AVCHD - What software for video editing (not done this for ages)

March 14, 2019 4:26 AM

The last time I edited video was about 10 years ago, I used my iMac and Final Cut Express. Now, I find the landscape has altered beyond recognition! I'm trying to edit the output of two Canon XA10s which I think is in AVCHD format. I believe the camera has sort of split the output into audio and video, but I'm not 100% on that. It just seemed that way when I tried to import it.

I have at my disposal an ageing 2012 Macbook Pro and a similarly ageing IBM type x64 desktop running Windows 7. I'm prepared to pay for software if needs be, but far more desirable would be a tip off for some good open source software.

I'm not looking to do anything fancy at all - just cut between the two relevant camera feeds at opportune moments then write to DVD and/or YouTube.

Thank you!

posted by dance to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

I use KDEnlive for light video editing tasks on Linux. They have windows and mac versions you can download, but I have no experience with those. A few years ago there were no usable basic open source video editors, but these days there are tons of them.
posted by Poldo at 8:42 AM on March 14, 2019 [2 favorites]

DaVinci Resolve is free and quite powerful, but you'll have to see whether it'll run on your computers.
posted by jonathanhughes at 10:32 AM on March 14, 2019 [1 favorite]

Apple’s iMovie supports the XA10 and the current version may be a free (if your Macbook came with a copy) or inexpensive download from the App Store. You’d need some other software to create a DVD and unfortunately Apple discontinued iDVD years ago. iMovie should be fine for basic editing and exporting for YouTube, though.
posted by D.C. at 2:14 PM on March 14, 2019