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Home movie editing programs

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I've got a Sony HD camcorder... it records in a .mts format.

 

To the best of my knowledge, to edit these files for home movie making...these files need to be formatted to something different in order to be used in the popular video editing suites like Vegas or Premier.

 

I have a ton of clips over the past year of the kiddo and just don't have a lot of time for painful conversions or learning something new... I have some pro audio/ video editing experience but that was almost 10 years ago. Even if I could remember all of what I learned way back then, things have changed.

 

I found this: http://www.avs4you.com/Register.aspx?sct=aff&ct=regnow&cid=84996

 

Only $60. Anyone used it? Maybe you could recommend something better? I just want something basic, stable, and hopefully under $100 . I want to compile maybe 20 hours of video into a maybe 15 minute "best of" movie. Fades/ wipes, character generation, voice overs, music tracks... just a making a typical home movies is what I'm after.

 

Thanks!

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Oh, and my desktop is a Vista 64bit machine with dual core intel, 4gb ram, and 512mb dual monitor video card. Hdd space isn't a problem...

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Well you can use a program called Handbrake to convert the .mts file to mp4 or mkv. This file can them go into most any video editing program.

 

I love Windows Movie Maker 6.1. It was made for Vista, but I downloaded and use it great on Windows 7. Surprisingly it seems this version is not on many Vista systems, instead you probably got some super stripped-down version.

 

http://members.shaw.ca/wmm6/wmm6.html

 

The maker that comes with 7 is horrible, so going back to this version is great, plus it supports full 1080p HD without any messing-around.

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Thanks Adam!

 

How much of a PITA is it to convert all of that? I have around 20 hours of raw video...hundreds of clips. Should I be worried?

 

I was hoping for something that could edit in native format, but I wouldn't care if the conversion was painless.

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Back in the day Premier was the bee's knees... learning curve was steep though. I was a pretty good with it, I just really don't have the time to learn all over again. I work roughly 100 hours a week...

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I use both Handbrake and AviDemux, and sometimes Windows Movie Maker.

AviDemux has filters which give you alot of options.

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Hmmm... It all depends on your CPU. Dual-core would be fairly good at this. What exactly is the model of it? I really don't have a time on how long it would take, I am downloading a sample mts file to see... I will test on a simlar computer.

 

Of course converting this to mp4 may not even be necessary, maybe WMM 6.1 can use these files already. Will test when its done downloading...

 

EDIT: Well I cant get anything to open my .MTS file, except for VLC media player. Handbrake or XviD4PSP should work, but the file I have is messed up or something...

Edited by Guest

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I do converting on a P4 3.0Ghz and doesnt take that long, so the Core 2 should be faster.

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