# Cheap video editing software **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 18, 2008, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-video-editing-software/464142 "2008-09-18T14:05:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2008, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-video-editing-software/464142/1 "2008-09-18T14:05:35Z")
I’m planning on doing a podcast, and have no video editing software. I don’t need anything too complex, but I will need to be able to: [ul] [li]Manipulate the audio separately from the video[/li][li]Capture video from a DVD (don’t worry, no copyright infringement planned)[/li][li]Grab video of my monitor (ie, a screen capture in action . . . I imagine I might need a separate tool for this)[/li][/ul] Anyone have any suggestions? Oh, and I’m running a Windows Vista machine. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2008, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-video-editing-software/464142/2 "2008-09-18T14:07:42Z")
Will Windows Movie Maker do? That was one of the ones I started out with. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2008, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-video-editing-software/464142/3 "2008-09-18T14:12:25Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > Will Windows Movie Maker do? That was one of the ones I started out with. Wow. Apparently this has been a feature of Windows for a long time? Learn something new every day. Thanks! I’m going to play around with this to see if it’ll do everything I need, but I’d still like to hear other people’s suggestions/experiences. ---
**Author:** ![Anonymous\_Coward](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/94ad74/32.png) [@Anonymous\_Coward](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anonymous_Coward)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2008, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-video-editing-software/464142/4 "2008-09-18T15:00:00Z")
In your sub-$100 range the top contenders are Adobe Premier Elements (my personal choice), Pinnacle Studio, and Sony Vegas Movie Studio. All three have demos you can download and see for yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Kinthalis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kinthalis/32/16084_2.png) [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2008, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-video-editing-software/464142/5 "2008-09-18T15:03:07Z")
I’ll second Adobe Premier elements. Easy to use (though tweaking the output can be a little confusing at first), affordable and very powerful for the price. I use it all the time to coble together family videos. ---
**Author:** ![Atrael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Atrael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atrael)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2008, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-video-editing-software/464142/6 "2008-09-18T18:22:08Z")
I’ve had good luck with Sony Vegas. Somehow I got a downloaded version that doesn’t expire, looks like the newest version only lets you play with it for 30 days before crapping out. It has a fair amount of power to do what I want, but was still easy enough to use after a couple of days I felt comfortable.