Video Editing Software

[longball53098]

I just bought my first camcorder.

Panasonic with a 40GB HD

The packaged video suite is limited in what it can do.

I am looking for a nice software package to allow editing of the video and audio that I record.

Bear in mind I am an amateur and whatever I do will be simple in the beginning. But I do want to cut out unwanted stuff and voice over audio already on the recording or add to the audio.

I will shop in Pattaya Tukcom on the software floor for what I need.

Anyone have some good recommendations of easy to use software?

Thanks

[dave_boo]

I just bought my first camcorder.

Panasonic with a 40GB HD

The packaged video suite is limited in what it can do.

I am looking for a nice software package to allow editing of the video and audio that I record.

Bear in mind I am an amateur and whatever I do will be simple in the beginning. But I do want to cut out unwanted stuff and voice over audio already on the recording or add to the audio.

I will shop in Pattaya Tukcom on the software floor for what I need.

Anyone have some good recommendations of easy to use software?

Thanks

The built in Windows movie maker is fairly good from what I've seen. Seems simple but peeling back the layers showed a decently robust program. I'm not a video editor, but having messed around with it I thought I could use it for my skillset.

Plus it's free.

[yeti]

Agree, try playing around a bit with Windows Movie Maker and see if it suits your needs before buying another software.

[stumonster]

before you buy try virtuadub

I have just recently used it to add a watermark to a MPEG4 encoded video

many different plugins for it out there

[p_brownstone]

before you buy try virtuadub

I have just recently used it to add a watermark to a MPEG4 encoded video

many different plugins for it out there

Typo there - it's virtualdub, and yes, it's very good.

You could also try Pinnacle Studio (Version 12 is best).

Patrick

[longball53098]

I feel pretty dumb about this as I never knew I had this on the PC. When I looked down the list of programs I do not see Movie Maker anywhere. I went to the Support Help on my PC and it pointed to an icon to open Movie Maker and wha la there it is. Bu what happen to the start up short cut?

My first try at using it was not great as when I imported a mpeg file from my video files the icon showed up and when I click play I hear the sound but the icon remains blank and no playback of picture only sound. When I tryed a wmv file it works ok.

Am I dumb here about something?

[Tywais]

My first try at using it was not great as when I imported a mpeg file from my video files the icon showed up and when I click play I hear the sound but the icon remains blank and no playback of picture only sound. When I tryed a wmv file it works ok.

Codec issues. > http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308464

[p_brownstone]

I am not 100% sure but I believe that the Windows Movie Maker supplied with XP does not support HD (High Definition) Video?

For that you need the version that comes with Vista.

Patrick

[aprelle]

Adobe premier pro works fine.

[yeti]

My first try at using it was not great as when I imported a mpeg file from my video files the icon showed up and when I click play I hear the sound but the icon remains blank and no playback of picture only sound. When I tryed a wmv file it works ok.

Where was the mpeg file coming from? Probably a codec issue, but that's strange if it comes from your video camera.

[longball53098]

The video was copied from the Panasonic camera to my PC. When I use Movie Maker to import it and view it there I only hear the sound track but no video. The thumbnail does not show a clip only an icon mpeg.

I will try to download a codec from MS that tywais pointed to.

[Sabum]

I feel pretty dumb about this as I never knew I had this on the PC. When I looked down the list of programs I do not see Movie Maker anywhere. I went to the Support Help on my PC and it pointed to an icon to open Movie Maker and wha la there it is.

Not purposefully being a jerk, but I've seen this many times on Thaivisa and I'm wondering what country you guys are from that use the term "wha la"? Normally it's VOILA, french for "there it is!" But I see wha la alot and figure it must be a certain countries slang interpretation and am curious.

[longball53098]

I'm just one of them thar dumb yankees that is uneducated and experiencing a brain fart I could not think of Voila hence wha la and I guess I got your attention. Voila and "C'est la vie"!

Back to the original issue. I found Windows Media Encoder and loaded that up. I can use it to convert the files to Windows compatible files. If I do this and use WMM it would be OK. But if I just import the mpg files they still don't work and now I actually get an error message that I did not have before telling me I do not have a codec installed. In the options there is a check box that allows you to automatically download a missing codec but when i select this option and close and restart MM still nothing. MM just errors out again.

Well I will keep searching

Edited December 23, 2008 by longball53098

[learnthaipodcast]

For AVCHD have a look at Sony Vegas 8.1 / 9.0 Platinum or Adobe Premiere CS 4. You can cut HDV footage on them as well of course. Both are expensive but for a casual user the recent Premiere Elements is a great deal! Another cheaper but excellent programm is Canopus Edius Neo.

Those are your best bets if you work on a PC. For a MAC just use Final Cut Pro (expensive) or of course iMovie.

[JetsetBkk]

.... pointed to an icon to open Movie Maker and wha la there it is. Bu what happen to the start up short cut? ...

I remember thinking the same when I first started playing with Windows Movie Maker.

What I did was to create a shortcut by right-clicking on C:\Program Files\Movie Maker\moviemk.exe and then dragging the shortcut to my Start/Programs. (You can actually drag the shortcut onto the Start button, wait for "Programs" to appear and then drag it onto the list).

I have found that WMM sometimes hangs when I clip a long file (maybe I didn't wait long enough) so I tried VirtualDubMod which did the job OK. I still use WMM to join the clips together and add a soundtrack.

I'm not sure what VirtualDub does that VirtualDubMod doesn't - I'm also new to this video lark - so I'll give it a try.

[longball53098]

Thanks Jet, I also just created a shortcut to the desktop for WMM. And yes I also saw that another wmv file took a while to load into the collection screen so I went and watched a show on TV and came back but nothing.

Thanks all for the suggestions. Maybe I will make a trip to the local Tukcom in Pattaya next visit and buy something and give that a whirl.

[Jiu-Jitsu]

At a guess you will need software that can edit MPEG2.

You can edit directly with a Womble product. Trials here: http://www.womble.com/products/index.html or convert the file for use with a mainstream product.

My knowledge is limited on this subject, so I'm happy for anyone to add to it.