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Selecting the Best Video Editing Software

By: Rob Robilliard


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How to choose the best video editing software can seem to be an overwhelming affair when you look at the array of products on the market. Yet with a little help to stay alert to what is vital you should be able to accomplish a good choice.

One of the fundamental points to keep in mind is:
"What is it that I am really going to carry out with the video editing software that I choose?"

The answer to that question has to remain topmost in your mind when selecting the best video editing software for you.

The well known video editing software developers provide camcorder to video file output editing solutions that are almost the same. So maintain your stress on what you truly require.

Like any other competitive market, video editing software is caught up in a never ending race to keep up with technology as it develops and still make the product seem "sexy" to the customer. The point is you probably don't want to buy video editing software. What you probably want is a finished video.

Video File Types
The primary thing to find out is what is the format of the material you will be working with and what will be the formats that you will want to generate finally. Input will be dictated by the camcorder or DVD recorder you use or what the origin of your files are. Find out the video file format your device use to record in and make sure it is covered first.
Then realistically take a look at how you would most likely deliver your finished videos. DVD? Blu-Ray? Uploading to a video sharing site like YouTube or something similar? Ensure the software you choose can output to the format you need.

So, your first task in making a decision on what video editing software is appropriate for you is to work out what your most common source video files will be and what your most common video output will be. That covers the foundation of what you will be doing with the software and must remain as your main focal point.

Video Transitions
Transitions are the little inserts that are sandwiched between two clips to make the scene change. If you look at a movie you will notice when the scene changes it sometimes cuts to the next scene with no transition, this is called cut or a straight cut. The visible scene fades to black then the next scene fades up from black called a cross fade through black. Or, lastly, the two scenes combine into each other gently and this one is called a cross fade. There you have it, effectively the entire extent of transitions that pro video editors employ!

All video editing software programs have at least 50 transitions each. Newbies cram in all the transitions they can because the effect looks so cool when they first see them. Really, no-one ever volunteers for their latest screening because the nausea has not subsided from the last one! Disregard transitions as a deciding point, every video editing software program has some and they all have more than you will need.

Video Overlay
An overlay track is the ability to put one video in the background and have another visible on top of it. That is the "picture in picture" or "split screen" effect you see in movies or on TV. You can also put subtitles in an overlay track or still photos or a bunch of other things to really get creative. You need about five for good control but you would never use more than that otherwise, once again, no-one is going to want to watch the mess you have created!

Sound
There is no video editing software at the hobbyist level that offers truly superb audio management and features. They are video editing programs not audio editing programs. A few have quite good control, a few do not. If you want pro audio features then you should get pro audio software.

The ability to handle Dolby 2 channel is a bare minimum and 5:1 Surround should be standard. The program should offer two audio tracks to play with in addition to the sound in the video track. That leaves you plenty of room for music, narration or effects.

Smart Render
Rendering is the expression employed when the video editing software is assembling the finished file of your newly produced video. Up until rendering, in any consumer level video editing software, all the cuts, additions, changes and adjustments you have been making are "virtual." The original video files are never touched. So rendering puts all that together and produces your final video file in the format you have chosen as the viewing format.

All the compressed video file formats like MPEG2 (for DVDs) or MPEG4 etc always lose quality to at least some degree when they are re-rendered. The degree of loss of quality varies but it is essential that any video editing software you decide upon has the ability to recognise those files it does not need to re-render and simply copy those sections resulting in the maximum quality possible being retained. The software must also make available enough manual control over the properties of the rendered video file.

So there you have it, remain alert to what is crucial and keep the "oh wow" stuff to a minimum and you will do very well!

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

Rob is a long time video and video editing enthusiast. Others have referred to Rob as more of a video tragic than anything else however he chooses to rise above such things. Video Editing Software Best Video Editing Software Reviews Video Editing Software

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