Video Editing Software Evaluation

Assignment 2 - EDLD 5363

The two video editing software programs that I choose to evaluate were MS Movie Maker and Apple iMovie. My first choice was Movie Maker because the software is widely used at the new high school that I now work at and the upperclassmen are quite proficient in its use. As the new technology facilitator, I thought this was a great opportunity to also become more proficient in the ins and outs of movie maker. I found in the learning process that Movie Maker allows for drag and drop features making creating and editing videos easy. You can pull out parts of the video that you would like drop to a story board, munipulate them as you see fit and then easily add transitions and effects to the video. You can also add titles and ending credits easily. Movie Maker works best for small videos but Microsoft has many add-ons for this software and upgrades are available from the website.

My second choice for video editing evaluation was iMovie which is found on iMac computers. This is not actually a free downloaded software but comes with the purchase of a Mac. I had no prior experience with the software but this was a perfect opportunity to spend some time with it since I purchase an iMac last Christmas and I have not explored with iMovie can do with my videos. I found most of the same feature that Movie Maker provided but Apple is known for its ability to do so much more with photos and videos and I found this true in playing with the software. The features were easy to use such as drag and drop of the video clips to the story board. I easily linked to my iTunes account to add music. I was also able to add transitions and special effects but my favorite feature was in choosing a "Theme". I was able to choose the theme of a comic book and the videos would play like they were inside of a comic book. I was quite empressed with the outcome of the project and all I really had to do was choose the theme and iMovie did the rest. I am hoping that I can find the money to purchase at least on iMac for our school that the students can have the experience of using iMovie.