[rivum]

hey guys
got a digital video camera for christmas, and i'm looking for a good piece of software to edit the various video clips from it together.
any help appreciated as there are so many software packages out there, all with varying reviews.
thanks!

rivum

[chris]

What operating system? How much do you want to spend?

Avid or Final Cut are my suggestions.

For really basic stuff, you can get a free version of Avid: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.avid.com/freedv/">http://www.avid.com/freedv/</a><!-- m -->

[rivum]

oh sorry - PC
i'm not sure how much i want to spend...not too much, but i'd like something that has basic editing techniques, is reasonably fast compiling/encoding/whatever and doesn't crash (as i've seen some are prone to do)

thanks

rivum

[chris]

Get Avid FreeDV.

And it's generally the Windows environment (Windows + viruses + spyware + adware + spyware + various programs + RAM issues) that causes the crash, not the software...

[NMAS]

Chris- You will be happy to know that I bought an iMac for my daughter. I hope you don't mind me asking you a couple of questions from time to time. So far I am amazed at how well it works. Out of the box and going full tilt in less then 5 minutes, truly amazing what Apple has done to make home computing easier. I've use it a lot more than my daughter has, that's for sure.

[chris]

Ask away... you're not the first, and I doubt you'll be the last to ask me Mac questions.

Here are some great free apps I recommend that all Mac users get:

VLC Player - Plays just about every video format
Handbrake - use to rip DVDs to your computer for simple viewing in VLC
Cyberduck FTP - great, full function FTP client
Text Wrangler - killer text editor
Mac The Ripper - use to copy DVDs; it rips the DVD to your hard drive in a format ready to be burned back... and removes copy protection.
xACT - used to convert .shn and .flac audio files to .wav or .aif, or vice versa
Flip4Mac - allows you to play Windows Media .wmv files in Quicktime
Audacity - basic audio editor
OnyX - allows you to run a variety of system maintenance scipts.

Firefox or Camino or Opera web browser, as well as Safari which is built in.

[Edited to add Mac!]

[Zenith]

rivum, have you tried using Windows Movie Maker? It's really simple to use (I taught myself in about 2 hours) and it delivers pretty decent results if you're just making stuff for yourself.

Here's a video that I made using it. I only had short clips from my digital still camera, but with a bit of crafty editing I was really happy with the results.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awPFgtS21pE">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awPFgtS21pE</a><!-- m -->

Audacity - basic audio editor

I'm looking forward to having a play with that!

[NMAS]

Ask away... you're not the first, and I doubt you'll be the last to ask me Mac questions.

Here are some great free apps I recommend that all Mac users get:

VLC Player - Plays just about every video format
Handbrake - use to rip DVDs to your computer for simple viewing in VLC
Cyberduck FTP - great, full function FTP client
Text Wrangler - killer text editor
Mac The Ripper - use to copy DVDs; it rips the DVD to your hard drive in a format ready to be burned back... and removes copy protection.
xACT - used to convert .shn and .flac audio files to .wav or .aif, or vice versa
Flip4Mac - allows you to play Windows Media .wmv files in Quicktime
Audacity - basic audio editor
OnyX - allows you to run a variety of system maintenance scipts.

Firefox or Camino or Opera web browser, as well as Safari which is built in.

[Edited to add Mac!]

Thanks Chris
I assume I just have to do a search to find those online?

Never mind, just found Macspecialist.com, has a tone of apps.

[chris]

Yes... but you can start at a site I just found this morning: <!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.opensourcemac.org">www.opensourcemac.org</a><!-- w -->

[NMAS]

Thanks, this is a great help, now if I can only leave work and go home to start downloading some of them.