Video Editing Freeware?

[photophorous]

Hi Everyone. I'm looking for some very basic guidance. I know absolutely nothing about video editing, but I decided to take on a project with some friends, to create a short film for a contest. None of us know what we're doing. One person in the group has iMovie, but I was wondering if there is any Video Editing Freeware that might be decent. I did a search and came up with several, but I have no idea if they're any good.

Don't know if it matters, but I'll be using a 5 year old Sony Hi-8 camcorder, film length is 2-5 minutes, and I definitely want as much audio editing capability as possible.

Any recommendations?

Thanks!

Paul

[SpeedingSphere]

windows movie maker isnt bad for beginners, but for my mini dv camera videos, I use Adobe Premiere 7 Pro.

[Skyman]

i -movie and windows movie maker are the best free apps around, if you really want to play with audio they are both very limited. you could get around this by editing your audio in another program such as cool edit or sound forge. do you have a budget for this film? there are places around that hire edit suits with or without an editor so you could go down that path.

[photophorous]

Thank you guys for the info. I wasn't even aware that I had Windows Movie Maker. I think we are going to use both iMovie and Movie Maker to create clips, and then probably combine them for the final movie in iMovie. Hopefully, we can get all the audio done with these programs, but if not, I have some other software that I think will work.

Thanks!

Paul

[MarcusK]

Ummm Paul,

I'll have to disagree about iMovie and Windows Movie Maker being the best free apps.

iMovie will be great for importing very easy capturing interface (importing )

However for editing apps, Avid Free is the best since it is an amateur version of one of the top pro apps. It might be a bit tricky at first but basically its like any other software and has audio capabilities not too advanced but good nonetheless.

Here's the link:
http://www.avid.com/freedv/

Give it a shot you might find it useful....sorry for being this late, was out of town and away from my mac

Cheers,

Marc

[spacey]

FreeDV can be confusing unless you've used other Avid products (XPress, Nitris, Newscutter)

How are you going to import footage? Hi8 is an analouge format, you will need a digital-bridge to convert the RCA outputs to a USB or IEEE1394 connections.

[Don Schaeffer]

I use the Dazzle Digital Video Creator as an analog to digital converter. It ccame with Videowave editing software.