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KJakker

Software for editing and merging video clips?

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I am trying to find a free or open source program that allows multiple video clips to be merged into a single video file. Most of what I have found is ether payware or seems to be made for creating music videos and appears to be incapable of preserving the audio track from the source clips. Anyone have a recommendation?

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Windows Movie Maker and Lightworks are probably your best bet in regards to "free" video editors and they are what I primarily rely on to edit and make my videos.

 

The most recent version of Movie Maker was "dumbed down" and limits your ability to merge more than one audio track, do picture in picture (PIP) type effects, and you have less control over the output of the video (only WMV or low bitrate MP4 are avialble for HD at a res of 1980 x 1080, no 2k or 4k is availble)

 

Lightworks is techinically free, but it has a steep learning curve and can be a bit finicky. However, unlike Movie Maker you have more tools at your disposal like filters, lighting effects, masking tracks, merging several audio/video tracks that can play concurrently and you have more control over your video output. However, there is one big catch. While you have more "tools" than movie maker, you are limited to an output of 720P in the "free" version of Lightworks. The full verison of the program ranks just below Sony Vegas or Adobe Premier, two awesome programs that I advise you to try out for free for 30-60days you have a chance, but at the full version price of Light Works you might as well just purchase Vegas, Adobe, or Corel's Video Studio.

 

To wrap up this wall of text, my advice, if you want to do something quick and dirty an in HD for free, just use Windows Moview Maker and make sure to turn your video output bitrate as high as the program will allow.

 

If you want to get in depth video editing for free, I suggest playing around with the free version of Lightworks or playing around with a trial verson of Vegas, and then buying Sony Vegas, Adobe Premier, or Video Studio.

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Thanks for the info, I installed Lightworks and I apparently already had Windows Movie Maker from 2011 buried on my hard drive. When I tried Movie Maker it could not see the video format the files were in so I got Any Video Converter which it turns out can join clips together as well.

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That's nice to know. I was wondering about things like after affects (I don't like paying high price subscriptions which keeps me from wanting to get it). When I upgrade my computer I will be getting better video editing software.

 

I will put this plug here for Audacity if you don't have it or know about it. I'd suggest getting it. It works wonders for your audio work. Open source, free, and a huge support forum. But my hold computer can only run Windows Movie Maker. I'm dying to get some better software soon.

 

Thank you for asking that question because I've wanting to know that for a while know.

 

But let me ask this. If Lightworks only allows 720p as max output. Could it be possible to use a video converting program to get the output to be 1080p?

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Thanks for the info, I installed Lightworks and I apparently already had Windows Movie Maker from 2011 buried on my hard drive. When I tried Movie Maker it could not see the video format the files were in so I got Any Video Converter which it turns out can join clips together as well.

 

Any Video Converter is good for converting clips before you run them through Movie Maker if they are in some wierd format, but if the clips are your general Mp4, WMV, MpegII, etc. WMM should be able to read it any no conversion is needed.

 

Conversly, you could also load the clips straight to a hosting program like Youtube and do your editing there, but it is not as convient as using a program on your system.

 

That's nice to know. I was wondering about things like after affects (I don't like paying high price subscriptions which keeps me from wanting to get it). When I upgrade my computer I will be getting better video editing software.

 

I will put this plug here for Audacity if you don't have it or know about it. I'd suggest getting it. It works wonders for your audio work. Open source, free, and a huge support forum. But my hold computer can only run Windows Movie Maker. I'm dying to get some better software soon.

 

Thank you for asking that question because I've wanting to know that for a while know.

 

But let me ask this. If Lightworks only allows 720p as max output. Could it be possible to use a video converting program to get the output to be 1080p?

Audacity is good to use, a lot of the audio I used in my past videos I would run in Audacity first in order to do the "mixing", change pitch, tone, etc. For example, I could never find the right "claxon" sound and echo for some of my videos so I just made one in Audacity by running a few high-pass filters and mixing a number of sound effects (you can skip to 1:12 to hear how it turned out).

 

For the 720P output, once it is rendered that is the resolution it is stuck at. You can, "upscale" but the sharpness and clarity are going ot suffer, hence why it is best to render a video at the highest resolution possible prior to uploading (besides video hosters like Youtube are known for nuking resolutions and frame rates).

Edited by ironroad

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You did an amazing job with the sound effects. Awesome job!

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