4 replies to this topic

[Gevurah]

I'm a tech geek but not necessarily an AV geek. Regardless, I have the itch to make movies. I've done a few bad ones before a few years ago using crap like WMM. Is there a more effective, easy to use free tool that doesn't make you look like an abject amateur ******?

Thanks

[Cattra Kell]

Been using Vegas Pro 12 - watched about 1 hour worth of tutorials online (youtube) with walkthroughs. I would suggest this. Its not overly complex once you understand where everything is - more or less watch the videos for orientation in the program.

[Selfish]

I also use Vegas 12, though it's rebranded Movie Studio Platinum for consumers. Picked it up with a suite of effects for about 60 bucks last Christmas. It's not as powerful as the full studio Vegas, but it's about $500 dollars cheaper.

Since you want something free I'd recommend sticking with WMM. It's a solid movie creator.

[Minoxen]

The recent MWO videos I have produced have used Corel Video Studio Pro x6. You can get a 30day fully functional trial on their site. It has all the basics and then some more advanced stuff for you to figure out when you want to. It's no Premier, but it does have alot of functionality.

Heres my most recent video if you wanna see some of what it can do.


It has lots of transitions, title effects, picture in picture, as many editing channels as you want, built in narration function. I'm not a salesman for Corel but after losing Premier I switched to this after trying alot of other trials and have been quite happy. Best of luck!

[Hennessey]

If you do change your mind about paying instead of using free software, then a third vote for Movie Studio Platinum (I use 12).

It's cheap for how powerful it is ($60-$80?). It is a very robust system, so you must read/watch tutorials. It has more options than most consumer level products, and the things that are missing are only partially missing (like shaped mattes). It has a 64 bit version which is very fast for cheaper software, and it can use your video card (depending on model) to assist in rendering. One of the reasons I chose this over others is the ability to have many many MANY sound tracks (I think up to 30?). This doesn't seem like a big issue for most, but in my vids where I have multiple sound clips and music etc. playing simultaneously, it's a must. It is also capable of rendering in 1080p, and at multiple framerates, so those explosions look oh so purdy! HOWEVER------->

Some of the menu, and interface can be very confusing, and a little overwhelming at first. Some things that should logically be located in certain menus are hidden in others, and will take a little digging to find. Things like speeding up/slowing of video is not entirely straight forward (ironically because there are more options than most are used to). And lastly, mouse interaction with the timeline and clips are not what you are going to be used to, and require you to hold hot-keys (ctrl, shift, alt, etc.) to function in the way you'd expect. I'm sure a lot of this has options in the menu to be changed, but like I said, it's easy to get lost in the menus sometimes trying to find exactly what you're looking for.

Also, the standard WMM that is part of the Windows Live suite is absolute garbage. I suggest doing a search for the older style WMM (Movie Maker 12 or something like that?) that works on Windows 7 (if that's what you have). It has actual useful features, and a timeline setup. I was using that before I moved to MSP12, and was pretty happy with it (only issues was it's ability to use certain file-types).

Edited by Hennessey, 27 June 2013 - 06:52 AM.