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Video Editing Software Recommendations

I use Final Cut Pro X all the time. It is the best editing program by far, for the work I do. It manages to have a lot of power, which is hidden until you need it. Editing programs are pretty personal things, and you may want to try several.

As a note, most drone videos will not tax any editing program. Making cuts and pairing music are done by all editing programs.

How would you compare Final Cut Pro with the regular iMovie? Is it unreal difference?
 
Certainly not unreal. Most of the basic editing stuff uses the same software code base underneath the GUI. The biggest differences come from some of the professional features that have been added, for example, Multicam editing. Vital for cutting reality tv - not so much for drone footage. There is a huge body of professional editors using FCPX, who all participate in user groups sharing problem solutions and tips. There are a couple of groups you could look at and see the kinds of discussions that are going on to see if what his being talked about is something you need in an editor. Home , Final Cut Pro X - Apple Community If you want to invest the time and think that you may want to do some serious editing in the future, I would recommend it very highly. I have been editing movies since 1964, with more editing systems than I can count, and FCPX is, for me, the best. It fits well all the stuff I do, and it fits very well into the bigger Apple system including Motion, a special effect program, and Compressor which provides a vast array of encoding and resizing choices.

As I said in my earlier post, I cannot imagine a drone video project involving more than what iMovie provides. It is a wonderful tool for straightforward editing, and has Avery short learning curve.

What editing problems are you having trouble with?
 
Another vote for Davinci. Have been using it for a while now and am still finding new features. Admittedly it has a steep learning curve, but at the basic level it is similar to other editors I have used. Once you get into fusion there is little it can't do.
 
Certainly not unreal. Most of the basic editing stuff uses the same software code base underneath the GUI. The biggest differences come from some of the professional features that have been added, for example, Multicam editing. Vital for cutting reality tv - not so much for drone footage. There is a huge body of professional editors using FCPX, who all participate in user groups sharing problem solutions and tips. There are a couple of groups you could look at and see the kinds of discussions that are going on to see if what his being talked about is something you need in an editor. Home , Final Cut Pro X - Apple Community If you want to invest the time and think that you may want to do some serious editing in the future, I would recommend it very highly. I have been editing movies since 1964, with more editing systems than I can count, and FCPX is, for me, the best. It fits well all the stuff I do, and it fits very well into the bigger Apple system including Motion, a special effect program, and Compressor which provides a vast array of encoding and resizing choices.

As I said in my earlier post, I cannot imagine a drone video project involving more than what iMovie provides. It is a wonderful tool for straightforward editing, and has Avery short learning curve.

What editing problems are you having trouble with?

Not Really problems. Still learning, as I just started a few months ago playing around after I got the Mavic. At first I couldn't get any of my Video's to go to 4K. After lots of research and you tube's, I finally have that figured out. Mostly I just wondered if the options available on Final Cut would make your final production that much better. It's a bit of cash! I have Logic Pro X and make my own music for my Vid's and that is a pretty sweet piece of software.
 
Hello, new member. Just got a Mavic Mini and loving it. Looking for a video editor to use on a Windows 10 PC with graphics card. I tried the free version of Filmora and the footer covered up my video and drove me nuts. I have a Adobe Lightroom / Photoshop package that I'm already paying for ($10/month). No one has recommended Photoshop for video editing, is there a reason? Initially, Photoshop hasn't been intuiative at all, even after watching some videos.

Also, any recommendations of video to shot at 2.7K/30 fps or 1080p/60 fps. I'm assuming I keep this resolution the same throughout the editing process.
 
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Hello, new member. Just got a Mavic Mini and loving it. Looking for a video editor to use on a Windows 10 PC with graphics card. I tried the free version of Filmora and the footer covered up my video and drove me nuts. I have a Adobe Lightroom / Photoshop package that I'm already paying for ($10/month). No one has recommended Photoshop for video editing, is there a reason? Initially, Photoshop hasn't been intuiative at all, even after watching some videos.

Also, any recommendations of video to shot at 2.7K/30 fps or 1080p/60 fps. I'm assuming I keep this resolution the same throughout the editing process.

Give the free version of Da Vinci Resolve a go. Excellent and no limitations. Plenty of very good YT tutorials.
 
Hello, new member. Just got a Mavic Mini and loving it. Looking for a video editor to use on a Windows 10 PC with graphics card. I tried the free version of Filmora and the footer covered up my video and drove me nuts. I have a Adobe Lightroom / Photoshop package that I'm already paying for ($10/month). No one has recommended Photoshop for video editing, is there a reason? Initially, Photoshop hasn't been intuiative at all, even after watching some videos.

Also, any recommendations of video to shot at 2.7K/30 fps or 1080p/60 fps. I'm assuming I keep this resolution the same throughout the editing process.
Since you are already in the ecosystem try giving premier a shot. There is a free trial just download through your Adobe creative cloud app. Editing in Photoshop isn't the most intuitive solution as Photoshop is primarily designed for photo work. There is a learning curve on Photoshop but their initial startup tutorial will get you doing the basics quick.

Overall I have found Resolve to be much less intuitive and more problematic during install and getting it setup but that is my opinion based on my experiences. Before the peanut gallery starts, I am not looking for a discussion on why Resolve is the bees knees or why paying monthly is evil. Save it for a different thread.

Creative cloud has come a long way over the past year an all the bonus software you get access to alongside the main apps is amazing. Also having seamless updates that just work is higher. Good luck on your search, just keep trying stuff you will find the one that is right for you. Again my experiences, preferences, and opinions.
 
I guess davinci resolve needs 16gb ram, my home pc has only 8gb ram. Anyone using movie studio 16 platinum? If so, any good for basic editing and adding background music?
 
Glad I found this thread as I was going to post similar, tried premier pro tp my creative cloud account last week and it put the subscription from 10 pounds a month to over 50 which is not viable for me. After reading all the replies I think I will try Resolve as it seems to tick all the boxes, thank you
 
Being completely new to the world of drones and everything related to them, I'm up against a large learning curve. One of the things that caught my interest was the simplistic editing software that came with the Mavic Mini. However, the DJI Fly app is only available for Android or Apple operating systems. I would much prefer to attempt editing on my Windows 10 Pro system. However, apparently the DJI app is not Windows compatible. Looking for recommendations for any basic, simplistic editing software for Windows would be appreciated.
If you have time to sit and get into editing, Adobe CC is great if you use it enough. Resolve is as good ( if not better), and has a version you can keep for $300 I think. I use PowerDirector on my Android when I'm on the go, which is most of the time.
 
I'm using Wondershare Filmora 9 for my editing. It was about $60 for a lifetime subscription.
 
Another Davinci Resolve user who loves the software. It's not exactly the simplest, but it's that hard either (to me more logical than Hitfilm or even Cyberlink Powerdirector). It's also extremely powerful. Essentially a full pro editing suit for free. The color correction and grading capabilities blow just about everything else away. Definitely a lot to learn, but you can do basic stuff without knowing a ton, especially with the new simplified "Cut" page in version 16. If you run into a hangup you can always google it and there are lots of great tutorials out there (as with most major editing software). And no, I've never read the 3,200 page manual. :)
 
I've been using Pinnacle Studio 22 for awhile. It's fairly easy to use. I'ts a one time purchase software.
 
I've always preferred Adobe Premiere. In fact I eagerly upgraded to a gaming desktop just so I could use Premiere Pro.
Im constantly being told that gaming computers cant handle premiere pro. Are they pulling my leg to upsell me?
 
Im constantly being told that gaming computers cant handle premiere pro. Are they pulling my leg to upsell me?
There is some truth to that, but I wouldn't categorically say that gaming computers can't handle Premiere Pro. The thing is that Premiere is very CPU usage heavy and isn't very good at taking advantage of the GPU (graphics card). Gaming computers have great graphics cards, but don't necessarily have great CPUs. So if you have a gaming computer with a good CPU, Premiere will run fine but you won't be utilizing much of the GPU 's power.

Some other editors like Davinci Resolve are much better at using the GPU, so they tend to run better on gaming computers because they are making full use of all the processing power available, not just the CPU. Personally I use Davinci on a Razer Blade 15 with an Nvidia GTX 1060 (6gb) and a 6 core i7. Premiere would probably run ok, but wouldn't really use that GPU power.
 
Just as a reminder, ALL of these editing tools re-encode your video which mean no matter what setting you pick, every time you edit your video you lose raw video quality. Two things to be considered

1) If you need to edit, more than once always work from the source video never re-edit an already edited video
2) While a lot of these tools are great for adding effects and transitions and color grading, IF all you want to do trim, cut, split your video use a video editor that does not force re-encoding of the video, like avidemux(free) or videoredo(not free). These editors are not great for adding transitions or color grading, though transitions can be added with only isolated quality loss. They do however cut and trim on key frames and leave the video 100% in it's original quality and are also VERY fast to save edits.

One method I use to save time is when I want to color grade a video, I first edit in avidemux to get to the final content and then bring into Resolve. Resolve will have less video to have to load, process and scan, plus I find trimming in Resolve to be a PITA.

Also remember when re-encoding, bitrate matters. The same reason all the reviewers clammer about recording bitrate of the drone, if you care about quality and are re-encoding video don't cheap out on bitrate to save file space. If your drone saves at 100mbit, don't save your files at 20mbit unless you just need them for social media.
 
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Just as a reminder, ALL of these editing tools re-encode your video which mean no matter what setting you pick, every time you edit your video you lose raw video quality. Two things to be considered

1) If you need to edit, more than once always work from the source video never re-edit an already edited video
2) While a lot of these tools are great for adding effects and transitions and color grading, IF all you want to do trim, cut, split your video use a video editor that does not force re-encoding of the video, like avidemux(free) or videoredo(not free). These editors are not great for adding transitions or color grading, though transitions can be added with only isolated quality loss. They do however cut and trim on key frames and leave the video 100% in it's original quality and are also VERY fast to save edits.

One method I use to save time is when I want to color grade a video, I first edit in avidemux to get to the final content and then bring into Resolve. Resolve will have less video to have to load, process and scan, plus I find trimming in Resolve to be a PITA.

Also remember when re-encoding, bitrate matters. The same reason all the reviewers clammer about recording bitrate of the drone, if you care about quality and are re-encoding video don't cheap out on bitrate to save file space. If your drone saves at 100mbit, don't save your files at 20mbit unless you just need them for social media.
There is some truth to that, but there a couple of things that need to be considered.

#1 it depends on what format you re-encode to. In Resolve I can export as DNxHR 4:4:4 12 bit which is actually a much higher quality codec than anything the Mavics shoot. If you export into a codec like this there won't be any quality loss. This type of codec is what is used to roundtrip between NLEs or VFX software. However, even if you export to a comparatively highly compressed codec like H.264 Master (not Youtube or Vimeo settings), there will be no noticeable quality loss unless you plan to do heavy color grading on the exported footage. The footage from many DJI drones is already so compressed that you probably wouldn't lose much gradability anyway.

#2 Most of what people are editing will end up being highly compressed H.264 for Youtube or Vimeo anyway. Unless you are editing for broadcast or cinema or something like that, you will have VERY heavy-handed compression applied either on export or when you upload to Youtube. If it goes onto YouTube it will have quality loss at some point in the process.

#3 IMO it is much faster to do all your edits in one program rather than cutting in one program and then going into another for transitions/FX/color grading/sound etc. There's nothing "wrong" per se with cutting in one program and coloring in another (a lot of people do that) but I find it much better to do it all in one program as much as possible since the whole workflow is non destructive and I can go back and fine-tune an edit after I do some color correction/grading
 
There is some truth to that, but there a couple of things that need to be considered.

#1 it depends on what format you re-encode to. In Resolve I can export as DNxHR 4:4:4 12 bit which is actually a much higher quality codec than anything the Mavics shoot. If you export into a codec like this there won't be any quality loss. This type of codec is what is used to roundtrip between NLEs or VFX software. However, even if you export to a comparatively highly compressed codec like H.264 Master (not Youtube or Vimeo settings), there will be no noticeable quality loss unless you plan to do heavy color grading on the exported footage. The footage from many DJI drones is already so compressed that you probably wouldn't lose much gradability anyway.

#2 Most of what people are editing will end up being highly compressed H.264 for Youtube or Vimeo anyway. Unless you are editing for broadcast or cinema or something like that, you will have VERY heavy-handed compression applied either on export or when you upload to Youtube. If it goes onto YouTube it will have quality loss at some point in the process.

#3 IMO it is much faster to do all your edits in one program rather than cutting in one program and then going into another for transitions/FX/color grading/sound etc. There's nothing "wrong" per se with cutting in one program and coloring in another (a lot of people do that) but I find it much better to do it all in one program as much as possible since the whole workflow is non destructive and I can go back and fine-tune an edit after I do some color correction/grading

#1 No it doesn't matter what you encode to, what bitrate you use. If you are re-encoding video then you lose quality..Period. Now you can apply filters and color grading and you may "perceive" you have a better video, but from a pure pixel/resolution perspective unless you using some really cool profession(studio professional) software that can literally "invent" pixels, you're degrading the picture.

#2 Yes it depends on you final target, but if that's the case why buy a drone that records 4K at 100+mb?
#3 Whatever works, just stating what works for me. I'm a novice in producing cinema and shooting with drones, but have been dealing with video encoding and filtering and editing for decades. I have a nice laptop, but resolve takes some horsepower to load a 20 min video, compared to a 5 min clip where as I can turn a 20min video into a 5 min clip in less than 5 min in avidemux.
 
If only I had a nickel for every week this exact same question was asked....
 
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