Video Editing Software Evaluation

Week Two: This week we are to evaluate free video editing software. I found links in one of the readings and downloaded Jahshaka. I chose it because the name reminded me of a song. I know that is exactly the way we all choose products. The download process was easy. I found plenty of tutorial videos, 17 of them were by the same person. The tutorials were very easy to follow but I must say this program is not for beginners. There was no menu toolbar, only buttons to click on. Some of them were words and some were pictures. The Load and Delete buttons were easy to figure out. There were 6 main action buttons, 5 tabs for different parts of those actions. The animation button transferred you to a section where you could apply transformations. This was the only part that was self-explanatory and easy to use. I had to keep flipping back and forth between the Jahshaka software and the tutorial videos to guide me through what I was doing. I found that frustrating. The next day I sat down to try and edit some video with Jahshaka and could not get past doing a few transformations. When I tried to do some actual editing I could not remember how without going back to the tutorial videos. If you have become proficient with some of the easier programs you might like to try Jahshaka since it is free.

I personally have used Windows Movie Maker and Roxio VideoWave and both of them are easier to use than Jahshaka. I have taught Adobe Premiere and Adobe AfterEffects,and used them, but since I had books and textbooks the process was easy to follow, but I have not used them to their maximum abilities.

After using Roxio MyDVD 9 at school, I purchased it to use on my home computer so I will compare Roxio VideoWave to Jahshaka. The VideoWave video editing portion is easy to use. The links for importing, exporting, choosing transitions, creating effects and text with effects are self-explanatory. You have two ways of showing what you have imported. There is the timeline version and the storyline version. I prefer the timeline version because I am used to it after using Adobe Premiere. The buttons for editing are all pictures that make sense for what you are about to do. There are also menu toolbars which I like. The cost of the Roxio package is less than $100 and contains more than just video editing. It has six applications including creating custom DVD's with your movies. I know I will continue to use video editing software and will be willing to try new ones.

Of the two programs that I have chosen to compare, the user-friendly Roxio VideoWave would be my choice.