If you have had your camcorder for any length of time, you
probably have piles of videocassettes stashed away in
drawers and closets, just waiting to be edited and cleaned
up so that you could show them to your friends and
relatives.
Looking of
a video editing program that is easy to use? And FREE? You
can download and use Pinnacle Systems free VideoSpin™ video
editing and sharing application from
www.videospin.com.
more
This is from CNET - There are lots of options regarding video-editing
software. If you have some money to burn, you have a lot of choices,
such as Final Cut, Premiere, and others. But what if you have no money?
We have some solutions for you, too. Get the scoop on free video-editing
software in Peter Butler's post to the Daily Download blog.
Best free video-editing apps.
But you have not done anything yet. Maybe you think it is
too difficult, too time consuming, or maybe too complex. The
good news is that editing is a lot easier than it used to
be. Anyone can do simple editing – cleaning up a tape,
re-arranging it a bit and adding in basic effects and
titles.
Maybe you think getting an editing program is just too
expensive? Possibly you don’t want to shell out $50, $100,
or more for a good video editing program. Well, I’m sorry to
tell you that that excuse won’t fly. You can start editing
for cheap or even free. That’s right, there are all kinds of
free programs that can enable you to convert your video
footage into edited movies, complete with fancy transitions,
effects tiles, and music.
And the best news is that you probably already have one or
more of these programs living on your computer. If you are
using an Apple Macintosh machine, you probably have the
iMovie program and if you are using Windows XP, either Home
or Professional versions, you should have Moviemaker.
Let’s start with Windows MovieMaker. You should have the
latest version - Moviemaker 2.1. Version 1 was not very
good, but version 2 and up are great. Find the Moviemaker
program in your computer and launch it. Go to the Help menu
and check what version if you have. If you don’t have the
latest 2.1 version, you should to install it.
However, Microsoft does not make it easy. Unlike Moviemaker
version 2, which was a standalone program, version 2.1 is
part of Windows XP Service Pack 2. So in addition to getting
the latest version of Moviemaker, you need to download and
install the entire SP2. In addition to Moviemaker, you will
also get the latest security enhancements to Windows XP. Not
bad, since it is free.
If you have MovieMaker 2 from an earlier version of Windows
XP (pre SP2), that should work just fine. There is very
little difference.
MovieMaker 2 is a great program for those just starting out
in video editing. You can capture video from almost digital
video camcorder, or if you have the right hardware, from an
analog video source or broadcast TV. You then can use either
the timeline or the storyboard mode to select and trim the
various video clips, and to assemble your video, complete
with titles, effects, graphics and music. You can use
MovieMaker to clean up bad video and do color correction.
You can add music tracks and narration. When you are
creating your project, you then can output it in a variety
of formats for playing back on a computer, for email or web
posting, or even for burning to a DVD or back to videotape.
And if you are in a hurry, you can use Movie Maker 2’s
AutoMovie tool that automatically transforms a collection of
video clips into a movie complete with music.
=======================================
Are you just starting out
creating your own video movies? Here are some
tips about video editing
for novices and home video makers. How to cut on action,
timeline versus storyboard and other basics to get you
started....
=======================================
Apple iMovie
Apple iMovie is another
very easy to understand and use video editing program that
will do everything you need to capture, edit and create
wonderful looking videos that you can share with your
friends and family. And it is FREE.
Like Microsoft's MovieMaker, it provides the option for automatic movie
making and output to many different formats. You can get
iMovie as part of the basic iLife software package that
ships with every new Mac. If you prefer, you can buy the
inexpensive iLife 08 package ($79), which includes the
latest upgrades to iPhoto, iDVD, Rageband. iWeb and iTunes, as well
as the new iMovie software – iMovie HD, which allows you to
capture and edit HD video. I doubt many of you are yet
shooting HD but it is nice to know that you can edit it when
the time comes.
One of the advantages of both the free MovieMaker and
iMovie products is the great amount of support materials
available. In addition to numerous books and how to manuals,
you can find online tutorials, FAQs, instruction manuals and
user groups at both the Microsoft and Apple sites.
In addition to these two programs, many of the industry’s
leading video software makers offer demo and trial versions
of their software.
For example, at the Adobe web site, you can download
demo
versions of their entire software package including the new
Premiere Elements for family, hobbyist and prosumer
moviemaking, as well as for the more professional Premiere
Pro, Encore DVD and After Effects programs.
Ulead
Another great web site to visit is the Ulead Trial Software
and Freeware page at http://www.ulead.com/download/trial.htm.
You can get free trial versions of almost all Ulead software
products including Ulead MediaStudio Pro and Ulead
VideoStudio. As you can guess by the names, MediaStudio Pro
is a full suite of applications geared to broadcast and
production professionals while VideoStudio is geared more to
the hobbyist and home user. You can also get free demo
versions of the web design, graphic editing and DVD creation
and authoring packages.
Pinnacle
Over the years, Pinnacle has been one of the leaders in
developing new video editing software packages for the home
and prosumer markets.
Looking for
a very cool video editing program that is easy to use? And
FREE? You can download and use Pinnacle Systems
free VideoSpin™ video
editing and sharing application from
www.videospin.com.
more
Pinnacle Systems developed VideoSpin
by leveraging the editing engine of
its award-winning Pinnacle StudioŽ
software and making the editing
process virtually foolproof. A
compelling solution for people who
don’t want to spend much time
turning video clips into movies,
VideoSpin users can create
entertaining videos in minutes
simply by:
• Dragging and
dropping their videos, photos
and music from their PC’s hard
drive onto the VideoSpin
timeline
• Adding a few transitions and
titles, if they wish
• Previewing the changes
• Clicking on the “Make Movie”
button.
Muvee Auto Producer
If you are in a hurry or don’t want to learn anything about
editing at all, then check out muvee AutoProducer.
AutoProducer has been around for a few years and has
consistently been the best of all the “automatic” video
editing programs. It combines ease of use with lots of great
features for quickly and easily transforming your raw DV
footage into cool looking music videos. They offer a free
trial version that works really well.
Other free programs and utilities.
There are hundreds of free video editing programs and
utilities available for download. Here are just a few of the
more highly rated and easily found.
3ivx (www.3ivx.com) is an MPEG-4 toolkit that supports
MPEG-4 Video, MPEG-4 Audio and the MP4 file format. 3ivx D4
4.5 allows video and audio to be compressed to a fraction of
its original size while maintaining high image quality. You
can store over 2 hours of near DVD quality audio and video
on a single CD-ROM or stream near DVD quality video over a
cable modem or DSL modem. Its also great for squeezing video
down for Internet sharing.
TSUNAMI MPEG Video Encoder XPress helps users produce
high-quality compressed video files via an easy-to-use
wizard-based interface and video/audio filters. A free
30-day trial version is available for download from the
company's website at www.tmpg-inc.com.
ABC VideoRoll is full-featured, multi-layer video editing
application for Windows computers and works with most video,
sound and image formats such as QuickTime, AVI, RealMedia,
AIFF, JPG, BMP, TGA, GIF, etc. It also features
sophisticated video effects and transitions, video capture,
Internet streaming. Installation includes an interactive
help file and tutorial. You will have to do web search to
find it from various shareware and freeware sites on the
web.
Another free video editor is Zwei-Stein. It has been around
for a while and is now up to version 3.01. It is a
non-linear, non-destructive video compositing and editing
system that offers many advanced features. With Zwei-Stein
you can edit up to 256 video, audio and still image clips,
each with up to 64 effects chained serially. Cropping,
panning and custom effects are easy with automatic key
frames. Built for Windows, there is a beta Linux version
floating around as well.
No More Excuses
You have lost one more reason for putting off editing those
videotapes you have sitting on your shelf. You can start
editing for free. It doesn’t matter whether you use a
shareware or free program, a trial or demo program, or the
free MovieMaker or iMovie programs, it is time that you dust
off those old videocassettes, stick them into your DV
camcorder, connect it up to your computer, and start
editing. Just think – you’ll be clearing up some space and
maybe you can even re-cycle those old tape cartridges.
