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simple video editing

Started by wilhil 6 replies 1.1k views
Original Post
wilhil
wilhil
Hi I recorded a few clips of my brother doing magic tricks, and he wants to send them in to a tv show, I want to do some very simple editing including adding a title, fade in, joining all the clips together, rotating one of the clips, and then some fade out or another effect at the end, also possibly loose the audio and use a song/tune from a cd as the background music. Anyway, I have tried using Adobe after affects and Adobe premier pro, however it is really out of my legaue! I have never done video/audio editing, and this is one area that I really know almost nothing about. I messed around for a few hours last night, but got almost nowhere, I got the video up, worked out how to fade in, however fade in took a while, and I could not make the movie pause for a few seconds whilst it faded in... I saw the time line, and worked out how to pause, but then I ould not make it play again after! anyway, I am totally stuffed on this, and I was just wondering if anyone can suggest some SIMPLE video editing programs, I do not mind paying if it will do the job, however I would rather see one witha free trial. I am going to try windows movie maker now, no idea if that will do the job :S but if it doesnt, please suggest something! thanks
>wilhil<
benryves
benryves
Windows Movie Maker should do the job. Sadly, Premiere follows the typical Adobe design... extremely powerful and easy to do things with, but with an extremely steep learning curve.
Ulead is often packaged with video hardware (cameras, capture boards and so on), so might be worth looking on any disks that came with the camera.
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Avatar God
Avatar God
I've heard good things about Sony Vegas regarding intuitiveness. Premiere is powerful, but does take some getting used to (although, for simple editing, there isn't much of a learning curve, once you learn the keyboard shortcuts for everything).

I would really suggest Windows Movie Maker - it should do the job just fine, and it's very easy to use.

Lastly, it's ULead, not Unlead, and I wouldn't reccommend it, anyways (nor would I ever suggest Pinnacle). Not terrible, but crashy and occasionaly difficult to figure out.

If things go really bad, I could probably write you a brief tutorial to do what you need with Premiere.
gsgraham.comSo, no, zebras are not causing hurricanes.
wilhil
wilhil
ok, well I went ahead and used adobe premier as I could not get windows movie maker to do exactly what I want, I will give ulead a try though for future use, so thanks.

also, il look in to sony vegas.

anyway, adobe after affects confused the hell out of me, and after messing around for hours, it seemed I could just use premier to do nearly everythign I wanted!

anyway, I now have the movie finished, only problem is, it is a 850meg avi file!

how on earth do I compress it? I have been using divx for years, but only watching, how would I create a movie using it, or use it to compress a existing movie?

Thanks
>wilhil<
Avatar God
Avatar God
Heh, Adobe After Effects can be useful, but certainly NOT necessary for anything simple. Or medium. Or hard. Unless you really need high-level effects or title work, you can just use Premiere and leave AE alone. It's very powerful, but usually not needed.

Using Premiere (which I don't have in front of me right now - I'm not at home), you should be able to export using the MPEG Encoder and compress that way. You should be able to set a bitrate, quality level, framerate, etc.

If your version doesn't have that, or you want to use AVI, you should still be able to do it with the regular export settings. That should also allow you to choose between several options (don't choose DV AVI if you want it to be smaller), including compressed AVI. Again, set your bitrate/quality/framerate/etc and export away.

These won't give you an expected output size, so consider exporting a short portion of the movie with some set of options, checking the size, and extrapolating to the full size.

If this doesn't help you, just post again, and I'll be more specific if it helps. For that matter, if you have any other issues with Premiere or Movie Maker, I'll be more than willing to give you a hand.
gsgraham.comSo, no, zebras are not causing hurricanes.
wilhil
wilhil
im just about to try windows movie encoder first... hopefully this will do what i need
>wilhil<
Avatar God
Avatar God
Yeah, Windows Movie Encoder will let you compress it into a smaller WMV - it ought to do what you want (although it can take a long, long time depending on your settings). It's come in sooo handy for me in the past. Very good.
gsgraham.comSo, no, zebras are not causing hurricanes.

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