[Adam Lincoln]

So, whats the best for editing. When i say best, i mean simple, but still get all the effects etc etc....

Computer isnt amazing though. 2.4 celeron with half a gig of memory. Laptop a bit better with a gig of memory. Will be using both....

Chris, what do you use?

[Obi-Wan is lost...]

On  a PC Premiere Elements is pretty good and budget. You can get it bundled with Photoshop Elements also.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Adobe-Photoshop-Elements-Premiere-Bundle/dp/B000IBBL8G/ref=sr_1_6/202-6331352-0347061?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1179079520&sr=1-6

[GCW]

Yeah, I use Adobe Premier Pro but I hear Prem Elements is good.  Should give you most of the effects you need and it's a great interface.
Don't buy Pinnacle Studio Pro- it totally blows goats.

[unclesomebody]

Firstly, your celeron is going to hate you for this. Expect very long render times...

This forum will give you more insight into all the different editors etc; http://www.camcorderinfo.com/bbs/forumdisplay.php?f=108

I would seriously consider a hardware upgrade. Your laptop is going to have issues mainly because you'll be using the same hard drive for storing video and for running the editor on. If you are going to use an external hard drive then I just hope it's firewire 400/800 because USB 2 is slow.

Maybe you should start at the bottom and work up. Try a simple editor and if it doesn't do what you need try another program. If that is lacking in features then try another one. I'm only saying this because you probably don't NEED all the functions premier pro offers and your processor will certainly love you more if you tried running a simpler program.

best of luck. I look forward to some videos. 

[GCW]

I agree with Unc on that.  I wouldn't leap into Pro at all, plus it's expensive.  Elements isn't too hungry on memory but from what I've seen of Celeron most things take ages.
Memory is always an issue.  I've had to dump stuff onto a 250GB offboard drive as I've got so much stuff.
Have you tried Windows Video Editor?  Comes free and does most simple stuff?  How intense do you need it?

[Adam Lincoln]

Thanks for all replies guys.....

Hardware upgrade isn't an option at moment as i am in between traveling for 18 months, so will have to wait.

Ive managed to piece together a sempron 1.7ghz from bits lying around, so tad bit better than the celeron. (Just)

I might try using Premier Elements and see how i get on.

Thanks again guys, hopefully repay you with some entertaining vids!

[Jim]

you can pick up p4 chips dirt cheap these days if your motherboard will support it. I got a PentiumD 3.2 t'other day for less than £50

[Johnny Brown]

I wish I lived in JimWorld. What a place.

[Jim]

Not for me I might add. I run core 2 duo which is where its at (but you already knew that of course    )

also 2.6, 3 gig P4's are going on fleebay for around he £15 £20 mark

[Adam Lincoln]

Well, i went for Elements, so we shall see once i have some footage. Ill let you know how i get on....!

[Adam Lincoln]

Quick question, does anyone know if premier elements can do that effect where you film something for a while, then put it in a film having speeded it up so it looks like time lapse photography? Quite cool for intros and long traverses!

[unclesomebody]

a quick google found this;

Stop-Motion Capture

Perhaps the most unexpected feature in the new Premiere Elements 3.0 is the new Stop Motion video capture mode. Popular in Japan and for education, the idea is to step through a video sequence and extract representative frames in order to create a stop-motion look.

To aid in this process, Premiere Elements displays an Onion Skinning effect to overlay a transparent version of each previous frame, so you can see the progression of the animation as you build it. Or use the Time Lapse option to automatically create a time-lapse animation from frames at regular intervals.


I'm sure a further google will tell you exactly how to do it.

[Adam Lincoln]

yeah, i only have version 1.0 at the moment, i may have to upgrade......

[Monolith]

Only just looked at this..

Adam, I've worked quite a bit with stop motion. I currently use istopmotion on mac and have produced some great stuff with it. It's only available on OSX which I imagine is no use to you.

http://stopmotionanimation.com/links/ Is an old site which has been revamped with some good links in the links section.

http://www.istopmotion.com/ Just in case you happen to have access to an OSX platform. Software is very easy to use and the price is around 30 quid for the package you would require.

Drop me a line if you want to see some examples or need any help. Good luck!

[GCW]

Quick question, does anyone know if premier elements can do that effect where you film something for a while, then put it in a film having speeded it up so it looks like time lapse photography? Quite cool for intros and long traverses!

Adam, do you mean "how do you speed up the film" like THIS?  Or are you talking about more technical stuff.
If the former, try right clicking on the clip you want to slow down/ speed up and select "clip speed/duration" (I think).  It's there on pro, not so sure about Elements.

[unclesomebody]

Can I just ask if anyone is using an NLE with 25p footage, and if so what NLE and what is your workflow?

[Adam Lincoln]

Quick question, does anyone know if premier elements can do that effect where you film something for a while, then put it in a film having speeded it up so it looks like time lapse photography? Quite cool for intros and long traverses!

Adam, do you mean "how do you speed up the film" like THIS?  Or are you talking about more technical stuff.
If the former, try right clicking on the clip you want to slow down/ speed up and select "clip speed/duration" (I think).  It's there on pro, not so sure about Elements.

Thats the puppy, just for stuff like clouds for intros and stuff....

[Adam Lincoln]

Only just looked at this..

Adam, I've worked quite a bit with stop motion. I currently use istopmotion on mac and have produced some great stuff with it. It's only available on OSX which I imagine is no use to you.

http://stopmotionanimation.com/links/ Is an old site which has been revamped with some good links in the links section.

http://www.istopmotion.com/ Just in case you happen to have access to an OSX platform. Software is very easy to use and the price is around 30 quid for the package you would require.

Drop me a line if you want to see some examples or need any help. Good luck!

Cheers for those, ill have a luck

[Obi-Wan is lost...]

Only just looked at this..

Adam, I've worked quite a bit with stop motion. I currently use istopmotion on mac and have produced some great stuff with it. It's only available on OSX which I imagine is no use to you.

http://stopmotionanimation.com/links/ Is an old site which has been revamped with some good links in the links section.

http://www.istopmotion.com/ Just in case you happen to have access to an OSX platform. Software is very easy to use and the price is around 30 quid for the package you would require.

Drop me a line if you want to see some examples or need any help. Good luck!

Cheers for those, ill have a luck

We do lots of animation on Macs, we used to use Framethief mostly, which is free for the basic version. We now tend to use iCananimate which looks more like iMovie but is pretty similar to Framethief. On a PC Stopmotionpro is meant to be one of the best, I have used it briefly but not extensively. There are various free PC programme such as 'MonkeyJam' that have an element of stopmotion built in. This one is built for kids but works pretty well.

Back on Mac's a while back we were put off using iStopmotion as it had a severe design flaw we fell foul of a couple of times. (It may have changed in later versions) Most animations programmes create a folder with each frame captured as a JPG file numbered in sequence. If the computer locks up or crashes you only lose one frame. With iStopmotion it saves a single large file which became corrupt if the computer crashed. You lost the lot. There was no way of recovering any frames from the file. This was immensely annoying if you set up a timelapse for several hours or days. 

[Monolith]

Indeed, something to be aware of there Obi. Fortunately, I've never encountered any system failure or OS hang when capturing. Guess I would have learnt the hard way by the sounds of things!

Surely this is a flaw they have now corrected. What version where you using Obi?

[Obi-Wan is lost...]

What version where you using Obi?

Not sure Mono, it was a couple of years ago so I guess they've sorted it.

[Monolith]

Aye, mine ain't given me any trouble at any point. I rate istopmotion highly, especially for the price for the version I bought (around 30 quid).