Gjac wrote:
Years ago I shot and edited hours of underwater video with a Sony TR-81 video camera. I dropped the camera out of my backpack in a stream and it no longer works. The editing took along time. I have a new Cannon S-50 with a 50x zoom and video capabilities which I would like to start using to document my trips. I have not played much with the video part yet but your videos have sparked some interest. I like the stills with a little video mixed in. Which software system in your opinion would be the easiest for a beginner to use?
I started with Power Director by Cyberlink. There's another called Serif which gets pretty good reviews. I don't have any experience with that one. But Power Director will get your feet wet in the editing arena, and it's got some pretty neat canned effects.
The reason I got away from Power Director is that there is a freeze of the last frame in the cross fade transitions from clip to clip, and it just bothered me. In my Glacier NP and Yellowstone video you can see it in the transitions. Nobody else in my family really thought it was a problem, and it is very subtle, but I changed to Sony Vegas anyway. Vegas offers much more, but the learning curve is huge. I bought a dvd by a guy that is an expert with vegas and it helps a lot in how to use the software. Youtube has many videos on how to use Power Director also and that helps a lot.
I don't know what your aggravation toleration level is, but if I can do this stuff without having a stroke, then you probably can too.