Tag Archive for 'free'

What video editing software should I buy?

Robb Montgomery uses Final Cut Studio to edit documentary footage from Paris.

The Camp Video Journalism workshops I produce for Visual Editors will be serving a new class at the end of September at the Chicago Sun-Times and one of the questions that always comes up is “what software should I edit with?”

A lot of video journalists I know like Avid, Adobe Premiere, and Final Cut Studio, but those are complicated and expensive programs. Nice, but often too complex for people who are first and foremost trying to learn the techniques of video storytelling.

I always encourage people to bring whatever gear they are comfortable with. On the Mac - iMovie wins hands down. It is dead simple to use and is a video instructor’s best classroom friend.

On the PC side, you can certainly use Windows Media maker but here are some other free video editing tools to try out.

If you have time to experiment (always a good idea!) I would suggest that you start with Video Spin and then graduate to Sony’s Movie Studio. Having software that supports multiple video timelines really simplifies editing sequences. (In the picture at the top you see my video editor (Final Cut) with multiple video timelines - it is a very handy editing feature! )

If you are on the Mac and ready to graduate from iMovie - first try Final Cut Express - the $199 version of Final Cut Studio. It is a huge upgrade in terms of editing flexibility and the projects you create in Express will prepare you for almost any pro editing app.

After you download these free versions, test them with footage from your camera. Make sure it works with your gear. If it does, I hope to see you at Camp VJ Chicago, or, perhaps, at Camp VJ San Francisco or CampVJ Orlando in the future.

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Pandora and the top 10 free iPhone applications

I have my Scottish ancestors to thank for being this tight, but I am only interested in the free apps. Here is my top 10 list of free applications currently on my iPhone.

  1. Pandora on the iPhone is amazing. It makes your iPhone into a commercial-free transistor radio, in a sense. Perfect for the towel on sand at Brighton, or North Avenue Beach.
  2. Twittelator is my must have Twitter app. Twitterific was great, but now has intrusive ads . . . ’nuff said.
  3. Last.fm also gives you a Pandora-like radio experience
  4. AIM - of course!
  5. Weatherbug - so much more detail than the basic Apple weather app. Love the animated radar - a life saver in Chicago.
  6. Google mobile app - gives you direct access to your Google docs.
  7. Facebook - natch!
  8. Truphone - for making skype like calls to international friends for pennies.
  9. BA Flights - to track real time flight info for British Airways flights I or friends might be taking. (Hello, American Airlines - get with the program, people . . ) Would also love it if Kayak or Sidestep offered a native app, too.
  10. Translators: The free Coolgorilla talking phrases apps include text and audio translations for common phrases in German, French, Spanish and Italian.

Ich verstehe nur bahnhof . . .
One more fave is the Apple Remote app that let’s you control your mac’s Tunes player with your iPhone. This one is creepy cool.

The one app to make this a baker’s dozen will be the forthcoming Wordpress native app that will allow me to post and edit my blogs from my iPhone.

On the wish list
First would be a version of Flickr where I could view photos and sets and also upload geotagged photos.
Second would be a del.icio.us app that let me view, sort, search and push bookmarks around or do something I haven’t thought of yet . .
Third would be a Scribd mobile app.

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