Tech: Video equiv. of Audacity?

Subject: Tech: Video equiv. of Audacity?
From: michaelr
Date: 04 Jan 16 - 08:14 PM

Is anyone aware of a free, simple video-editing program that will run on WinXP? Sort of a video equivalent of Audacity?

TIA, Michael

Subject: RE: Tech: Video equiv. of Audacity?
From: michaelr
Date: 04 Jan 16 - 09:05 PM

Hmm - I found this info:

"Windows Movie Maker 2.1 is installed on your computer when you install Windows XP Service Pack 2 or Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005."

I have WinXP Service Pack 2 installed, but I can't find Movie Maker 2.1.
Where could it be hidden?

Subject: RE: Tech: Video equiv. of Audacity?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 04 Jan 16 - 09:18 PM

I'm years out of date since I last needed to edit video..

but a quick google...

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=best+freeware+movie+editor&oq=best+freeware+movie+edit&aqs=chrome.0.0j69i57j0l4.7607j0j4&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8

.. 2 examples from the lop of the search:

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/test-centre/photo-video/best-free-video-editing-software-2015-2016-uk-3614829/

http://www.techradar.com/news/software/applications/best-free-video-editing-software-9-top-programs-you-should-download-1136264

Subject: RE: Tech: Video equiv. of Audacity?
From: cnd
Date: 04 Jan 16 - 09:21 PM

MovieMaker lets you compile preexisting pictures and videos and add music and subtitles and such. Pretty nice and easy to use, but you couldn't record video with it.

Of course, the "video equivalent" of Audacity depends on how you use Audacity.

If you use it to crop/edit Audio, then MovieMaker would be just fine. But if you want to record Audio, there are other equivalents you can use.

I personally use Bandicam, which lets you record up to 10 minutes of Audio in a certain size window or full-screen if you're running a full-screen video. It's pretty easy to use; you shouldn't have too much of a problem learning how to use it. There are hundreds of other free things like that, but that's what I use. I also seem to remember a thing called Fraps FPS, but I had a huge problem with it not picking up some things.

Subject: RE: Tech: Video equiv. of Audacity?
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jan 16 - 09:22 PM

" top of the search "

"lop" ????? how the hell did I manage to mistype that.. !!!???

"l" is miles away from "t"...?????????

Subject: RE: Tech: Video equiv. of Audacity?
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Jan 16 - 10:15 PM

http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/

Subject: RE: Tech: Video equiv. of Audacity?
From: GUEST,nickp (cookieless)
Date: 05 Jan 16 - 05:56 AM

Movie Maker is good - although it's file outputs are WMV when MPG would be more useful. It's still around on Win 10 (hidden a bit) but is somewhat restricted. On XP it should be ideal

Subject: RE: Tech: Video equiv. of Audacity?
From: cnd
Date: 05 Jan 16 - 06:16 AM

You can output as MP4s or other things. Instead of doing "File-->Save As," you need to do "Save Movie As" and select the file type.

Subject: RE: Tech: Video equiv. of Audacity?
From: Stanron
Date: 05 Jan 16 - 06:57 AM

There is a free, open source, piece of video editing software which I use with Linux called OpenShot. I'm sure there will be a version for Windows. Of all the many video editors I've tried this is the one that works best for me.

Subject: RE: Tech: Video equiv. of Audacity?
From: GUEST,Guest trying to help
Date: 05 Jan 16 - 07:14 AM

I have spent quite a bit of time looking for a freeware or sensibly priced Video editor. I think I have found one.

Not on my main laptop at the moment but will be in a couple of days if you can keep this thread current.

Incidentally what is the problem with files being saved in a particular format?
There are oodles of good safe free software converters available to download.

Subject: RE: Tech: Video equiv. of Audacity?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 05 Jan 16 - 08:46 AM

It's a long time since I last worked as an AV technician,
video editing being a big part of the job.

[Sonic Foundry Vegas - now owned by Sony - good software, expensive, but in those days easily cracked with dodgy keygens.
Had to, our project manager stupidly wasted the entire budget on multiple licences for a program no one needed or ever used...].

Back then one problem with converting one format to another was random results of out of sync visuals and audio.

I did eventually find a good freeware that was intended for the purpose of repairing such broken conversions.

On the PCs we were using back then, every part of the rendering procedures was so painfully slow.
Often requiring a file to be left processing overnight

You'd hope these days conversion technology is more reliable and much faster...???

I'm interested to follow this thread to see what comes out of it...

Subject: RE: Tech: Video equiv. of Audacity?
From: Stanron
Date: 05 Jan 16 - 12:53 PM

There are several video editing programs for Linux. I currently have Cinelerra-CV, LiVES, OpenShot and Pitivi, all free and open source. I have already uninstalled a couple of others which I could not get to work. When I get round to it I will uninstall LiVES and Pitivi as they are now superfluous to requirements.

The first editing program I got to work was called Cinelerra-CV. This looks like it was written in the 1970s. I was able to edit the videos but I could not separate or replace the audio track. When I record I start the camera and then start a separate audio recording. When finished I want to edit and normalise the audio recording, using Audacity, and then combine and synchronise the audio file with the video file in a video editor. I never got to do this in Cinelerra-CV. I can do this in OpenShot.

It can take up to 20 minutes to create the final file for a three minute piece of music. I imagine it could take just as long to transcode files. A faster computer could probably do it quicker.

Incidentally I also have a program called Transmageddon Video Transcoder. Guess what that does. I've not actually used it yet but it is another, free, open source piece of software.

Subject: RE: Tech: Video equiv. of Audacity?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 05 Jan 16 - 01:35 PM

Got an email today from an internet shop notifying a big sales price drop on Sony Movie Studio 13...

I wonder if this is derived from Vegas software ???

Anyway, according to quick google of reviews, version 13 is crap as it's been revamped for touch screens,
but version 12 is apparently excellent and currently down to between 20 - 25 quid [depending on which bundle] on Amazon...

Subject: RE: Tech: Video equiv. of Audacity?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 05 Jan 16 - 03:56 PM

ffmpeg is a freeware command line based programme which will do exactly what you ask it to do.

Subject: RE: Tech: Video equiv. of Audacity?
From: treewind
Date: 05 Jan 16 - 04:05 PM

For Linux, KDEnlive is good. Powerful, well documented, stable, easy to use. I used AVIDemux before, but KDENlive is much nicer to use.

ffmpeg??? - its library does the background processing work for most of the other programs but even for this command line luddite it wouldn't be my choice for interactive video editing :-)
(yes, I know you weren't serious)

Subject: RE: Tech: Video equiyyv. of Audacity?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 05 Jan 16 - 06:05 PM

Of course I'm serious, it converts video without reducing quality !!

Subject: RE: Tech: Video equiyyv. of Audacity?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 05 Jan 16 - 06:05 PM

Of course I'm serious, it converts video without reducing quality !!

Subject: RE: Tech: Video equiv. of Audacity?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 05 Jan 16 - 07:48 PM

Stanton...is right on target.

Seriously, consider an external (secondary) boot using Linux.

It will take some time...there is a learning curve.

MSFT and APPL serve a delicious tray of delights...to those too lazy or some infebible to nagagate.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Some have more money than time...blessed are they with time.

Subject: RE: Tech: Video equiv. of Audacity?
From: michaelr
Date: 05 Jan 16 - 08:12 PM

I don't speak Linux, but thanks for the suggestions. In the meantime I managed to find Service Pack 3 and in it Movie Maker. Since I'm only after editing existing video files, I'll give that a try.

Subject: RE: Tech: Video equiv. of Audacity?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 05 Jan 16 - 08:21 PM

A long time ago I used to frequent a forum dedicated to promoting freeware for defeating DVD / CD copyright protection,
& Pro Media Software reg cracks;
and maintaining a resource of freeware Video editors and converters that could be useful for all kinds of purposes.

[... errrmmm... of course I only ever went there out of curiosity and for educational reasons.....]

Unfortunately it's one of the links I lost when my hard drive died last year....

It may still be out there in google land...???

These days I only use legal software, but can't remember the last time I spent ££$$ on any,
- there's just too much good quality freeware for windows available...

I did install the free AV Linux media operating system on a spare PC last summer,
but aint found time or reason to explore it much yet...

Subject: RE: Tech: Video equiv. of Audacity?
From: Stanron
Date: 06 Jan 16 - 02:22 AM

In this instance I wasn't advocating a switch, even partial, to Linux. The Linux software, because it is open source, is almost certainly available for other operating systems. Some Linux software that I've come across is actually superior to the original Windows stuff.

For instance a year or so ago I bought a USB Endoscope for just a few pounds on Ebay. I could just about get it to work on a Windows Vista laptop but not well enough to actually use.

Just last week I read about a Linux program called Cheese. I downloaded this and it works even better than the bundled Windows software.

Open source software is software where the text code is made available to anyone to compile for themselves. Code is not operating system specific. It can be compiled for different operating systems. So any open source software should be available for any operating system. Just download from a sensible supplier.

Subject: RE: Tech: Video equiv. of Audacity?
From: treewind
Date: 06 Jan 16 - 06:04 AM

In practice, making code (especially for anything driven by a GUI) portable between operating systems isn't practical unless you design it that way from the start, use a multi-platform graphics toolkit (Audacity uses GTK for example) and often also write a lot of OS-specific code because file systems and hardware drivers are so different.

You can get KDEnlive as VirtualBox image to run on Windows; that's not ideal for regular use but a good way to evaluate it.

AVLinux is good - it's what I use for all my audio and video work, and you can check whether it'll work on your hardware without installing by running it off a live DVD or USB stick.
It's a bit out of date now, but a new release is due very soon (this month, with luck...)

Subject: RE: Tech: Video equiv. of Audacity?
From: GUEST,guest, trying to help
Date: 06 Jan 16 - 06:12 AM

Hi

Back on main laptop.

The video editor I discovered is called VSDC.

A bit fiddly at first but worth the effort especially if, like me, you only want to edit existing stuff by yourself.

Try it.