What is the simplest way for me to grab clips from movies and edit them?

January 24, 2018 1:34 PM

I want to grab clips from movies in multiple formats to use in university lectures (largely by embedding in powerpoint or similar). I am an absolute novice so the less technical language the better. What is the easiest way to do this?

I will be looking for clips from movies on DVD, Bluray, download and maybe youtube, etc. Happy to be pointed to a good site that sets it all out using nice simple language.

Bonus: I will need to chop clips to size, any tips on how to go about that?

I have checked and this appears to be allowable under educational exemptions under copyright law in my location (the UK).

posted by biffa to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

Doesn't VLC player have a record button option? = clips obtained. Use an editor from there?
posted by Freedomboy at 2:18 PM on January 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

What kind of computer do you have? Windows should come with Windows Movie Maker and Mac's should come with iMovie. Not sure about copyright laws and all that, but you might be able to burn the DVDs and Blu-Ray if you have those types of drives in your computer. And then use Windows Movie Maker or iMovie to cut the snippets. Alternatively, I think YouTube has actually built an editor in so you may be able to edit them simply by uploading to YouTube.
posted by AppleTurnover at 3:45 PM on January 24, 2018

Response by poster: I have a first gen surfacebook but could fall back on an old dell if needed for DVDs etc though it is pretty clunky. Surfacebook means windows 10 which doesn't support movie maker. Microsoft is suggesting the photo app for video making, anyone know if that is likely to be any use for what I want to do or is there something better i could use?
posted by biffa at 4:23 PM on January 24, 2018

I have found ShotCut is a good replacement for movie maker on win 10.
posted by canoehead at 4:34 PM on January 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

If you're doing this for use in university lectures does the institution have any support for this? At the U.S. institutions at which I've worked, there are people who provide this kind of support for faculty. That support can range from "here are some suggestions for software" to "here is a step-by-step guide and a computer with the software installed" to "let us know exactly what movies and clips you'd like and we'll capture them for you."
posted by ElKevbo at 10:48 AM on January 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

There is a discussion of this topic going on in hacker news right now
posted by canoehead at 11:46 AM on February 1, 2018