Input on video output?

[Anonymous]

I am strongly considering moving into video output as one of the means for my artistic expression. What I am looking for is a software program that enables the merging of still and video images.

Does anyone here know of a software program other than the extended version of CS3 that allows for zoom, panning, and rotating of still images and full captioning capabilities while at the same time possessing the capability for merging them with digital video? I am looking for output to be any and all digital video outputs including HD. While cost is a consideration, I think that for my purposes capabilites trump cost.

Thanks for any ideas that you may have on this matter.

 

[mkochsch]

I settled on VideoStudio 11 Plus by Ulead (recently bought by Corel)

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/ca/en/Product/1175714228558

I've made a couple of integrated slide and video presentations with music and sound beds in DVD format and VCD. It's a step up from XP's free "Movie Maker" It was easy to mix both photos and video with VS11. I think it supports HD and many DV features in the plus version. It's been a fairly solid program, the odd bug here and there. Not a bad learning curve either. A way better value than most other products considering the feature set. I would dedicate a clean fast machine to run it if possible with a big drive if your using it for commercial work. Free demo.
There is also a program called FreeDV I think from Avid someone recommended.
~m

 

[Anonymous]

I have come across this software www.photodex.com. Their "Producer" version seems to be what I am looking for. Does anyone here have experience with this product?

 

[jd callow]

I've used adobe's products and like them very much, but have never used the one you mention.

 

[Greg_E]

Windows or OSX?

On OSX, stupid little included iMovieHD should be able to do this. FinalCutExpress will do this (as will the full version). Avid XpressPro or Media Composer (software version) will do this.

On Windows check out Edit Studio, Vegas (full version), any of the Avid products, and a host of freeware processors. I despise Premier because it does a lot of backwards things to your video. The higher end Ulead software editors are pretty good too, but you need to climb higher than DVD Movie Factory.

 

[jd callow]

Windows or OSX?

On OSX, stupid little included iMovieHD should be able to do this. FinalCutExpress will do this (as will the full version). Avid XpressPro or Media Composer (software version) will do this.

On Windows check out Edit Studio, Vegas (full version), any of the Avid products, and a host of freeware processors. I despise Premier because it does a lot of backwards things to your video. The higher end Ulead software editors are pretty good too, but you need to climb higher than DVD Movie Factory.

Greg,
Can you elaborate a bit on the windows statements (as I've been planning on dropping a fair amount of cheese on Adobe's production Studio: Premier, After Effects, Encore, etc...) with some pros and cons?

 

[Greg_E]

Unless Premier has changed, it would take your DV video with 48k audio and resample it down to 32k audio, which is non-standard. It teaches other bad habits that if you move up into a more professional application you will need to unlearn before you can procede. It's been a coouple of years since I even looked at it, so things may have changed, but knowing Adobe I don't think so. Encore does a bunch of non-standard stuff too, which lets you do incredibly complex things, but not do them the right way, so they may not work on all players. After Effects still does some pretty amazing things if you take the time to learn how to use it.

I checked the Puremotion site (edit studio) and it seemed to be down. I owned this back with version 3 and it was a good solid editing application with features being added with each revision. If they are still around I highly recommend it. If it comes back: http://www.puremotion.com/


If you want to shoot straight to the top, buy a Mac and use FinalCut Studio, or Avid Media Composer software version (on windows or mac). We just upgraded our video editing lab to Media Composer this past August, and it is much more flexible than Xpress Pro. That said Xpress Pro would probably do what you needed. Down side is that Mediacomposer is a $5000.00+ application and Xpress Pro is $2000.00+. To get FCP Studio and a new Mac would run you about $3500.00 total.

Vegas is a really solid application (the last time I looked at it) and it will use any installed codec that allows editing (some DIVX codecs are not the best for editing). Same goes for the high end Ulead application.

I wish I could go into more detail, but I haven't been doing much with video except what we need at work, and that is either Avid or FCP running on Mac G4 (now nice new intel MacPro hardware).


And when I was doing a lot more video work for myself, I used to hang out at http://www.videohelp.com/ where you can find a list of different tools, especially the freeware tools ( http://www.videohelp.com/tools ). VirtualDub is one of the swiss army knives of video work, and it is FREE! http://www.virtualdub.org/ With it you can do a lot of still to video work, some have even used it to pull stills for each frame of video, then run some batches in Photoshop to make corrections, and then reassemble those stills back into video. Should be in every Windows video editor's toolbox!

Look into WAX for some compositing work, last time I checked it was still free for supported editing applications.