Evaluating Video Editing Software

After reviewing both Premiere Elements and Windows Live Movie Maker, and using a fee video clip to experiment using the programs, I chose to use Premier to edit the video clip. I really thought I would choose Movie Maker because it is a very basic program for novice users. I believed it would be easier to use even though I am familiar with Adobe products. (I have used Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign, previously PageMaker, since the early 90s.) I found the opposite to be true for me. I suppose because I am familiar with Adobe's interface it made it easier, although I still found it a challenge to figure out. I watched YouTube tutorials on both. The Adobe Premiere Elements tutorial video and Microsoft Live Movie Maker tutorial on YouTube were both excellent videos for getting started with the basic features. The main feature I found that made me lean towards Premiere Elements was the fact that it was more versatile. In my title frame I wanted to change the color of only part of the text. In Movie Maker it changed the entire text on that frame. I also wanted part of the text larger. When I selected only the part I wanted to increase in size it changed all of the text. It gave me little control over text attributes - that would not do at all! Also, I could not get Movie Maker to show the separate clips of my video; it appeared that the entire video segment was one clip. When I imported the video into Premiere the timeline showed where the clips ended and another began in order to edit for special effects and transitions. “When you’re trimming frames from a clip, the monitor window displays both the clip that you’re editing and the clip directly before or after. This allows you to more easily create frame-accurate edits and see exactly how two clips will look together.” The last big difference between the two are the number of formats the software was capable of exporting. Premiere is able to export in a number of file formats – Adobe Flash, MPEG, AVI WMV, QuickTime, Image files and Audio files. However, Movie Maker only allowed the choice of WMV (Windows Media Video). Both also allowed to share online directly to YouTube, whereas only Movie Maker allowed you to also share on Facebook. Premiere was the right choice for me to be able to have more control and ease of use as well as a professional package that would enable me to do more complex editing. If I were to choose for using in the classroom it would have to be Movie Maker as this is what is loaded on our computers in my district.

Reference:
Siegchrist, G. (n.d.). Video editing software review – adobe premiere elements 3.0. About.com Guide. Retrieved from http://desktopvideo.about.com/od/desktopediting/fr/adbelements.htm