Why am I, a novelist, interested in video editing? Well, if you’re a smart novelist, you’ve caught on to the fact that learning to write Screenplays actually enhances your writing a thousandfold. The genre makes demands upon a writer that forces the novelist to think outside the “It was a dark and stormy night” mindset we all have.
And if you take the highly recommended plunge to write a screenplay, you’re going to go through a period of learning to film and edit – just as a platform to show off your writing skills. It’s probable that nobody will hire you for your film making skills – but it gets attention, and that helps with name recognition later on.
For this shootout, the video editors all have to be in that vastly overpriced region of $95-150. I really don’t know how anyone affords movie software like Pinnacle, because essentially these video editors should be selling for $39.95, but instead, the $99 price tag is worn by too many of them.
To win the shootout, the interface has to be easy, the learning curve very low to jump into, and have enough pro features to make it worthwhile once you’ve learned the “Windows Media Maker” process and want to flex your muscles.
Power Director. I thought I’d start with the current reigning champ, because I’m actually about to dethrone them. I’ve done a lot of reading on which video editor in this price range is the best, and some of the ones out there caused me to raise an eyebrow. Powerdirector has the same basic interface that most of them do. Why do almost all of the video editing programs have similar interfaces? The reason is that because certain programs rule the market, and everyone got wise to the fact that it’s better on the consumer to learn one interface, and be able to get up and running in just a few minutes, as opposed to a few hours. Adobe borrows from iMovie by Apple, and essentially everyone is using the iMovie interface to a certain extent – and that’s funny because iMovie essentially borrowed from the venerable Windows Movie Maker!
PowerDirector does an amazing job, and you can get access to the DirectorZone once you register the demo version. The Demo version is not time limited, but rather feature limited. I used PowerDirector 12 to make a series of tutorials on how to build an N scale railroad layout – unfortunately, the railroad was plagued with problems and when my wife suggested kindly that I start over, it was a huge relief.
What genuinely annoyed me about Powerdirector 12 was that whenever I needed an available feature, it inevitably happened to be one of the ones that the demo does not support – I have to pay the $100 to get it. And inevitably, there’d be a sale right when I had money coming in, but the sale would end right before the money cleared the bank.
When I got Powerdirector 15 with my new Dell (see? Get Dell computers and they come bundled with this stuff!), it was a relief that they finally took away the limitation on the film speed feature. I’d had to resort to installing Windows Movie Maker to speed up film when I did the railroad videos! (if you’re a railfan or model train guy, no worries – I’ll be resuming the model train tutorials in the future, after I move from where I’m currently living, but it’ll be Lionel trains).
PowerDirector gives you transitions and some patch editing abilities, but if you’re looking for much in the way of CGI or royalty free music, they don’t have any, and the DirectorZone has little as well. I would recommend musicians consider getting a name for themselves by writing and submitting music to as many of the royalty free music websites as possible!
PowerDirector is somewhat buggy, and version 12 crashed a lot. Version 15 not as often. I found that the white balance controls were just a touch insufficient for me, and quite a few transitions I have PowerDirector does not recognize. The DirectorZone does have a lot of really cool addons, and that’s a plus. For many people, it’s a fairly good video editor. But I went back to another video editor I’d used In the past. PowerDirector 15 ends up number two on my list.
Ulead Video. I’m including this one, because after Windows Movie Maker this was my next video editor, around 2005-2006. You can still find this around, but I believe Ulead has ended support from this product. If Ulead would like to comment, excellent! I actually still have the old install package backed up somewhere. The original Ulead had a novelty interface, but they did have the standard film editing layout that most still use today. It was a little frustrating in the first version of it to load a lot of video clips in, and cut and edit to a musical beat. All film making today (unless it is story based) requires editing to a musical beat. I persevered and got very good at struggling to produce 2019 results on 2006 computers and technology – not my fault I was 13 years ahead of the curve! When the Ulead update came out to the next version, the interface was much better, and I was finally able to get my visions out! If you see a Ulead install CD for sale at a thrift store or garage sale, it’s worth it to learn to produce good results from old technology. I’m including this so that users will learn to skip modern tools and learn to produce solely from the camera and a minimal interface! Thanks, Ulead for the memories! https://www.videostudiopro.com/en/pages/old-brands/ulead-videostudio/
Pinnacle. I don’t have this any more, and again, I went to them circa 2005-2006 – as a matter of fact, I got a demo and learned to use it right after Ulead! I spent a month trying to make a seven minute video, and literally was banging my head against the wall. Pinnacle rendered so slowly in those days that what was happening was I fussed over three frames that were ruining the sync. I was making jump cuts galore to keep the project at sync to music. The render would render the music track first, then the video track. After 60 seconds, no real problems. 90 seconds, I’d be a couple of frames off. Okay, find and cut two frames. 90 more seconds, I’d have to do it again. And again. I think I spend four weeks trying to find three frames I could cut without ruining the vide, to keep it in sync. Find them, cut them, render, now the video was faster. Restore them, outof sync again. I finally was up until 11:30 one night, and the latest render ended up – half a frame out of sync. Close enough. Modern video editors have no idea what people went through 13-14 years ago! I’m sure the problems I had were due to fighting against limitations of hardware and software – Pinnacle probably assumed most people would confine video to 3 minutes because of the problems. I lack the resources right now to try the new Pinnacle. https://www.pinnaclesys.com/en/upgrade/studio/
Wondershare Video Editor. You’re going to say, “Hey – you’ve got this twice!” I know! But there’s a reason. Here’s where Google gets creepy. I was trying to find something to replace Pinnacle a few years ago because I’d lost the install file somewhere. I looked at a lot of videos. And I saw an ad pop up. “You’re looking for free video editors. Click here to get Wondershare Video Editor for free! LImited opportunity.” Or something like that. I looked at the page coding, and it looked genuine… so… I clicked. Sure enough, I was directed to Wondershare’s page, and there was an unlock code. I downloaded Video Editor, and installed… tried the code… and it worked! I had Video Editor 100% for free!
Now, Wondershare got a bad, bad repuation because everyone figured out really quickly that Wondershare used to be bundled with a suspicious program called Wondershare video helper that would start with your computer. Okay, that’s looking like spyware. Easily fixed.
I really enjoyed Wondershare! I was able to make several videos like I’d done with the old Pinnacle – but there was ZERO sync issues! More likely due to the upgrades in computer technology, I’m sure, but it was nice to eliminate the problems! I enjoyed it, but then I ended up with a Dell instead of an HP, and it had PowerDirector on it. I stil l from time to time thought about using Wondershare, but… I had Powerdirector.
Filmora 9. By Wondershare. Filmora replaces the Wondershare, and the spyware is now gone. It looks like the Wondershare people got serious about the product, and decided to really bundle it with a million cool things. The white and color balance features now feature LUT support, so if you get a hankering to try using LUT’s made and shared by professional film colorists, you now have that option! Filmora must have asked questions of people, because the histogram feature is seriously good in Filmora 9. Don’t look at your screen output when adjusting color and white balance, look at your histogram! If your peaks are high and evenly distributed, you’re balanced – save it as an LUT to save time for future editing! This feature really helps – I was able to fix a lot of phone shot video under low light using this. The grainy-ness can’t be helped – if you film under low light, it adds grainy-ness automatically unless you get a Samsung pr iPhone!
Filmora 9 actually does Powerdirector much better now. To me, once I really stopped playing with the CGI effects (no kidding, I made a video where I was making shockwaves doing simple punches), I saw a lot of features in Filmora 9 that I was really inspired by! The PIP feature is much better – you can just drag a video onto another and resize, and masking isn’t needed… Or you can frame by frame install masks. I’ve also tried Filmora Pro, which to me is much better suited to intensive graphics work. If you want to make your own version of Star Wars, Filmora 9 can do it! The drawback is that Filmora 9 leaves a watermark unless you buy it. I still have my wondeshare license, and Wondershare recognizes it and honors it even though the license specifically says it was only for THAT VERSION of Wondershare! (remember, mine was the free version – if you buy Filmora, you still own it). Reorienting, sooming, time effects such as speed ramps and generating freeze frames within a ramp – all easily done by a beginner in Filmora. I’ve now gotten Davinci Resolve, but I’m still doing most of my edit work in Filmora 9 because it’s so fast and good. Render time according to all the reviews is a little below PowerDirector, but I’m having a hard time believing that! I’m getting great results out of bad footage through the features Wondershare added to Filmora 9. If you lack ring lights, shotgun mics, flood fill lights and Sony professional cameras, then Filmora will go a LONG way to fixing all that for you!
Filmora 9 has a dedicated Youtube channel with a lot of tutorials on taking your video work WAY past the beginner “Shaky phone video” stage, teaching lighting, editing, elementary CGI, camera work and angles, etc. No kidding – they’ve got some great tutorials breaking down things like lighting and coloring for the beginner!
Be prepared for someone to ask if you did something in Davinci Resolve, when it was really Filmora 9! https://filmora.wondershare.com/video-editor/
Conclusion. All of them had their pluses, and I did review a lot of the free ones where you spend no money – but if you’ve got $50 you can afford to spend, consider spending it on Filmora 9 when they have a sale! Otherwise, get it for free for now, and save up to spend the $99.
