What are /r/Hitfilm's favorite Products & Services?

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I'm currently editing a short film (~24min) in hitfilm with a ton of effects, complex edits, externally recorded audio, etc. and it's been awesome.

My computer is kind of a potato and when I started shooting and learning how to edit hitfilm was the only NLE that ran smoothly.

Basically shotcut and openshot stuttered like crazy, filmora is basically an insanely shady company, and davinci needs at least 2gb of video ram to even install - so I went with hitfilm express.

Once I got semi comfortable I did spend about $100 on addons (color grading, scopes, video clean up, etc) and it's been great.

I think for a total beginner it will do everything you need, and once you start getting better at editing hitfilm will totally scale and do pretty much everything you could ask.

Basically I'd watch this: http://d4darious.com/2017/06/11/learn-hitfilm-express-2017-11-minutes/

Try a few edits, and then read the manual (a lot).

One tip, Hitfilm (and basically most NLEs on average or even good computers) has a very hard time with h.264 and h.265 footage (so video from your phone) because your computer has to decode the footage, which puts on ton of stress on your cpu.

For my film I rented high(ish) end camera which recorded much higher bitrate footage, meaning the cpu basically doesn't really have to decode the footage at all.

If you are going to shoot on your phone get handbrake and convert your footage from variable bitrate to constant bitrate before you edit, which allows you to edit/scrub with no stutter.

Good luck.

I believe I just converted them from .mov to .mp4
https://cloudconvert.com/mov-to-mp4 was the site I believe i used.

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There is probably a better way, this is how I managed to get it to work

Usually the issue is the format

An easy way to verify is to run the video through Handbrake first using the supported formats:

http://hitfilm.com/forum/discussion/42415/transcoding-to-fast-decode-avc-for-timeline-edit-performance

I've used AMP Font Viewer for years. It displays all the fonts you have on your system in their font style. You can even input the text you are planning on using to see how it looks in each font.

I am using MPEG Streamclip on a windows 10 machine. I don't know if the site says it's supported, but it works!

I just checked the site (http://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-win.html), but I realize I left something out.

You also need Apple Quicktime, which is also no longer supported. That said, you can download here: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL837?locale=en_GB

It still works, but has security flaws. The way you deal with that....Install and KILL the auto update. Uncheck every option that allows it to be used with the web. You are essentially sandboxing quicktime....pain in the ass...I know.

But all of this is to use the Avid DNx codec. Prores and CineForm may be easier, but I don't know.

TBH, I use Hitfilm rarely these days. I have moved to Davinci Resolve Studio (paid), which can handle most of this stuff internally. I do still use Hitfilm for compost work, as some of the things included (think particle generation) are quite good. Point being...I'm trying to remember some stuff that I haven't had to use in a while, so I'm a little rusty lol.

https://fxhome.com/express/whats-new

The site says one of the updates is the ability to put text directly into the editor by using a text effect, but there is no such effect in the Effects tab, so I'm stumped.

Except for that, the changes are pretty nice. There's now a much needed layout tab for aligning things to the centre, there's a more natural way to switch to full screen, some small new effects, and some new layout options that make it a lot nicer. I don't think it's any faster. The best feature is being able to keyframe effects in the editor without making a composite shot. But the text effect is really bugging me because I've wanted them to sort this for ages.