Adobe has recently release Premiere Pro, which is a big step forward for them (rebuilt from scratch). The have realised their arses are getting whipped by Final Cut Pro, and the only thing that has saved them to dat is the fact that FCP is Macasaurus only.

The main affordable NLEs are:

Adobe Premiere Pro (Win XP only)
Final Cut Pro (Mac only)
Avid Xpress DV/Xpress Pro (Mac/Win, but $1600).

You might also want to have a play with Avid's recently released Avid Free DV. See the home page for the link.

Ben C.

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filmmaking.net
(Incorporating the Internet Filmmaker's FAQ)

Please note the opinions expressed here are those of the author only and do not constitute legal advice. The author cannot accept and liability whatsoever for inaccurate or outdated information contained within.
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I think people come down too hard on Premiere myself; 4.x was limited but usable, 5.x was pretty crappy, but aside from the bugs and relatively frequent crashes, 6.01 was quite decent and gets the job done; I used it for editing video projects up to 90 minutes long and a couple of 16mm shorts after telecine to DV (though we only got the negative cut on one of those). That said, I'm probably switching to Avid rather than upgrading to Premiere Pro.

Pinnacle's Edition software is another option on the PC market. I'm not a fan myself, but if you can deal with the bugs and interface (some people actually seem to like it, to me it's just a swathe of meaningless icons and looks like a toy) it seems to be quite a decent editing package... certainly if you do a lot of realtime effects they seem to render faster than software-only Avid and, from what I've heard, much faster than Premiere Pro.

Reality is that the only editing software that is used are Avid Xpress Dv (or any other Avid) and Final Cut Pro. Final Cut Pro is only for mac. People that know Avid generally make more money then people that know and edit on Final Cut Pro. Both are expensive (you can get Avid Xpress DV for $400 with a student discount etc at www.journeyed.com thats where ig ot mine). I got Avid Xpress DV. I started on premiere for about 2 weeks until i got my Avid Xpress DV. (I own a PC). Do not give up on Avid, it was tought for about the first week of fooling around with it, but then you start to get it. Don't ever go back to premiere. Check avid's website for specifications for your PC to see that t'll work (as long as you have a good size hard drive and about a gig of ram you should be fine.) I support Avid 100% It's the most popular in the industry. Any questions? -Dean

I seem to be the only one on the planet who thinks Premiere is much better than Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro or Avid. But that's my opinion.

I think Premiere is the easiest to use, Pro or not. However if you don't know how to edit on FCP or AVID i wouldn't look into the editing field without experience on either one.

Personally, i think that anything that is done on a mac is going to be better than on a pc....i think macs are much more efficient and much better for editing. I have fcp and i am so satisfied with it you can't even imagine. I used to tell myself that i was never going to buy a mac until a friend finally convinced me to dish out 800 bux on one of the mac mini's and i tell you what, i will never, ever go back to a pc for anything, whether its film editing or just having a family computer, i think anything done on a mac is done more efficiently on a pc so my reccomendations would be get a mac and then get either fcp or avid.

Steve-O
Unknown Name Film Company

I've used iMovie, Premiere, Final Cut Express and Pro, and Media 100. Out of then, I own Final Cut Express and I don't plan on switching (except to upgrade to FCP someday when I have the money to). iMovie is fine if all you want to do is edit home movies or make simple short films. Premiere... well, I got in trouble once before for being a little overzealous with my opinion, so I'll just say I've had major problems with Premiere and I will never use it again. Media 100 I had limited experience with in college, but it was needlessly complicated (or I was just taught wrong - which at that school is a complete possibility). FCE gives you what you need and a little more at a really good price. It's powerful and does the job. And the interface is pretty easy to use, even without looking at the manual.

But this is all my opinion, nothing more.

------------------------
Bruce Campbell - "So you want to get into show biz?"
Me - "Yeah, I'd really like to direct movies."
Bruce Campbell - "Cool. Just don't suck."

I've used iMovie, FCP Express, FCP HD, Premiere, and Avid. For the money and speed, FCP is probably the best out there. Apple has been in the process of making the Mac central to anything creative for decades and it shows when they come out with suites like the FCP one. For many of us Filmmakers that wear many hats in the pre-, prod, and post phases... FCP has most of the bases covered. And with the number of plugin filters you can buy, its hard to beat in my opinion.

A.

My editing suite consists of Final Cut Pro on a Powerbook G4, Adobe Premiere 6.0 (in my opinion the best Premiere ever), and Avid Xpress DV. I have all of them because usually we have more than one person editing at a time plus you get the best of all worlds. Final cut Pro is the best, hands down. I do 95% of my editing on FCP. Macs in my experience are also more suitable to handle advanced video editing whereas Windows is way below average. Premiere I like because it has a lot of features, but like most people have said, it does crash a lot (before I got a Mac my videos were crashing every 10-15 mins. Avid is great but not my favorite, I can use it but I just prefer FCP overall.

www.factorfilms.net

Personally I use Vegas... I think it is just nice, smooth, and has great integration with sound forge, which is the best audio editing software I have ever used.

Personally, I think too much time is spent debating which software is better, whether for its editing, compositing or special effects work. It?s not the tools you use so much, as how you use them that counts.

I have often found that limitations imposed by my software have forced me to think up a far more creative solution to particular problem.

Ian
www.pixelrevolutionfilms.com

I've used a lot of different programs: Vegas, Premiere, Avid, iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, Final Cut and even a couple open-source programs.

I had been using Premiere 6 for quite some time, but after a few months interning at a local TV station I was convinced to buy a Mac and switch to Final Cut.

I like Final Cut because it has a very simple, intuitive interface similar to Premiere's but, unlike Premiere, offers better image control and compositing tools (I haven't used Premiere Pro, so I can't speak to that).

I'm sure Avid is a wonderful, powerful program (and the fact that they have a free version is a definite plus), but I could never get past the impenetrable user interface: There's a heck of a lot of unlabeled buttons that all look pretty much the same, and they're all over the place.

The only programs I'd really suggest you avoid are iMovie and Windows Movie Maker, for the simple reason that their interfaces are so non-standard that you can't use that knowledge when you eventually move up to a more advanced program. A better low-end option would be Pinnacle.

Actually, all you really need it to do is capture, cut and export, so pretty much anything will do (for PC users: for another free option, I might keep an eye on ?url? http://www.thugsatbay.com?/url ?'s Zwei-Stein video editor.

I got the feeling that Avid is much better than Premiere. I'm in the process of determining which program to invest my money and time to learn. Can anyone point me to a review of Avid Xpress HD Pro vs. Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each program? And lastly, what editing program are the pros using?

Here is a review I found with Final Cut Pro and Avid Xpress Pro HD.

?url? http://www.geniusdv.com/tutorials/avid-vs-finalcutpro.php?/url?

However, I'm unable to find something like this on Premiere and Xpress Pro HD.