How can I learn the basics of video editing? Where to start?

DaRuSsIaMaN

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Apr 22, 2007
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Anyone know any good newbie guides to direct my attention to? I don't really know anything. I don't even understand codecs very well, I think.

I am currently trying to do a simple thing: cut out a piece of a .mp4 video downloaded from youtube. Once I can do that, I would like to go further and cut out a couple pieces from the same video and merge them together into one, with some effects like fade out to black, and then fade from black in between the merged pieces. Or something similar.

At first I couldn't even find the software that could handle .mp4 videos, but I found avidemux. Now, when I try to save the selected portion of the video to a new file, I get errors. I don't understand why, and the wiki for avidemux isn't very helpful. It mostly just says what the different buttons do. But I don't understand what formats I should be selecting for video and audio, etc.
 
For basic editing, I really like Machete for Windows (http://www.machetesoft.com/).

It's one of the few applications I could find that supports *lossless* editing and it's super simple to use once you get the hang of it. It will also join clips, although I must admit I've never tried that.

Machete supports all the common formats like .mp4, .wmv, and .mov, so for me, it was well worth $20.

Unfortunately, it doesn't offer any sort of visual effects like fade in and fade out. For that you'll need something else. You might want to look into Adobe Premiere Essentials, but even that may be overkill for what you're trying to do.

Cheers,
John
 
You can always find tutorials on youtube, but they will mostly be for paid software. You can get a fully functional 30 day trial of sony vegas studio which is very user friendly and pretty versatile for the price.

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/moviestudiope


If you like the Sony software you can find plenty of good deals about $40 on last years version on ebay:


http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=vegas+movie+studio&_sacat=0


I have used the Sony Vegas software for many years(7 years) and have been very pleased.

The 30 day fully functional trial will let you see if its worth your investment.
 
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Go Adobe.com and download the trial version of Premiere Essentials. Their site has tons of tutorials to get you started.
 
Personally I like PowerDirector10 because it seemed the easiest for me to use but also does everything I want it to do. All of the big programs have 30 day full version trials, so as long as you have the time, I'd say pick one and play with it while looking at the youtube video tutorials. Then try them all before you pick one. Go to something like slickdeals.net when you decide to buy one because there are usually deals to be had. The big consumer level ones are Adobe Premiere Elements, Corel Videostudio X5 and Powerdirector10.
 
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