I’m looking for some sort of video editing application for the PC that is similar to iMovie. What I need is something that can help me arrange still photos and video to music. It has to be able to export to DVD (.vob format, in other words.) It should also contain a standard battery of effects (fade-ins and outs, that sort of thing), the ability to create DVD menus, that sort of thing.
Basically, iMovie for the PC is what I’m looking for.
I have no idea what the PC standard video editing application is, so if anyone can help me, it’d be much appreciated.
Well, I guess that really depends on your budget. I don’t have money for software this expensive, so I’ve never tried it, but I hear Avid Express Pro is the standard for professional editing on the PC. It costs $1700. They also sell a feature-limited version for $700. One of the differences is that the DVD authoring program included with the cheaper version is much more limited. From what I’ve heard, the learning curve on this application is very steep.
Adobe Premier Pro might be a good solution for you, but from what I’ve heard about iMovie, you may find it significantly more difficult to use. There’s a $700 pricetag on that one.
Poor folks like me use the freeware VirtualDub for kludgy video editing, then, since it can’t encode MPEG, we frameserve it to TMPGenc ($50 shareware) for encoding. The audio has to be encoded seperately, since TMPGenc doesn’t have an AC3 encoder and NTSC DVD doesn’t officially support MP2 audio. The freeware BeSweet is a decent tool for encoding AC3. Next comes the freeware IfoEdit for very basic DVD authoring. It’s a pretty convoluted process and doesn’t have nearly as many features as professional solutions, but it only cost me $50.
Basically, AFAIK, a single program with both the ease-of-use and feature-set of iMovie does not exist for the PC. Of course, I’m open to corrections, because, like I said, I can’t afford those pricey programs and I am by no means an expert.