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Today we’re hitting the spot on what post-production video suite is going to come out on top. The conteders:
- Sony Vegas
- Pinnacle Studio
- Ulead Video Studio
- Adobe Premiere Pro
Starting with Pinnacle Studio. This was my first real exposure to video editing and I’ll remember it forever. Because Pinnacle caused rage upon rage with its constant crashing. If you’re okay with constantly pressing save after you splice and move the timeline, then this might be the program for you. Now, this isn’t all one-sided bad as Pinnacle has some very good features embedded. If you’re starting out, it’s wonderful because the timeline is so easy to use. The chroma-key feature (the post-production term for making a green/blue-screen transparent) is far above anything I’ve seen out of most video editing programs. So if you do a lot of that, give this a spin. If I had to grade it, I’d give Pinnacle a C for effort. It’s still just a consumer-end product and not aimed for anyone who’s going to be serious about editing. The price, $100.
Next is Ulead Video Studio. What can I say? This program is lackluster and devoid of features. I actually think Windows Movie Maker would have been an equal contender here. About the only thing you can say about it and WMM is that they are stable and … work. That’s it, really. I grade Ulead a D because it’s so lacking that I couldn’t even write a whole paragraph about it. The price runs at $100.
Sony Vegas. What an amazing and excellent piece of software! This is for the pros. If you’re the kind of person who likes software that you can just pick up and use most of the features right away and intuitively and then, as you get better, go use more of its advanced features later, then this software will dance in your dreams at night. There’s a catch though because Vegas is expensive. So if you’re not going to be serious about doing video for fun or your business, then don’t even bother wasting your money on Vegas. However, if you think you’ll make a return-on-investment, then holy crap; go get this. The amazing Vegas gets an A and is priced at $680.
Adobe Premiere Pro. This is the best, hands-down. Adobe delivers a software suite that goes beyond just your regular Pro video editor and right into high-end movie studios. I personally use this tool regardless that I don’t work in a huge studio because it’s simply the most powerful on the market. You can add hundreds of plugins from Adobe and third-parties, get templates, add custom effects, support Blu-Ray, export to Flash movies for the web, and of course it integrates with the rest of the Adobe suite like After Effects and Encore. Premiere is tough to use; the training books are 3 inches thick and that’s without you really understanding a single word of what it’s saying. But once you get over the learning curve (or I should say learning cliff), this tool is your flagship of production. The program has time remapping and shake correction. Premiere Pro gets an A++ and costs $800. But you shouldn’t even be considering a program this superfluous unless you have the cash to spend on it.