What's the Best Movie Making Software?

You can do basic cut/join type editing with avidemux .. it's so simple a 4 year old could do it... It works in exactly the same way I was taught back in the days of tape.

dvd-author is just that.. google it... it's command line..

as for the learning curve with open source freeware.. it's no different from anything else.. and because it's open source these applications have excellent documentation and user guides...

Don't be fooled by people who say "only payware works" .. because that's a huge lie and part of a conspiracy by fanboys and paid bloggers.. Open source software is written by people who want to do something and aren't happy with the paid things.. so it tends to work well.. even if it's sometimes a little odd or different.

The absolute best film making software out in the wild is cinelerra.. but you will have to dump windoze if you want to use it.

 

Yeah, Open source software is awesome. I ditched office 2007 for Open Office... I took the money loss because it completely sucked. Other people swear by it, but I just can't stand the eye candy and limited control. The M$ software has some advantages when you get into more complex uses since it is taught in school but that's a familiarity issue.

With Payware vs Open Source it is usually not a matter of which software is better, but which software has more support. Photoshop has more resources and support than Gimp, therefore it is the Hollywood standard. Example, there are not schools that focus on teaching Gimp. Although there is a large community support for Open Source software, one will usually not get the type of skills required to do something professionally from this.

As for the Adobe people calling you lazy, they are defending something they spent a small fortune on. Also, based on my Adobe experience (other software), if you do give the software a chance, it is incredibly powerful. It just does not make sense for everyone to use it or learn to use it. If the software were free, I'd say go for it, but you are talking about $800. If you were just using a demo, then use something else. If you bought it, then maybe reconsider unless $800 is not that much to you. If I had bought it separately, then I would be spending a few weeks learning how to master the software, but since it came in a suite, I don't care. I'll eventually figure it out, but I do not do enough video editing to justify taking the time to use it (this can be referred to as laziness as well).