Okay, today's post is mostly about video editing (my career), so if you don't care about this stuff, just look at the pretty pictures here.

Adobe Premiere Pro is the best video editing software for the dollar. Period.

I know that anything from Avid is pretty much the pinnacle software for video editing (whereas, of course, Pinnacle software actually sucks). I just like Premiere for so many reasons. For starters, Avid is out of my range for now, and I don't need anything that extensive. However, compared with just about everything else out there, Premiere Pro wins. Apple's Final Cut Pro is only available on Mac computers, so I'm not interested. I've used Final Cut Pro (FCP) extensively, but it doesn't come close now. Sure, previous versions of Premiere were less than wonderful, but the previous version provided good competition for FCP. Still, FCP has been something of a standard for us mid-level professionals. In fact, it WAS a lot more user friendly compared to Premiere 6.5, but Premiere Pro (v7.0) has better rendering, better visual effects, and has some pretty amazing interaction with Adobe Photoshop. You can actually take a layered image in Photoshop, import it into the timeline in Premiere, and use the various layers as animation sequences. Obviously, no one else offers anything close to that. It's really great, since not every video editor is a graphic artist. With this capability, everyday joes like myself can create content that is above and beyond the abilities of other non-linear editors (NLEs) available.

Ulead sucks a whole lot. I can't believe some of the good reviews it gets, with its top-tier software claiming to be "professional"....it's not. I use it at work, and we all agree that adopting that platform has been a mistake. I've used Premiere on my home PC for a few years now, and until the recent 7.0/Pro version, it would have been suitable to my workplace, but maybe not an entirely superior NLE to the Ulead offering. Now...no questions asked. Hands down, Premiere wins.

I've been using a trial version of the new Pro/7.0 on my home PC, but I'm going to buy it real soon. I want the Pro video bundle, which comes with the brand-new After Effects (pro video effects...THE standard for this kind of stuff), the brand-new Photoshop, the brand-new Audition (audio editing and loop creation), the brand-new Encore DVD creator, and of course, Premiere Pro. It's a $1,500 package, but the combined price for buying all of those individual components would easily be $3,000 to $4,000. And hey, I need 'em all! There is an educational discount that brings the price for that package down to $800, but....well, I'm not in skool anymore. I've discovered, in fact, that the educational version is a FULL VERSION of all the software, the exact same package you'd pay $1,500 for otherwise (most educational versions are watered down along with the price, making it much-less-than-fully-functional). I gotta talk to my lil sis about getting that for me.

My friend Eric has also been using this software for the recent Overexposed Films production of "Teaching Marlow," and he has had some real fun with it. I'm using it to finish up my wedding video, and on a scale of 1-100, it gets a big-time 110. Naysayers, your day in the sun is ending.