360-degree video has been rising in demand, with so many cameras for 360-degree recording features available now at affordable rates. Editing such videos is obviously going to be a tad different than your normal videos. Let us look at some of the best options, in the software package category currently available for 360-degree video editing. The difference between editing a normal video and a 360-degree video is because of the fact that your footage isn’t flat, which makes it somewhat complicated to gauge and edit. You are not confined to just one camera angle but you are actually having multiple camera angles incorporated in one place to build up the full 360-degree spherical video.
Now, how do we edit such videos? Typically, it is done through equirectangular video files. So, it is essentially the flattened version of the footage captured by those multiple cameras. This flattened version of your video is edited, basically. The actual editing of this file is exactly the same as you do with your normal videos. You can cut, trim and reposition the clips and move everything around just like you do in a normal video editing process. However, if you are going to use some graphic elements like titles, logos, etc. in your 360 degrees spherical space, then, you are going to have some differences coming into your editing process. This is where Adobe Premiere and Cyberlink PowerDirector stand out. Both of these programs will let you view, playback, and move around in your 360-degree spherical video in real-time while you are editing to position things like your titles and graphics. You can playback and see what your viewer will see at the time of editing. Softwares like FinalCut only support it with additional plugins like 360 VR express. So, without the plugin, you can still edit your videos but you’ll see the equirectangular video or flattened 360-degree image while editing. There’s no way to prove if you were without a plugin like this one. We can now say that the two primary options, that you have got for decent 360-degree editing if you want that immersive editing and full playback of your videos, are looking at Adobe Premiere Pro and Cyberlink PowerDirector. It is important here to know that as we look at these two pieces of software, the following features or applications discussed here might not be in agreement with what other people would have experienced. These softwares are totally need-based. Somebody might use them for simple editing, some for effects, some for 360-degree video editing, and so on. The effectiveness and utility of software are totally dependent on its use.
Basically, both do pretty much exactly the same thing. They’ll both achieve play backing your video in 360 degrees, they’ll both have a mode where you can actually click and drag and interact with your video. You can position your titles, and your graphics and fix everything and see what everything looks like and see what your viewers will see before they actually do before you export and try to playback on some platforms like YouTube or Facebook. In regards to actually moving and editing these titles and things around, the power tilts more towards Adobe Premiere Pro. PowerDirector, though is surprisingly fast and has a lot of grunt in it as well. PowerDirector is windows only, so, if you are going to be editing 360-degree videos on Mac then, you’ll definitely need to check out Adobe Premiere, as the former won’t be available there. Essentially both of them allow you to do the same thing but it’s the way that they edit these videos that makes all the difference. Generalizing, we can say that Cyberlink PowerDirector is a less professional editing platform than Adobe Premiere Pro. The power and the performance that you get behind Adobe Premiere, the tools for color correction and effects and titles and everything, etc., far surpass the functions that you get in Cyberlink PowerDirector. But also, there’s the difference in price tag, where Cyberlink is one off fee and Adobe Premiere is a subscription-based model. Cyberlink is Windows only, whereas Adobe Premiere is available for both Mac and Windows. Some of these factors are going to help you when you are deciding to buy software for your editing video purposes. But, downloading a trial version of both is recommended in order to get a hands-on experience before making the purchase. It will also weigh the pros and cons of both in comparison to each other. This will also let you figure out which one of these is going to be best for your workflow, and it is, after all, going to let you edit 360-degree videos in the quickest and the most efficient way possible. In regards to the tool sets themselves, specifically for editing 360-degree videos, there are definitely more bells and whistles in Cyberlink PowerDirector at this point in time. Just the little things like, here you can get full control over the way your titles are and how they look in 360 space versus the more basic, cut-down tools that you have in Adobe Premiere. Though, Adobe Premiere seems to be a little more updated, has more functionality, and really streamlines this process much faster than Cyberlink and any other video editing software out there.
The main difference between the two editing applications, when it comes to editing 360-degree videos besides some of the minor things mentioned above with titles and positioning in Cyberlink, is just the power of the editing applications. This is when you are comparing them with the full video editing in general, not specifically with 360-degree video editing. So, with the Adobe Premiere side, you have got way more performance, power, and control, things like color correction and effects, and all the rest of it that comes with the Adobe Premiere Pro pack. Cyberlink, though, being a beginner or entry-level video editing software, you can still get great results with it over other editing applications. But it isn’t at the same level as some professional tools we find in Adobe Premiere. So, in regards to the editing of 360-degree videos, Adobe Premiere is the best choice, for the number of tools and control that you get. It is missing some of the little advanced features when it comes to 360-degree video editing, but you can get plugins. For pretty much any video editing application now, plugins are available, to allow you to edit 360-degree videos on preview videos, using whatever application. The most popular and affordable plugin seems to be the 360 VR express, which we have already covered earlier.