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jwjack44 wrote on 12/24/2012, 10:28 AM

I am looking at getting Movie Edit Pro 2013, as it has some nice edit features. While I know the trail version is just some key features, I see some short comings to it and some great features (love the JKL view controls). Is it worth the money?

I use Power Director 11 currently and am use to its strengths and weaknesses. HOwever, I may be at it's top end in editing mutli PIPs, titles, transitions, etc. With the multi-camera sync and some of it's add-ons, I was thinking Pro 2013 may be a step up. But with all of the negative comments I'm not sure.

I use Music Maker program for simple music building for my videos, and it works fine (not a power user yet). So if Pro 2013 works at least that good, I may be fine with the upgrade.

Any suggestions from the long term users?

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gandjcarr wrote on 1/4/2013, 11:52 AM

Hi Jay and Terry,

What a great discussion. Jay, I wanted to mention that I currently use 3 editing programs because each one has some unique strengths that the others don't. My primary editor is MEP mostly because I really like the workflow and the absolute flexibility in terms or tracks and track functionality. In MEP no track has a specific funtion. There are no title tracks or overlay tracks or audio tracks etc. A track is a track and what it does is entirely up to you. An extreme example of why this is a really incredible feature is that because I have access to 99 tracks, I could build a "video wall" with say 32 videos playing on the screen at the same time where each had their own title. That would leave me 35 tracks to add audio, photos, and additional video. I find that really impressive. Not that I would ever go to that extreme but if a client wanted it, I could do it and using a consumer editor. That is pretty impressive.

I currently use MEP 18 Premium, Corel VideoStudio Pro X5 Ultimate and PowerDirector 11.

I use the Corel product mostly for titles, video stabilization and travel route and animation drawing because my version includes Boris Graffiti (for titles). ProDad Mercalli (for stabilization), and RotoPen (which is a scaled down version of ProDad Heroglyph) that does route animation and drawing. I also use the Corel product to create all of my video screen captures. I had been using a number of the "free" applications (Camtasia, HyperCam, etc.) but found that the video quality and export flexibility was very limited unless you wanted to go for the "paid" versions. MEP does have video screen capture capability, but I have not been able to get it to capture the MEP screen and because I do many youtube tutorials to answer questions from MEP users this works well, plus I just don't like how the MEP screen capture works in terms of how the video gets captured, how you set up the capture area, etc.

My primary use for PowerDirector is that it has the most amazing Chroma key functionality of any consumer editing application I have ever used. When I am feeling lazy and do not want to make my own masks, I also use it for the pre-set masks that are included as there are more than what MEP provides. I do find the PowerDirector workflow to be confusing, but that is just me. I am sure that if I run up against a problem that the other two applications cannot solve for me, I will spend more time with it and find new features that I like about it.

Before I found MEP and started using it with the other two applications, I used Adobe products (mostly PhotoShop and CS6) but found the products to be very unstable, very memory and CPU intensive, and very difficult to use.

Since you and Terry have been having this conversation, and I have just now read all of the back and forth posts, I thought I would chime in and offer some of my thoughts and experiences.

George

jwjack44 wrote on 1/4/2013, 8:13 PM

Terry,

Yes I noticed, and it was a big help. But who is going to find the wonderful information in this string?

Just wanted to be sure you got credit for your tutoring.

jwjack44 wrote on 1/4/2013, 8:24 PM

George,

It is interesting on how you describe MEP and how you can build a video. PowerDirector 11 allows adding some large number of tracks (99 I believe), but you don't have to add video and audio. However, the problem as I see it that the first 3 you can't get rid of the audio track, so you may have wasted empty tracks. Plus if you delete a track in first 5 after you add it but determined you don't really need it, then when you restart it comes back.

Anyway, would you always recommend separating the sound track from the video track for ease of editing? Next, how stable is the program with all those tracks and clips open? PD 11 gets a bit sluggish with 10 to 20 clips, titles and effects. Is MEP better?

Also, thanks your help in the schooling of JWJack44, or me.

gandjcarr wrote on 1/5/2013, 9:00 AM

Jay,

I was not trying to say that one is better than the other, it is just a matter of personal preference.

I usually seperate my audio track from the video mostly because I will often insert a cut away (especially for travel or vacation videos) of things like an aircraft taking off, a map, a flag,travel route animation etc, and I don't want to break up the ambient sound. I will also mix in say the sound of the take off with the original sound. I also tend to use a independant audio recorder to sample ambient sound at a higher quality than my camera can record so that for nature or landscape or even city scenes I have the ambience from the shooting location in high quality audio that I can mix with say a music track so it does not have the "sterile" quality of a moving slide show set to music. I also use the off camera recorder as a audio back up in case my camera picks up any unwanted noise.

George

jwjack44 wrote on 1/5/2013, 6:35 PM

George,

I understand the personal preference part. But your experiences have shed a light in other areas in the use of MEP. Then with Terry's coaching on how to do other items, I feel you two have gotten me beyond the "don't know a thing" stage, to the "at least I know some beginner items."

Your last comments have given me an idea on how to get around the 4 frame drops that my XA-10 sometimes produces between the 2 gig blocks when recording. But that will be on music related videos, voice works fine just on my camera - for now.

FYI - Because of the tutorials from you 2, I'm either going for MEP 2013 Prem, or Pro X4. Then MEP or Pro X will be my primary editor and PD 11 will be the back-up.

Thanks again.