Free video editing?

Before the holidays I purchased an Insignia flash camcorder for $99 (what a steal at Best Buy!). I shot some video of my 4th graders around our school so that we can share with our pen pals over the ed.voicethread.com network. We have MACs OSX at school but I am on Vista at home and I want to edit some of these clips. Just wondering what you all use to do some quick video editing. I have looked around the Web2 world but haven't really found what I am looking for. Is there free software that I could use or is there a webapp that I haven't seen? I just want to be able to add text, transitions, splice and combine clips.

Tags: penpals, video, voicethread

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Permalink Reply by Kev on January 11, 2009 at 4:38pm

Vista's Movie Maker, as mentioned, does a fine job of simple edits. It is a huge improvement over the XP version. Even with more powerful tools like Premiere available to me I use MM for many of my simple trimming tasks.

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Permalink Reply by Evaggelos on January 11, 2009 at 6:56pm

In my school district I had to edit video a couple of times and I used iMovie. It was powerful enough for a simple job. Basically I cut portions of the movie, entered graphics, transitions, titles, etc. It was perfect for me. I think using a Mac for video editing is the only choice.

Evan

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Permalink Reply by Brad Wilson on January 12, 2009 at 6:18am

Thanks for the replies. So has no one heard of any web-based video editing? Like a Picnik for movies?

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Permalink Reply by Erika Johansson on February 12, 2009 at 12:56pm

If you want to host the videos online so that kids aren't tied to the school computers (and they can edit their videos from home, from the public library, etc.) check out RemixAmerica.org.

We use a simple drag and drop editor (also, we provide a more in-depth alternative with our advanced editor) that your kids could use for video editing!

Let me know if you want to talk about it further and I'd love to discuss!

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Permalink Reply by Brad Wilson on February 18, 2009 at 5:26am

I may have just found the answer to my own question...

http://www.adobe.com/products/premiereexpress/

"All you need is a web browser and Adobe Flash® Player, which you probably already have on your machine. And best of all, there's nothing to pay or download — it's online and free to use on partner websites. Reorder, split, and trim your video clips; add music, transitions, and titles; and then make it all your own with a mix of favorite photos, graphics, and animation"

Wow- this sounds like exactly what I was hoping for. A webapp that would allow me to do all I wanted with my video clips. I can't wait to check this out..

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Permalink Reply by Mike Hourahine on February 18, 2009 at 8:10am

This is very cool... I'm just trying it out Photobucket now (because Adobe doesn't host it they only allow partners to host it). Only issue is having to upload all your video files there first. Fine for small, mp4 vids I suppose.

Re Movie Maker: Here's one problem I have with it - It doesn't deal with the MP4 format that the majority of phones and flash-based video cameras record in today. Not even the latest beta for Live Movie Maker does. What gives? Any found a way to deal with this (other than get a Mac)? We want to buy new SD based video cameras but lack a decent free video editing package that can deal with the format all these cameras use.

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Permalink Reply by Colin Welch on March 23, 2010 at 4:21pm

I've moved from Vista to Windows 7, but I really missed the Vista Movie Maker (Windows Movie Maker 6, not 2.1 or 2.6). So I added it to W7 using the installer below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15TMjpM8QCc

I also added the K-Lite Codec Pack Ultra. [I've lost my link to it, but it should be somewhere on the 'Net.) That, in combination with Windows 7, allows me to work with MP4 on Windows Movie Maker 6. You can use MP4 in that dreadful Windows Live Movie Maker, but anyone serious about editing would probably prefer WMM6. Even though it's getting long in the tooth, WMM6 is still the best free video editing solution for the PC side. I hang on to it like a lot of my Mac friends hang on to iMovie HD 06!