit. It has loads and loads of features and does quite a few things that other consumer-level video editing suites don't. The offset? It needs quite a good computer to push it and some experience to come to grips with.
http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere-elements.html
It's up there in features for your RC plane videos;
However, it does have it's drawbacks and foibles.
It's a great program all up but if you are just looking to throw together a RC video it's way overpowered and over complicated IMO. I had reasons outside of RC videos to purchase this and I really can't recommend it for lower-end systems or video beginners.
Overall the output quality is high and the file sizes are often much smaller than many other programs even though you pay for it in the time it takes to compress the video.
Although it's "consumer level" video editing software, Adobe Premiere Elements is not the easiest for you or your computer to drive. It's one of those programs aimed at enthusiasts with the expectation that they spend their "toy money" on cameras and computers capable of high-speed editing instead of using it as an add-on to your RC plane hobby.
Given this I simply can't recommend it for the masses. IMO you are much better off with Powerdirector or Windows Live Movie Maker unless you have some special reason to want Adobe Premiere Elements.
http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere-elements.html
It's up there in features for your RC plane videos;
- a large range of titles, credits and transitions.
- a large range of output formats.
- direct upload to Youtube, Facebook and other video/social networking sites.
- multiple video and audio tracks.
- image stabilization effect to take out shaking from hand-held cameras.
- easy to use zoom effect.
However, it does have it's drawbacks and foibles.
- It needs a fairly high-end computer to run it smoothly with high-def video
- The image stabilization is good, even when there's little in the background for it to reference. It has reasonable options allowing you to tailor the stabilization to your needs bit it DOES take a lot of zoom to operate well though. Otherwise you end up with black strips popping in and out on the edge of your video.
- Titles are powerful but messy for newcomers. If you choose not to use a stock title it can be fiddly to create your own and it's definately not "entry level" stuff.
- It has many issues even on reasonably powerful computers with playback in the preview. This can make it exceptionally fiddly to time everything correctly.
It's a great program all up but if you are just looking to throw together a RC video it's way overpowered and over complicated IMO. I had reasons outside of RC videos to purchase this and I really can't recommend it for lower-end systems or video beginners.
Overall the output quality is high and the file sizes are often much smaller than many other programs even though you pay for it in the time it takes to compress the video.
Although it's "consumer level" video editing software, Adobe Premiere Elements is not the easiest for you or your computer to drive. It's one of those programs aimed at enthusiasts with the expectation that they spend their "toy money" on cameras and computers capable of high-speed editing instead of using it as an add-on to your RC plane hobby.
Given this I simply can't recommend it for the masses. IMO you are much better off with Powerdirector or Windows Live Movie Maker unless you have some special reason to want Adobe Premiere Elements.
Monday 19 March 2012
RC Plane Video Part 2: Cyberlink Powerdirector
I used Cyberlink Powerdirector for quite a while for various reasons. I used PowerDirector 9 and that's what this post will cover but PowerDirector10 is out now. For a couple of reasons, when I upgraded, I bought Adobe Premiere elements 10 instead. If I had just needed to do RC videos I might have stuck with PowerDirector longer than I did.
Powerdirector has some marvelous features for making "home movies".
http://www.cyberlink.com/products/powerdirector/overview_en_AU.html
The absolute best thing on offer is it's ability to use nVidia and ATI hardware accelerated encoding and shadow files for editing. This means that Powerdirector runs well and compresses relatively quickly on quite low-end systems (where Video Editing is concerned).
It's also well up there in features on offer.
However, it does have it's drawbacks and foibles.
It's a great program all up. It's powerful and runs smoothly even on lower-end computers. It's also easy for just about anyone to pick up and use the basic features like titles and credits. You don't need to read the manual for most of it, it's laid out well enough that you can just play with it on a piece of video and get the hang of most of the features.
This video was made with Powerdirector and includes the usual stuff plus volume adjustments, zoom, image stabilization and minor colour corrections.
If you would like to give it a try there is a 30 day trial version you can download from here;
http://www.cyberlink.com/downloads/trials/powerdirector/download_en_AU.html
The trial is fully functional. It has a reduced range of titles, transitions and effects and places a watermark on the video you make but otherwise you can create complete movies. You can test it and see how easy it is to use, see how it works with your hardware and compare it to whatever you are using already.
My verdict;
I actually really like this program. I bought the Ultra edition for the native 64 bit version (deluxe is 32 bit only) but for the most part you can save your pennies and get the Deluxe. The huge deal about Ultra is it's ability to edit 3D video from stereoscopic cameras so if you don't have one of those it's no great loss.
For $89 (deluxe) or $109 (ultra) it's not "breaking the bank" so to speak for the quality features on offer. It's lacking some features of other programs but those generally cost more and it's doubtful if you'll use them anyway. Where I am interested in these programs is personally is in very few key features.
Zoom - The zoom function has to be smooth, be able to track the plane well and be relatively to use. The zoom in Powerdirector is quite easy to use though it's got some boundary issues. It's not always immediately apparent if the frame will wander off the video leaving you a black edge. On some long files the duration between marker points can be a little long but simply splitting the video file fixed this. Overall it's a workable feature that doesn't take a rocket scientist to use.
Stabilization - This has to work. I always work with the highest quality of video I can and on many cameras the image stabilization for their max rezolution just isn't that great. This means I need to be able to do it through the software! The stabilization on PowerDirector automatically zooms the image for you so your stabilization doesn't wander off the edge of the video which makes it especially fast and easy to use. The only drawback is that it's not that great unless there's a fair bit of background for it to reference. As I said earlier, a plane against the blue sky won't see much stabilization going on. Other than that? Nice.
Output quality Vs file size: I generally upload to youtube in 720p which can end up being quite a large file. The quality has to balance out with the file size so I'm not needlessly uploading files that are larger than they should be. This is mostly a time consideration for me rather than a usage-allowance issue. I have a sizable allowance (200GB) so I'm not overly worried about uploading large files in that respect. It's more an issue of time. However, Powerdirector's smooth previews during editing and hardware assisted compression more than save the extra time the larger files take to upload.
In the end, the issues with using multiple high-def files was a deal breaker for me. This is something I constantly do in my RC Plane and other videos and pumping through another program to join everything was getting annoying beyond belief.
Not everyone has this issue and there's workarounds for most people, it's just a personal preference that made me "change brands". I haven't uninstalled PowerDirector though, it's still there to be used. It's just no longer the one video editing suite that suits all of my needs. I'll still use it when the opportunity presents itself.
Powerdirector is, despite it's issues, a fast and easy to use program that's much more suited to low end systems than other programs offering the same features. Some programs struggle on my system during editing because of the previews but PowerDirector is always smooth. Even with hardware acceleration turned off, the shadow-edit files help dramatically by previewing in a lower quality. They take time to generate in the background so it can slow your system down while they are generated but that's an excellent time to go make yourself a fresh cup of coffee!
If you are on a low-end system and want to work with hi-def files and rich features, PowerDirector is almost a must!
Notes:
All comments are based on my Desktop computer:
AMD 965 Black Edition (not overclocked)
Gigabyte GA-990FXA-D3 motherboard
4gb Corsair CMX4GX3M2A1600C9 DDR3 ram (running at 1333mhz)
Seagate Barracude SATA II 7200rpm hard drive
XFX Radeon 6850 2gb (used by some programs, not by others).
Not anything special but not low-end either.
All raw video edited is 1080p .MOV files
All music added is in MP3 format.
That being said, I've used PowerDirector since before my computer upgrade. PowerDirector ran well on my old Pentium 4D system which was a quite aged piece of hardware. It's not hard to buy a cheap computer these days that is better than it was in overall performance.
Powerdirector has some marvelous features for making "home movies".
http://www.cyberlink.com/products/powerdirector/overview_en_AU.html
The absolute best thing on offer is it's ability to use nVidia and ATI hardware accelerated encoding and shadow files for editing. This means that Powerdirector runs well and compresses relatively quickly on quite low-end systems (where Video Editing is concerned).
It's also well up there in features on offer.
- easy to use titles, credits and transitions.
- a large range of titles, credits and transitions.
- a large range of output formats.
- direct upload to Youtube, Facebook and other video/social networking sites.
- multiple video and audio tracks.
- image stabilization effect to take out shaking from hand-held cameras.
- easy to use zoom effect.
However, it does have it's drawbacks and foibles.
- While it's fast and delivers high quality video on output, the files can be quite large. This is partly due to the compression used but mostly due to the intense nature of many of the effects, transitions and titles. They look great but it all impacts on your video file in the end.
- The image stabilization is good when there's plenty in the background for it to reference but when it's a plane against a blue sky it's not all that good. For normal video this isn't a concern at all but it's a bit of an issue for RC planes which can be a little frustrating at times.
- It has some issues working with multiple HD files which can cause the video compression to hang. You can work around this by putting all the files through Windows Live Movie Maker and joining them all into one high quality file but it's a bit of a pain, especially of you don't have a lot of hard-drive space or are in a hurry.
- It does have some stability issues and occasionally crashes. Save frequently!
It's a great program all up. It's powerful and runs smoothly even on lower-end computers. It's also easy for just about anyone to pick up and use the basic features like titles and credits. You don't need to read the manual for most of it, it's laid out well enough that you can just play with it on a piece of video and get the hang of most of the features.
This video was made with Powerdirector and includes the usual stuff plus volume adjustments, zoom, image stabilization and minor colour corrections.
If you would like to give it a try there is a 30 day trial version you can download from here;
http://www.cyberlink.com/downloads/trials/powerdirector/download_en_AU.html
The trial is fully functional. It has a reduced range of titles, transitions and effects and places a watermark on the video you make but otherwise you can create complete movies. You can test it and see how easy it is to use, see how it works with your hardware and compare it to whatever you are using already.
My verdict;
I actually really like this program. I bought the Ultra edition for the native 64 bit version (deluxe is 32 bit only) but for the most part you can save your pennies and get the Deluxe. The huge deal about Ultra is it's ability to edit 3D video from stereoscopic cameras so if you don't have one of those it's no great loss.
For $89 (deluxe) or $109 (ultra) it's not "breaking the bank" so to speak for the quality features on offer. It's lacking some features of other programs but those generally cost more and it's doubtful if you'll use them anyway. Where I am interested in these programs is personally is in very few key features.
Zoom - The zoom function has to be smooth, be able to track the plane well and be relatively to use. The zoom in Powerdirector is quite easy to use though it's got some boundary issues. It's not always immediately apparent if the frame will wander off the video leaving you a black edge. On some long files the duration between marker points can be a little long but simply splitting the video file fixed this. Overall it's a workable feature that doesn't take a rocket scientist to use.
Stabilization - This has to work. I always work with the highest quality of video I can and on many cameras the image stabilization for their max rezolution just isn't that great. This means I need to be able to do it through the software! The stabilization on PowerDirector automatically zooms the image for you so your stabilization doesn't wander off the edge of the video which makes it especially fast and easy to use. The only drawback is that it's not that great unless there's a fair bit of background for it to reference. As I said earlier, a plane against the blue sky won't see much stabilization going on. Other than that? Nice.
Output quality Vs file size: I generally upload to youtube in 720p which can end up being quite a large file. The quality has to balance out with the file size so I'm not needlessly uploading files that are larger than they should be. This is mostly a time consideration for me rather than a usage-allowance issue. I have a sizable allowance (200GB) so I'm not overly worried about uploading large files in that respect. It's more an issue of time. However, Powerdirector's smooth previews during editing and hardware assisted compression more than save the extra time the larger files take to upload.
In the end, the issues with using multiple high-def files was a deal breaker for me. This is something I constantly do in my RC Plane and other videos and pumping through another program to join everything was getting annoying beyond belief.
Not everyone has this issue and there's workarounds for most people, it's just a personal preference that made me "change brands". I haven't uninstalled PowerDirector though, it's still there to be used. It's just no longer the one video editing suite that suits all of my needs. I'll still use it when the opportunity presents itself.
Powerdirector is, despite it's issues, a fast and easy to use program that's much more suited to low end systems than other programs offering the same features. Some programs struggle on my system during editing because of the previews but PowerDirector is always smooth. Even with hardware acceleration turned off, the shadow-edit files help dramatically by previewing in a lower quality. They take time to generate in the background so it can slow your system down while they are generated but that's an excellent time to go make yourself a fresh cup of coffee!
If you are on a low-end system and want to work with hi-def files and rich features, PowerDirector is almost a must!
Notes:
All comments are based on my Desktop computer:
AMD 965 Black Edition (not overclocked)
Gigabyte GA-990FXA-D3 motherboard
4gb Corsair CMX4GX3M2A1600C9 DDR3 ram (running at 1333mhz)
Seagate Barracude SATA II 7200rpm hard drive
XFX Radeon 6850 2gb (used by some programs, not by others).
Not anything special but not low-end either.
All raw video edited is 1080p .MOV files
All music added is in MP3 format.
That being said, I've used PowerDirector since before my computer upgrade. PowerDirector ran well on my old Pentium 4D system which was a quite aged piece of hardware. It's not hard to buy a cheap computer these days that is better than it was in overall performance.
Sunday 18 March 2012
RC Plane Video part 1; Windows Live Movie Maker.
If you aren't looking for all that many bells and whistles? Windows Live Movie Maker is great for turning your RC plane video into something ready to upload to Youtube.
Windows Live Moviemaker is part of the free Windows Live Essentials package which you can download here;
http://explore.live.com/windows-live-essentials
You will want to install the K-Lite codec pack to use with Windows Live Movie Maker. It uses system installed codecs to read video files and installing this will all but guarantee that Moviemaker will be able to read the files from your video camera;
http://www.codecguide.com/download_kl.htm
WLMM is suprisingly powerful considering that it's free. It has a good range of titles and transitions and even a few effects you can play with. It also has an "Automovie" feature where you can pick a these and it will add your titles, transitions and credits for you, all you have to do is fill in the text!
This is a video I made for my wife's Youtube on making a shideshow. Video uses the same basic principles!
If you are just looking to make something a little more slick than just a block of video, Windows Live Movie Maker is easy to use and does a commendable job for average joe.
Of course it is limited in what it can do. It only works with a single video track (though you can load multiple videos into it) and only has one extra audio track meaning you have to choose between adding Music or a voice over. But it's free, it's easy to use and has more features than some of the low-end paid-for products.
This video was done with Windows Live Movie Maker in about 20 minutes;
Windows Live Movie Maker is well worth giving a look even if you have something better. You can throw a movie together in under 5 minutes ready to upload to youtube etc if you just want the job done fast. It's also simple enough that the kids can learn the basics of video editing!
Of course it lacks some of the things you really want to be looking at like zoom and image stabilization when considering RC plane videos but if you don't care about that sort of thing? There's no reason to pay for a video editor that will do the job.
Coming Soon; RCPlane Video; Cyberlink Powerdirector.
Windows Live Moviemaker is part of the free Windows Live Essentials package which you can download here;
http://explore.live.com/windows-live-essentials
You will want to install the K-Lite codec pack to use with Windows Live Movie Maker. It uses system installed codecs to read video files and installing this will all but guarantee that Moviemaker will be able to read the files from your video camera;
http://www.codecguide.com/download_kl.htm
WLMM is suprisingly powerful considering that it's free. It has a good range of titles and transitions and even a few effects you can play with. It also has an "Automovie" feature where you can pick a these and it will add your titles, transitions and credits for you, all you have to do is fill in the text!
This is a video I made for my wife's Youtube on making a shideshow. Video uses the same basic principles!
If you are just looking to make something a little more slick than just a block of video, Windows Live Movie Maker is easy to use and does a commendable job for average joe.
Of course it is limited in what it can do. It only works with a single video track (though you can load multiple videos into it) and only has one extra audio track meaning you have to choose between adding Music or a voice over. But it's free, it's easy to use and has more features than some of the low-end paid-for products.
This video was done with Windows Live Movie Maker in about 20 minutes;
Of course it lacks some of the things you really want to be looking at like zoom and image stabilization when considering RC plane videos but if you don't care about that sort of thing? There's no reason to pay for a video editor that will do the job.
Coming Soon; RCPlane Video; Cyberlink Powerdirector.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)