Children's Guy

One person asked what software I use to  make 5 minute countdowns.  The software that I use is not very well known.  It’s called Serif Movie Plus.  I have the X3 version.  The newest version out is X5.  You can find the X5 version for under $80 on the Serif website, while the X3 version can be found on Amazon.com for much cheaper.

Here’s my review of Serif Movie Plus:  ( None of my links are affiliate links so you know that I’m not getting any kick back from Serif or Amazon.)

When I was researching video editing software, Serif seemed to offer the most options at the most reasonable price.  One feature that stuck out the most was Movie Plus gives you unlimited channels (video layers).  This allows you to layer multiple video files, photos, or text on top of each other.  The ability to export files for Windows or Mac has also been a pretty cool feature.  Compared to Windows Movie Maker and IMovie, Serif Movie Plus is a lot more feature rich.  The negative sides that I’ve seen with Movie Plus is that you really can’t make fancy moving backgrounds from scratch.  Movie Plus has also stalled on me more than a few times.  If you get it, I would recommend getting the installation disk with it.  If you have a small budget, I would recommend Serif Movie Plus.  If you are looking for Hollywood type effects, buy a different software.

To make my original 5 minute countdown, I had to create 500 frames that were each one second in length.  From there, I can make 5 minute by switching out the background that plays under the 5 minute countdown layer, if that makes sense.  I like to snag Youtube videos as the background and then adding music.  Since I’m not writing this post from where my countdown file is stored, I will have to add  my 5 minute countdown file to this post later so you don’t have to sit and make 500 frames.   If you have any questions, let me know.

  5 Minute Countdown Blank (55.1 KiB, 221 hits)