Post Processing Software Recommendations

BeeRAD56 · May 28, 2017

This somewhat infamous Newbie (Me) is starting to really get the hang of things and take some awesome video.

My wife, who is a data analysis and the IT part of family, bought a $90 seat to "Power Director". It appears to be very powerful but at this point neither one of us have the time or patience to learn it.

What would be some other options available that are easy and intuitive to learn to just do some basic editing?

Thanks!

PatR · May 29, 2017

Perhaps try the free versions of Photoscape and Filmora to see what you think.

Tuna · May 29, 2017

Microsoft Movie Maker is pretty simple, but I can't say any of them are particularly intuitive.

I'd recommend you take a look on YouTube - there are thousands of tutorial videos showing 'how to' edit using various packages, including Power Director. They can get you going far quicker than struggling with manuals and trying to learn all the features.

FlushVision · May 29, 2017

BeeRAD56 said:
This somewhat infamous Newbie (Me) is starting to really get the hang of things and take some awesome video.

My wife, who is a data analysis and the IT part of family, bought a $90 seat to "Power Director". It appears to be very powerful but at this point neither one of us have the time or patience to learn it.

What would be some other options available that are easy and intuitive to learn to just do some basic editing?

Thanks!

I use Filmora. Incidentally, although PatR has suggested the free version, the free version renders a heavy watermark making the resulting video useless apart form evaluating it for purchase.

That said, If you go with Filmora you will find it to be quite an easy and user friendly application. Granted, no where near as powerful as some editors available but for day-to-day editing it's good enough.

I've tried more powerful editors but I often run into problems with a lack of computing power to render good videos. Filmora runs very well on my 6 year old lap-top that runs an i5 processor, 8gig of RAM and a NVIDIA CUDA 1GB graphics card.

PatR · May 29, 2017

That's the rub. You might have a new computer but not have a graphics card that will handle a powerful processing program. I have Vegas and Capture One Pro but need to buy a desktop to use them effectively.

PatR · May 29, 2017

Adding to the above, if you intend to purchase a post processing program, check the graphics card requirements of the program and verify that what you have is compatible. If not you'll be spending money for something you won't be able to use or lose some of the the programs functionality. If you're using a laptop recognize you probably can't upgrade your graphics card, something that can be easily done, for a price, with desk tops.

Something else to check is your play back equipment with display properties. If you are using older equipment with a 720p or less resolution you will likely encounter problems with 4k play back. If less than 720p resolution you may have significant problems with 4k play back. If you have an old graphics card you might not be able to play 4k at all. If using 1080 resolution you won't be able to see much, if any difference, between 4k and what your screen is capable of displaying. Bottom line, as video resolution improves we have to upgrade our play back and processing equipment to take advantage of the improvements in video quality.

Bluefin · May 30, 2017

BeeRAD56 said:
This somewhat infamous Newbie (Me) is starting to really get the hang of things and take some awesome video.

My wife, who is a data analysis and the IT part of family, bought a $90 seat to "Power Director". It appears to be very powerful but at this point neither one of us have the time or patience to learn it.

What would be some other options available that are easy and intuitive to learn to just do some basic editing?

Thanks!

I'm a big fan of Final Cut Pro. It does have a learning curve but there are plenty of free video courses Izzy videos.com that will help. And you will make stunning videos

nicholas hickman · May 30, 2017

Davinci Resolve, great program, free version.

PatR · May 30, 2017

If you have a graphics card and enough free memory to handle it.

nicholas hickman · May 30, 2017

PatR said:
If you have a graphics card and enough free memory to handle it.

Yes its very memory hungry, my 8GB is a bit low.

FlushVision · May 30, 2017

nicholas hickman said:
Yes its very memory hungry, my 8GB is a bit low.

I agree. I tried Davinci Resolve on my laptop that has 8GB memory and it was struggling. Unfortunately I can't upgrade the memory any further since I've already upgraded it previously from 4GB.

That said, I loved Davinci Resolve. A very good editor, and if I ever upgrade my computer to one that can handle it I'll definitely use it.

iSkyInAC904 · Jun 2, 2017

I use Vegas Movie Studio. 80 bucks at Sweetwater or download trial version for 30 days. It's a 4k editor with lots of bells and whistles but please pay attention to what PatR wrote because hardware is everything. I started with a system that wasn't up to 4k processing. 800 bucks later I've got a working system. I'm using Asrock MB, i7, 16gb memory,4 gb video card, 2 2tb drives, and upgraded to 700 watt PS. In the end it's very frustrating because it's barely enough. I've got my eye on asus x99 mb, 64gb, upgrading the 2600k i7 to an 8 core, twin 390x (8gb), bigger ps - gee whiz it never stops! -M

deMARCOman · Jun 4, 2017

I'm voting DaVinci too. I was a Premiere Pro guy. But DaVinci Resolve 14 is simply incredible! It's an elegant interface, super easy to pick up (ie: intuitive) 10 times faster than the previous versions and their free version may likely be the most you'll ever need. You'll quickly find yourself going from the editing panel to trying out the controls in the color panel where correction and grading becomes nearly drop dead easy. If you want to go total brain dead EASY then use any number of free LUTs (like preset move styles) that're out there. 14 is the game changer I expect will literally blow Final Cut, Premiere and even Avid off the charts. Brilliant marketing team too --the paid version just went from $995. to ONLY $300.! You'll get some more plugins and the full version of their audio editing section called Fairlight. Love Love Love!

The really SAD downside is that the Typhoon H does not take real raw video... translated that means the color corrections and grading ability is rather neutered because the 'style' is baked in.

PatR · Jun 4, 2017

kai_bcn · Jun 5, 2017

Hi, I have an imac with 32gb of ram but the graphic card only has 512mb and it is not enough unless there is a way to change the presets to lower the need for a much more powerful graphics card?

deMARCOman · Jun 5, 2017

Not that I know of...

FlushVision · Jun 5, 2017

kai_bcn said:
Hi, I have an imac with 32gb of ram but the graphic card only has 512mb and it is not enough unless there is a way to change the presets to lower the need for a much more powerful graphics card?

I'm not well up on Macs. I do know that in a PC laptop it generally isn't cost effective, if do-able at all, to upgrade the graphics card. But if it is doable on an iMac, and is cost effective, then have you considered upgrading the graphics card?

PatR · Jun 5, 2017

What about the possibility of using an external graphics card? I don't have enough Geek in me to know if something like that could be done.

kai_bcn · Jun 5, 2017

DaVinci Resolve offloads intensive image processing to the GPU. It also employs YRGB 32-bit floating point processing for exceptional color precision.
Workflow for Cinema DNG RAW on Entry Level iMac
2GB – A comfortable HD experience, limited 4K work.
4GB – Minimum for comfortable 4K work.
6GB – You can tackle pretty much everything a project is likely to require.
8GB+ – You can actually tackle everything any project is likely to require.

FlushVision · Jun 6, 2017

kai_bcn said:
DaVinci Resolve offloads intensive image processing to the GPU. It also employs YRGB 32-bit floating point processing for exceptional color precision.
Workflow for Cinema DNG RAW on Entry Level iMac
2GB – A comfortable HD experience, limited 4K work.
4GB – Minimum for comfortable 4K work.
6GB – You can tackle pretty much everything a project is likely to require.
8GB+ – You can actually tackle everything any project is likely to require.

I don't know about Resolve 14.0 but when I was using Resolve 12.5 I found that my lap-top that uses an i5CPU, NVIDIA CUDA graphics card and 8GB RAM it struggled with it and rendered videos that stuttered no matter what settings I used for the render. I eventually gave up and started using an editor called 'Filmora' instead which does the job for me.

I know that an iMAC has an entirely different architecture that supports it's graphics card and is more suitable for editing purposes than what would appear, on the face of it, to be a comparable PC based machine so I know that the comparison is difficult to make.