USA Today: HiDef Editing Easier, Still Iffy
Jefferson Graham covers four editing applications that work with hard-drive based AVCHD video in Video editing choices blossom into nicely workable options
If you have one of those new high-definition camcorders that records directly to a hard drive, you’ve surely been frustrated.Editing high-def clips into your own personal mini-masterpiece has been nearly impossible. The video footage has not been compatible with popular consumer video-editing programs, nor could it be used on most Apple (AAPL) computers.
That’s now changed. Apple just rejiggered its popular iMovie program to accept video from these camcorders. And longtime Windows (MSFT) software favorites Pinnacle, Sony Vegas (SNE) and Ulead VideoStudio (CREL) have been upgraded as well.
Be sure to check his pros and cons list for each of the editors. Among the limitations: Sony’s app Vegas only works with Sony’s HD cameras; Corel’s Ulead Video Studio only works with video from the camera, so older already-captured clips won’t work; Pinnacle’s (and likely all the others) need a powerful machine to process the large and complex HiDef files; and the new iMovie is a very different animal from any previous version.
HD for the rest of us is here, but it seems it still has a ways to go before “it just works.”