help me be DeMille for 60 seconds - for free

January 2, 2007 12:37 PM

Wanted: Decent, small, lightweight, free, safe software for doing very basic editing of Quicktime movies (on a PC, not a Mac).
posted by anastasiav to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

I found an application called TRMOOV at this site. It supposedly converts MOV files to AVI files and vice versa, though I was unable to get it to work. If you can get that application to work, though, you can pull the AVI into
VirtualDub and edit it there.
posted by Shecky at 1:27 PM on January 2, 2007

Quicktime Pro, though annoyingly not free is necessary for anyone doing even a modicum of editing with QT video. Value your time appropriately and spring for the $30. Software is only free if it saves you time as well as money at no cost.
posted by spitbull at 1:34 PM on January 2, 2007

Response by poster: spitbull, I appricate your position. However, I have a digital camera that takes sub 60-second videos that download in QT, and I really just want to be able to perhaps trim a few seconds off the start and end of the video, nothing more. $30 seems like a lot of money for that function.
posted by anastasiav at 1:58 PM on January 2, 2007

anastasiav: "However, I have a digital camera that takes sub 60-second videos that download in QT, and I really just want to be able to perhaps trim a few seconds off the start and end of the video, nothing more. $30 seems like a lot of money for that function."

Most digital cameras that shoot video have two formats (my Sony shoots both AVI (gods know what codec, I don't use it) and MPEG2). I realize this does not help you with any videos you may currently have, but, perhaps in the future you can shoot in some MPEG or other more-open-than QT format?
posted by Xoder at 2:38 PM on January 2, 2007

Avidemux2 can work with .mov but how well depends a lot on versions and audio black magic.
posted by arruns at 4:21 PM on January 2, 2007

Response by poster: realize this does not help you with any videos you may currently have, but, perhaps in the future you can shoot in some MPEG or other more-open-than QT format?

Its a Nikon Coolpix 5600. If there is a way to change the type of movie it takes, I can't seem to discover it.
posted by anastasiav at 5:26 PM on January 2, 2007

From a still camera, it's likely to be MPEG-1 or MJPEG in a .mov container (less likely, MPEG-2 or H.264; even less likely, one of the Apple-specific codecs like Sorenson, etc).

SUPER © and RAD Video Tools are two free apps which, between them, will handle pretty much anything you throw at them. Use one or the other to convert to .AVI with a suitable codec - if you're going to recompress the final result to, say, DivX / XviD, then use uncompressed or a lossless codec like HuffyUV - then edit in VirtualDub or whatever.

(Beware - the GUIs on both those tools suck!)
posted by Pinback at 6:34 PM on January 2, 2007

Avid Free.

I don't think it's as easy as could be (it's a derivative of film/video editing software.) It'll convert everything to DV (from whatever format it is; and it handles quicktime just fine.)

But the price is right.
posted by filmgeek at 9:09 PM on January 2, 2007