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Videoguys' NLE Plug-in Round-up 2001
Never before have you been able to add so many affordable plug-ins to your non-linear editing system!! In this article I'll review over a dozen software titles that will allow you to add amazing effects and features to your new or existing NLE system. Before I get into the review, lets quickly go over the basics.
A non-linear editing system consists of hardware (video capture card) to get the video in and out of your system and software to edit the video with. The software most used for video editing is Adobe Premiere. One of the coolest things about Premiere (and Ulead Media Studio Pro) is the ability to support plug-ins. Plug-ins allow you to add additional features such as 2D/3D titling, transitions, filters, special effects and more!
I'm now going to give you a quick lesson in some of the terminology I'll be using to describe each Plug-in. By understanding these terms, you'll be better able to understand and appreciate what plug-ins can do for you.
GUI – This is the Graphical User Interface of the program. I really like a plug-in that has a simple to use GUI. Even better is a GUI that incorporates a selection tool with animated thumbnails and presets. Throw in a few templates and wizards and you'll be adding broadcast quality transitions and FX with a few mouse clicks!
Keyframing – This very important feature allows you set points in the timeline of the transition or effect. You set what you want the video to look like at these key points, and the software fills in the rest. As an example, lets use a 10 second picture in picture effect. I set my in point at the upper right hand corner. 3 second into the video I want the PIP to expand to ¼ screen in the lower left hand corner. At 7 seconds I want the PIP to start expanding to fill the entire screen by second 10. Without keyframing I would not be able to control where and when my FX and transitions take place. Keyframing is VERY cool!
Preview Window – Many of you who use NLE systems know that Premiere (and most other NLE software) give you a preview window that lets you see how your video will look before you output it back to tape. Well most plug-ins have their own preview window as well, so you can see how your new effect or transition will look. This window is usually small, but big enough to let you see how things will look. The best plug-ins offer you these previews in real-time, using your actual video. But, real-time previews usually still need to be rendered before you can output in full video quality.
The fun begins – This is a term I can't stop from using when I describe how most plug-ins work. You start by selecting one of the pre-sets or templates. "The fun begins" when you get into the advanced interface and unleash the real power and performance of the plug-in. You can customize and combine features to create your own unique results. Want to really have some fun, combine two or more plug-ins for even cooler results!!
Perhaps the best-known and most widely used 3D transition plug-in is Boris FX. This plug-in has gotten significantly more powerful and easier to use over the years. The current version allows you to add all kinds of 2D and 3D transitions and special effects. The Boris GUI is really nice. The Library Browser gives you thumbnails of each effect. Click on a thumbnail and it appears in the preview window in real-time with your actual video. Now that you've selected your basic FX, the fun really begins. The transition is loaded directly into the keyframer. Now you can customize it and add to it. While it's a little intense at first, the power you get is incredible. With a little practice, you'll be creating your own multi-layered transitions and FX!
Version 6 turns this into much more then just a first class 3D FX engine. Now you can add natural particle effects such as Clouds, Comet, Fire, Rain, Snow, Sparks and Stars. You can control the production, animation, and gravity of each filter. Even cooler, you can control the attraction and collision with other layers - including alpha channels. The new Motion Blur filter lets you simulate multiple camera shutter speed blurs to create a dramatic and realistic look for shape animation.With the new light filters you can add Spot Lights, Light Sweeps, and Edge Lights.These are perfect for dramatic re-lighting of images and sweeps of light across graphics.
Boris FX is also available in more expensive versions. Pro supports many of the highest-level NLE Apps and adds additional features and FX. Red is their broadcast level product, which is used by the networks, cable and TV producers in Hollywood and all over the world.
This is my favorite program for adding my own unique background audio tracks to my video. What I love about it most is that you get it FREE with Adobe Premiere 6!! It is extremely easy to use, yet you can create a fantastic soundtrack that compliments your video perfectly. SmartSound lets you build your soundtrack by stringing together multiple music tracks. You select the duration. Each soundtrack has an intro and outro, so there are no sudden stops in your music. You can get additional palettes of music to fit every type of video work. What I really like about this is that the music clips are labeled based on the content of the video you are going to use it with. Even I can understand what 'romantic', 'high action' and 'excitement' mean. You do not have to have any musical ability at all to create the perfect soundtrack to your video. If you need to change the length of your clip, SmartSound automatically shrinks or expands the entire soundtrack to fit perfectly. If you ask me, using SmartSound is very smart!
Sonic Fire Pro
Sonic Fire Pro gives you even more powerful sound track creation tools. While the marker functionality in P6 is clearly improved and much better for video editing, the marker functionality in Sonicfire Pro will be more efficient and faster for scoring different segments of a video clip and creating themed soundtracks. Another cool feature is the ability to import and edit your own non-SmartSound music to fit video scenes - automatically. Finally, the new Smart Blocks capability allows you to create different arrangements from those generated by the software. These added custom arrangements can be tweaked to fit the nuances of the video better.
Audio Pallettes
No discussion about SmartSound technology can be complete without mentioning the availablity of over 25 audio and sound pallettes. They are categorized and named by the kind of music they contain.You an purchase these additional CDs full of music individually for $129.95 or 3 for $299.95. We've worked together with the folks at Sonic Desktop to create several 3 packs of Palletes, each geared to different types of video work. You can select either the Corporate, Wedding, Travel or Documentary. Or pick any Palletes you want. Thge choice is yours!!
Hollywood offers a very clean and easy to use GUI as well. One of the coolest features of Hollywood FX is that it utilizes the OpenGL power of today's 3D graphics cards to accelerate rendering. The FXmark utility helps you optimize your settings to get the best results with your particular PC configuration.
There are actually multiple levels of Hollywood FX. I've decided to focus here on Bronze. Copper is the 'lite' version that comes bundled with some Pinnacle cards (Pinnacle purchased Hollywood FX in 1999). Bronze offers you over 100 transitions, multiple levels of video and keyframing. What I really love about the 3D transitions in HFX is the animation. My favorite is video 1 folds up into a paper airplane and sales off into the sunset of video 2. There are transitions for wedding & event video, sports, travel, and corporate work. You name it, there are transitions here for you. And if you want more, you can download them for a very modest fee from Club Hollywood on their website.
The Silver version comes with 200 transitions. It lets you mix up to 30 video tracks and you can create your own custom FX! Gold and Platinum versions that are even more loaded and powerful are also available.
Sure 2D titles are swell, but if you really want to blow your audience away, you need animated 3D titles that fly on, off and around the screen. Graffiti uses the Boris FX keyframer to give you full control of every aspect of your 3D titles. Titles can fly, spin, twist, and rotate all over the screen. You can move individual portions of the title around as well. When it comes to 3D titling, you can't beat Graffiti for the price. One catch to all this 3D capability is long render times. I've created 30-second title sequences that took over a half hour to render. I'm told the next release, (hopefully available by the time you read this), will cut rendering times by as much as a third!
Commotion is much more then a special effects plug-in. It is actually a stand alone video compsiting and paint program. With Commotion you can create complex multi-layered sequences. You can also manipulate your video images - just like you would with a photo editing program. They've got a great wire removal tool which is really useful if you use models or try to create your own visual effects. You can paint over the video and if you want, and have Commotion record all your strokes. This is really cool for giving you video hand written titles.
The Pro version of Commotion is more expensive, but for the money you get some really fantastic features. The Commotion motion tracker is the best in the business and you can use it to block out someones face with a blur or mosaic. The Primatte Keyer will give you incredibly sharp blue & green screen superimposition with no artifacts or halos.
Spices are 2D gradient transitions, which allow one video track to dissolve and flow into the other. There are over 500 assorted Spices now available. Some of today's most popular capture cards come with an assortment of Spices. SpiceMaster is the new GUI that lets you take full control of your Spices and customize them for your video. SpiceMaster lets you see all your Spices as thumbnails. Click on a thumbnail and the fun begins. You can move the center of the effect to any point on the screen, change the edge softness, transparency, add shadows and more. Best off all, you can see everything you are doing in real-time in the preview window!
One of the things I really like about using Spices is how fast they render. Basic Spices are real-time with my DV500. With the new 1.2 version and a dual processor system, you'll get even the most complicated “SpiceMastered” transitions to render in near real-time!!
The other important thing you need to know about Spices is that if you use them correctly, they can draw your audience into your video and make it more interesting. Unlike 3D FX, Spice transitions are not distracting. They just simply happen.
After Effects isn't a plug-in, it is a stand alone post production tool for creating special FX and manipulating your video. The latest version 5 adds a 3D engine that gives you the ability to create animated 3D sequences using 2D & 3D objects. You get full control over camera angles and movments, lighting and depth and independent 3D motion paths for multiple objects. When you reach the point in your production process when you need more then the camera was able to provide, After Effects can help you manipulate the video and images you have into something all together different.
After Effects is the perfect tool for creating title sequences and multi-layered composites that include full motion video, graphics, text and more. The only real limit here is your own creativity and imagination. If you can think of it, odds are After Effects can make it happen. No other program gives you this level of control and powerful FX with an intuitive, easy to learn interface. The more you use it, the more capabilities you will discover and unlock.
Adobe has put together some very cool collections that let you save hundreds of dollars on their most popular and powerful content creastion tools. The DV Collection combines Premiere® 6.0 and After Effects® 5.0 with Photoshop® 6.0 & Illustrator® 9.0 for $1199. The Streaming Video collection gives you Premiere® 6.0, After Effects® 5.0, LiveMotion® 1.0, and GoLive® 5.0 fro $999.
This is Pinnacle's 2D titling plug-in that is now bundled with all their DCxx/DVxx cards. TitleDeko is super easy to use and the titles look great. When used with their real-time cards, you can superimpose static titles over your video in real-time. Moving titles have to render (for now). My inside guys tell me that real-time scrolling and crawling will be added in the next release.
Pinnacle offers all Premiere users an upgrade to TitleDeko Pro for $249.95. Pro gives you the ability to type on a curve as well as professional controls such as fit to fill, custom typefaces, sophisticated style control and even a spell checker!
If you shoot weddings or events with 2,3 or 4 cameras then you already know how frustrating and time consuming it can be to edit it using Premiere or any other NLE application. Mutlicam makes multi camera editing a breeze!!
You capture the footage from each clip to your hard drive using the Matrox seemless capture utility. Then you import the clips into multicam. You set your original sync point, hit play and start cutting. Multicam uses Matrox's advanced display technology to preview up to 4 cameras on your computer screen simultaneously! You simply select the camera you want and then cut to the next one, just like a live multiple camera production environment. Multicam remembers each cut and even more important - it lets you stop and go back and fine tune or change your selection. When you are done Multicam exports your multi-camera as a perfectly syncronized A/B timeline, ready for you to add your Real-Time transitions, FX and titles!!!
The best way to put streaming media on a web site! It supports all 3 of the leading web streaming formats; real video, Microsoft ASF and Quicktime. In addition it supports a host of other compressions including MPEG1. What I really like aboutCleaner 5 is that the tools allow you to optimize your footage for the limited bandwidth. Many programs will convert and compress, Media Cleaner gives you the best controls over your compression.
Cleaner 5 has no equal as the only cross-platform application that allows you to encode streaming media for all the major streaming formats: Real, Windows Media, QuickTime, MPEG-1, MPEG-2. and MP3. In addition, Cleaner 5 gives you the power to author Web-based interactivity into your video through our exclusive EventStream™ technology. Once you've encoded and authored your video you can publish directly to a streaming or conventional web server all in one efficient workflow
If you are shopping for a new video capture card, spend a little extra to get one that ships with one of these two NLEs so that you can expand your system with plug-ins. With the video capture card business becoming so competitive, many capture cards come with a handful of plug-ins. We call this the bundle. You can save big money getting a capture card that comes with a loaded bundle. If your new board is bundled with a 'lite' version of a plug-in, you can upgrade to the full version at a very reasonable cost. You will also find that many NLE system integrators can give you special prices on plug-ins if you purchase them with your turnkey system. We refer to this as a soft bundle. Make sure you ask about any bundle specials they may be offering when you shop. You will be amazed by how much you can save!
If you have purchased a video capture card, DVD burner or Medea VideoRAID from The Electronic Mailbox this past year, then you are eligible for our Customer Rewards program.
We are offering FANTASTIC deals on most of the software featured on this page as well as many other cool items.
Click here for our Customer Rewards page!!
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