Anyone with video editing experience?

[Sideshow Spock]

...Cuz I don't have any, and could use some advice.

I have an old VHS home movie that I wanted to share with friends and family on YouTube. I have a DVD Recorder, so I copied the tape on to a DVD. I then used a program called Handbrake to rip the DVD on to my hard drive.

The file size is 840MB and in Mpeg-4 format. My VLC player runs it fine, and it looks great.

The laptop that I'm using is an older Vista machine, and when I went to use Windows Movie Maker to start editing the file (I want to edit the original 90 minute file down to about 20-30 mins with transitions), it won't let me. Seems that WMM has issues with mp4, it doesn't have the codec or some damn thing.

So I downloaded a newer version of WMM thru Windows Essentials. This was supposed to handle mp4 just fine.

It doesn't. When I try to add the file, it just craps out.

I've tried using a converter to change the file type to something WMM could read. This has also gone nowhere, and taken up a lot of time.

I've been looking for a good basic freeware video editor, but not coming up with much. I've downloaded a couple that looked promising, but been disappointed. And they like to do nasty things like change your home page and load other stuff etc..

Anyone have any tips? This fun little project has gotten very aggravating

[Mikey]

I know i'm going to get a lot of heat from all the tech guys here but how about just filming your TV screen ?

I think modern cameras automatically put the video into a format everything can read.

[Sideshow Spock]

I thought of that.. but my only good camera is my iPad, and filming the screen with that for 90 minutes is.. challenging.

[hedrap]

YouTube has a built-in editor. Depending on your internet bandwidth,you could upload in pieces and edit. They also offer background music.

As for MP4, QuickTime is its native program. You can trim in its player and save the clips.

Edit - if you have an iPad, then connect it to your PC and import the video to the tablet. You can then edit in iMovie or QuickTime then upload to YouTube.

You really need to work on this in 20 minutes blocks. The full 90 is going to be a pain to scrub through without higher-end processors.

[Makernaut]

It needs to be WMV or AVI to edit in Windows Movie Maker. Can you set your output to one of those formats from Handbrake?

[Sideshow Spock]

It needs to be WMV or AVI to edit in Windows Movie Maker. Can you set your output to one of those formats from Handbrake?

Unfortunately not, Handbrake only allows ouput into mp4 or MKV.

hedrap, I've actually considered all the things you mentioned. I did play with it in QT, but as far as I could tell, anything that would allow me to edit it is grayed out, this is just the free version. I've been considering iMovie thru the pad, but for the moment was just concentrating on getting it done from my laptop.

I knew about the YT editor, but the original size of the file was problematic. You're right, I have to break it up..

I just got a popular program called Lightworks.. but it wants me to register on their site before I use it..

[hedrap]

^ Yeah, free editors are immersed in bloatware. Tablets are a godsend for what you're looking to do.

[Makernaut]

Unfortunately not, Handbrake only allows ouput into mp4 or MKV.

I never updated my version so I didn't know if that was dropped or if I had added in a codec to allow for it.

My next suggetion by way of freeware is Any Video Converter.

http://download.cnet.com/Any-Video-Converter-Freeware/3055-2194_4-10661456.html?tag=pdl-redir

I have an older version that is much simpler, but I downloaded and tried this one and it works for a WMV output. Just watch the add ons they try to sneek in at download if you try it (browser add-ons).

It's a "drag and drop" into the convert field and you can select "Xbox WMV Movie (*.WMV)" for your output. You can mess with the basic settings to adjust the settings, if you want, as well.

[Sideshow Spock]

Thanks all for the suggestions. I ended up uploading the entire 90 minute video as-is to YouTube (took more than two hrs), and hopefully I'm able use its editor to do what I want. Good thing I'm not in any hurry..

Thanks again!

[megoapesnut]

I have a video converter that would convert it to any format you want. If you strike out with Youtube I will give you a link to upload the video to me and I can convert it for you.

[UnderdogDJLSW]

If you want to look at a relatively inexpensive program to buy, try Corel video studio. It is not free, but allows for quick edits and stuff.

[Mego Magyar]

If you need more video codec on your system try Combined-Community-Codec-Pack it allows most anything to play in Windows Media Player.

For converting I use Leawo HD Video Converter and that will change almost any video format into any other.

[Sideshow Spock]

It took me hours, but I finally finished the final edit using the YT editor. I've never really used an editor before, and YT does a very poor job of explaining how to do it. I even watched some user how-to videos which didn't help much either. Just took trial and error for me to get the hang of it.