What's a good video editor?

[OneFollowingHim]

My daughter has asked for Roxio Creator 2012. It's a $69 software package. I know you get what you pay for. I'm asking for some help selecting a good video editing package that I can get her. Any suggestions?

[OneFollowingHim]

Maybe someone knows of a good website that does software reviews.

??

[OneFollowingHim]

There seems to be a WIDE range of software. And not all of them are in the over $300 price range. CyberLink PowerDirector is $50 and seems to have good reviews. Is it really that good for $50? Is Corel Photo Director good enough or is Adobe Photoshop the way to go?

[Sparko]

Photoshop isn't a video editor. It's a photo editer. Adobe Premiere is the video editor. They make a light version too.

How old is your daughter? Are you looking for something simple and easy, or powerful?

I use Sony Vegas here at work. I like it a lot. but its not that easy to learn.

also here is a list of free video editing programs you can try out:

http://www.akascope.com/2011/07/15/f...ting-software/

I have used Virtualdub and it was OK. Avid makes professional level video editing software so their free version should be pretty good too.

[OneFollowingHim]

Thanks Sparko.

She's a freshman in college. She's a newbie, but she seems to have taken a avid interest. I think it's a hobby grade interest right now. I just want to give her the best opportunity to build on the interest and not get turned off with clunky, cumbersome s/w.

[OneFollowingHim]

What do you think of Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 Master Collection or Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 Design Premium?

[Sparko]

I have Adobe Web Premium CS5, and it's a pretty good. But its mostly for illustrations and photo manipulation. The Video editing program is Adobe Premiere.

[OneFollowingHim]

Would this also work for digitizing my old Hi8 tapes? I want to be able to catalog everything so it's easy to access and also put an index to the content with it.

[Sparko]

Would this also work for digitizing my old Hi8 tapes? I want to be able to catalog everything so it's easy to access and also put an index to the content with it.

To get the video into the computer you have to be able to digitize it. which means your computer would have to have a video input/digitizing card in it that you could hook your Hi8 camcorder/deck to. Adobe premiere can grab video from such a digitizer card, but you have to have such hardware in the first place in order to get the video into the digital format you want.

an alternative is to find some place in town that does video tape to dvd conversion as a service. usually its pretty reasonable, like around $30 or so per 2 hour dvd.