Hey Guys! This is Corey. I'm the Creative Arts Director here at 5-Point. From time to time people ask me what software we use to edit video, and rip things off of you tube etc. So thought I would throw together a quick post about some things that I have used. These are just the basics. Some of these I love, while others.... well i don't. Maybe you could benefit from some of these. Here’s a quick rundown.

Windows Movie Maker (Free) Lets get this one out of the way first. This one comes free with your Windows PC, and while it has gotten far better than earlier versions, it still is not much to get excited about. While it is free, the end product isn’t great and there are all sorts of limits to what you can produce. This program created so much frustration for me in my early days of editing video. Still though, for the budget conscious, this is a place to get started.

Sony Movie Studio HD ($89) it is an awesome PC application that chews through HD footage no problem. The price is right and the performance is incredible. You can make slide shows in seconds, and drop in transitions and split/cut/splice massive pieces of footage in seconds. Simple to learn, and has lots of options to make a highly polished final product. 

iMovie ($79) Mac only … and super easy to use. While it doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles of higher end software, it can get a decent movie made in with a short learning curve. Good for beginners and Mac enthusiasts.

Final Cut Express ($199) Also Mac only … and easily the best of the bunch – but it’ll take you a while to even figure it out, much less master it. This is the software the big boys use, and it is ultra powerful – higher versions of the suite can go for up to $999. You can pretty much produce feature quality shots and effects with this guy. If you take the time to learn it, you’ll make great videos – this is the one that I use regularly and the bar to shoot for.

Handbrake (Free) You can rip a DVD super easily with this little program. Works on a PC or Mac, simply put in a non-encrypted DVD and press a button to have it quickly output in various formats.

Vixy (Free) This is an easy way to rip YouTube videos and and save them on your computer. The software is web-based, so just copy/paste the YouTube URL, press a button and like magic, the video is pulled from YouTube and on to your computer. We also use keepvid.com which also allows you rip videos in MP4 quality from sites like Vimeo and YouTube. There is also a Firefox Plug-In called “FlashGot” that we use a good bit. It can rip almost any flash video off of almost any website.

YouVersion (Free) Hands down the best online Bible program that there is. You will love it. I promise.