There's no doubt in my mind that just about everyone reading this has some way of recording video. And if you've got video, you need a video editor, because millions of junky YouTube clips aside, raw video is not the same thing as a good-looking movie or clip your audience enjoy, whether you're a pro or an amateur. Fortunately, there's a wide range of video-editing software from iMovie to PowerDirector to Final Cut Pro X and Adobe Premier that can help you edit, clean up, and share your videos, whether it's to DVD or a video-sharing site like DailyMotion, Vimeo, or YouTube.
Of course, not everyone will want or need the same level of sophistication when it comes to a video editing software program. We break down the options into three groups—casual, enthusiast, and pro. But no matter what your level, the apps we detail below let you join together your video clips, and package them in a far more compelling presentation than just pulling them off the device you shot them on.
Casual Video Shooters
For those who simply point there phones at the action occasionally or set there digicam to video now and then, some free options can do everything they need—PC users can download the free and excellent Windows Live Movie Maker, while all Macs come with iLife's equally excellent iMovie. Google's v photo editor comes with basic video compilation and enhancements that work on either platform and syncs simply with Picasa's online galleries.
If even those are too intensive for you, there are even a couple of Web-based options that do a minimal job of prettying up video content, if by nothing more than cutting off the junky parts at the beginning or end of your footage. YouTube Video Editor is one such basic online option, while JayCut is closer to a true installed video editor.
Enthusiast Videographers
The second and largest group of apps is for enthusiasts who want to get more creative without dedicating themselves to becoming professional movie editors. There are several products that offer power with varying levels of complexity, though all try to appeal to non-pros. Our Editors' Choice in this slot, CyberLink PowerDirector 9, is both powerful—with nifty effects, transitions, and picture-in-picture capability—and faster than the rest of the pack. With such a computing-intensive activity as video processing, you may find yourself waiting more than with other types of software.
Also in this group, Corel VideoStudio Pro X4 offers a well-designed highly usable interface, speedy operation, and neato stop-motion and time delay tools. Adobe Premiere Elements distinguishes itself with the ability to keyword tag clips to help you keep them organized and accessible, even automatically tagging things like clips containing faces. It's also pretty heavy with effect possibilities, too. Noteworthy too is Nero Video Premium HD, which offers keyframes to start and stop effects at exact points in the movie and full motion video overlays.
Another choice, Pinnacle Studio 14 Ultimate is easy to learn and use but lacks Elements' sophisticated effects, limits the number of tracks you can use, and was occasionally unstable. Avid Studio comes from the same mother company, Avid, which also sells the leading top-level professional app, Avid Media Composer. Studio costs more than the rest of this pack, at $169, and while it does introduce some more pro-level concepts, it trailed other options in speediness. Rounding out the field are longtime player Magix Movie Edit Pro 17 Plus HD, the first of the bunch to offer 3D video editing, and Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum, which is harder to use than the rest, but offers near pro-level capabilities like customizable layouts and full keyframe editing.
Pro Editing
In the third and final category, the high end, just as with pro digital photo software, there's a rivalry between Adobe and Apple, but Avid Media Composer still leads by some measures.
The big news in this category is Apple's recent introduction of Final Cut Pro X, which drops that apps price from $999 to $299, making it affordable to the higher end enthusiasts. Note, that compression for fine-tuning file output and motion animation have been separated out into two ancillary $50 packages, Compressor and Motion. With Final Cut Pro X Apple has simplified its high-end editor significantly (some pros are having a hard time adapting to the changes, but we are finding it to be a formidable app in our ongoing testing), and brings on the speed by finally taking advantage of 64-bit multicore CPUs, and graphics hardware acceleration. In fact, the app is so simplified and makes such good use of relatively affordable hardware that Final Cut Pro X arguably also belongs in the enthusiast category.
Adobe's Premiere Pro CS5 also boasts 64-bit native operation, with graphics hardware acceleration. The $799 pro-level video offers variable playback resolution so that you can edit high-resolution projects on less powerful computers. It also supports a ton of industry standard input source formats, and is tightly integrated with other Adobe products like After Effects, Audition, and PHotoshop. 3D editing, multicam editing, shot-logging, color adjustments, and loads of output options combine to justify its high price, but usability isn't a strong point.
Both of these products require some serious hardware unless you want to spend a lot of time waiting, so expect to invest in more than just the software. But one of these could get you on the way to becoming the next George Lucas. Look for upcoming reviews of Final Cut and the latest version of Premiere Pro in the coming weeks on PCMag.
For more from Michael, follow him on Twitter @mikemuch.