Your Class Ought to Be in Pictures (Part 2 of 3)

For mid range (under $100) products there are a wide variety of choices available. I can not say that I have tested them all and therefore there may be many choices not listed here that are great products. I only hope to provide a program that I can recommend as a great product.

My personal favorite is Sony Vegas Movie Studio + DVD Platinum Edition primarily because of its ease of use to learn, and it’s very powerful editing features. I’m a little biased because in my very extensive search for professional video editing software I selected Vegas Video. Vegas Movie Studio has a similar interface and features yet it is somewhat scaled down from it’s big brother. The biggest strength that Vegas has over the other formats is that it was designed from the start to be an effective computer based editor, whereas many of the other software packages were initially designed to be used by people familiar to the old style linear editing for film or from tape to tape editing. These programs then try to add features but are still tied to this archaic structure that just doesn’t make that much sense. The downside to this or any other advanced software is that when you add specialization features you also increase the level of difficulty involved in learning the program. I highly recommend that you get a book or training course to teach you the basics. Getting a solid footing will help you unleash the power of this amazing program. The best book I could recommend is by one of my favorite Vegas Video Trainers Douglas Spotted Eagle Instant Vegas Movie Studio +DVD

In part 3 we will look at professional level tools, as well as training options.