Topic: Freeware/open source video editing software?

Hey guys

I'm looking for software that can do a few of what I think are fairly simple tasks for me.

I have a series of digital videos on dvd (burnt from a digital video camera). The files are .vob files.

Here is what I want to do:

1) rip the video to some common format, such as mpeg or avi...without having to pull my hair out trying to figure out what format is going to need what codecs and all kinds of other things that I can't seem to grasp without a headache, and which have caused me to go on all sorts of download quests so far...

2) do relatively simple edits such as cut the video, add audio tracks, titles, and do some speed alterations...

3) output a file in a suitable format for displaying on the web with
--a) filesize that is not ridiculous
--b) video quality that is not ridiculous

Now, that needs qualifying I know. Basically what I have are clips of my daughter competiing (taekwondo, olympic stlye sparring). I want to be able to put 'youtube' size and quality clips online to share with family. Nothing extravagant, nothing that needs to be top quality, but things that needs to be......decent.

I've tried a variety of apps to try these things, and in *all* aspects have met with headache, complication, and quality that would make baby jesus cry...


Anyone have any suggestions? Right now, it needs to be free to do me any good, and I know there has got to be something out there that can do what I need...

Any tips greatly appreciated - particularly those that come with some personal experience.

thanks



(Edited by DL-44 on 10-26-2007 23:40)

To convert VOB to AVI, I would suggest All To AVI It works well. Not hard to use at all. Pretty much just open and convert. You can also try to just stream it from VLC player. I've done that will good success too.

Are the VOB set like a DVD? so that there are multiple VOB files for one movie?

As for the editing part I would suggest TMPGEnc. The DVD Author program that they have is awesome. Real simple to use and you can do a lot with it. You can make DVD's from multiple AVI files, cut and edit, make menus, etc... They also have the XPress that will simply cuts and such. It's not free but they do have a free 30 trial that is full software. It's not expensive either, ~$80.

Those are the only things that I use atm, if I think of something else that I have used in the past I'll let you know.

Later,

C:\

MPlayer (or mencoder, which comes with it), can rip to just about any reasonable format, with just about any options you'd like. It's available for just about any OS, too. There are also lots of 3rd party frontends for MPlayer and mencoder - if you must have a GUI, there are some there that will do a good job of ripping. I'm sorry I don't remember which are the better ones, but they're there. SUPER is a decent frontend for Windows that is focused mainly on conversion. You can also use ffmpeg (core part of mplayer, et al.) if you're into the commandline stuff (Cygwin can help for use on Windows). (edit: also virtualdub for conversion, though I've had more success with the other stuff mentioned)

As for editing... MainActor is a nice straightforward editor for Windows - old versions were available as unlimited free trials.
Some others worth looking at (sorry, I don't keep track of which are for which OS, but at least one is cross-platform [C#, eww ]):
cinelerra
cinepaint
avidemux
jahshaka

(Edited by reisio on 10-27-2007 05:46)