Is Adobe Premiere Elements any good or is that too watered down? I'm probably fine with Gimp or pixlr.com for my image editing needs but I'd like something more than iMovie or Windows Movie Maker (whatever it's called now) but I don't want to pay for Premiere Pro. I don't mind paying for software but I was curious what y'all recommend.

 

Interested to see the responses. I don't do video editing but ya never know.

 

I guess premiere pro is no longer available as a one time purchase? Subscription only?

Adobe Acrobat still has one time purchases for Standard and Pro

 

I think most of the Adobe suite is subscription based.

 

Yes but I was hoping you could still do a onetime purchase if you looked closely. Office is similar, when you go to buy Office all you see is how to buy Office 365 subscription but if you looked around close enough you'll see the Home & Business or Home &Student 2019 versions of Office available for purchase. Adobe does the same with Acrobat, doesn't seem to be the case with Premiere Pro or Photoshop.

This reminds me of trying to download the free version of Real Player back in the day, they always made that so difficult to find, and every few months they'd switch it up so you had to search like hell to find the free download link on the redesigned page, and click through a few different pages before you got to finally download the free version.

 

Mac or PC? Apple makes Final Cut Pro which has its own steep price but at least it's a one time purchase.

 

Pc

 

I'm downloading the Davinci Resolve 17 beta now. It's free! They actually have a free version of the software and the paid version is $300 and has lots of capabilities, and it's a lifetime license! I'd pay $300 to have lifetime access to great cross platform video editing software

@Sarlacc @Mizouse thoughts on Davinci Resolve, have you used it?

 

DR is supposed to be good. I haven’t used it thou. The free version wouldn’t run on my 2012 Mac Mini.
So I ended up getting Final Cut when iTunes gift cards were on sale so I didn’t pay the full $300. Basically 20% off.

haven’t tried it on my 2018 Mini yet, but I’m not expecting good results since I only have integrated graphics.

 

The free version should be plenty for most most people. IIRC it caps out at UHD 60fps. Not as good or doesn’t have noise reduction and doesn’t perform as good as the paid one. Also the free one only can utilize up to 1 GPU.

 

Da Vinci is an industry standard color correction & grading app. Its shifted slightly the last few versions to also include editing. It’s quite good. It’s what I know use to edit my reels. I also have fcp x, and while I like somethings about it the app is no longer as high end or professional as fcp 7 was. Apple fucked that one up hard.

 

Well I got a $100 Amazon GC for my bday so I'm putting that toward a Davinci Resolve Studio license

 

just buy a BM pocket 4K. it comes with copy of DR studio

 

A lot will depend on just what you intend to accomplish. I've used Premiere Pro, VideoStudio, Pinnacle, etc. They are all pretty much the same -- in terms of basic capabilities. Workflows differ. The devil is in the details.

If you're working with "original content" (e.g., home movies) your needs will differ from someone doing pro production. And, a lot will depend on whether you are focused on the task or just wanting to "play" and/or "explore".

You need additional tools if you want to author DVDs. Likewise if you want to generate any animations/CGI. Or, green-screen compositing. Or, transcoding different video/audio formats.

And, even more if you want to doi any live processing (e.g., like the computer graphics superimposed on the screen when you watch the evening "weather" -- while the forecaster stands by an animated weathermap...

While I tend to support FOSS, I've been disappointed in the quality/featuresets of most offerings compared to commercial products. I want to get a job done, not tinker with a tool that might not be up to the task!

And, while I tend to really like Adobe products, you might find the UI on the Corel or Pinnacle products easier to "relate to".

 

Well now if I did video editing it'd be on my MacBook Pro so maybe I'll get FCPX since it works better with iPhone videos

 

DR17.4 should support M1 Pro/Max, ProRes & HEVC.


but ya FCPX should work well too. I got mine 20% off when they offered 20% off App gift cards.

 

Most tools are able to support a variety of resolutions/form-factors. What's important is the capabilities that each affords and the workflow that each imposes. (E.g., I recently was tasked with merging separate audio and video streams into a combined "video". It was educational to see how eaily this could -- or could NOT -- be done with many tools! Likewise, authoring subtitles, chapter markers for DVDs, etc.)

I like having lots of screen real estate. So, a pair of 30's is the low end, for me. I have four 24's on my CAD and EDA workstations as I often need to be looking at several things simultaneously (e.g., a circuit board layout, the schematic for it, a datasheet for one of the components in the design, my "working notes", etc.)

 

@Mizouse