I personally believe that Windows Movie Maker is probably the best solution for newbies and beginners to video editing. Most of us just want to edit our picnic and wedding movies we created with our camcorders, digital cameras or mobile phones. Windows Movie Maker is a good choice if you want to add text, simple video effects, background music, voice over, or things like that. And above all it comes free with your Windows XP PC.
But then sometimes you buy a product that saves your pictures and videos in a format which is not supported by windows movie maker. In that case, or if you want to do something that windows movie maker can’t, then you will need some other free video editing tools.
DVDx is a free tool that allows you to copy DVD and convert it as VCD, SVCD, DivX, AVI or WMV in one step. DVDX is a free and open source software. It has a simple user interface, and there is support available for free. There is also a paid version of the software.
MediaCoder is a free and open source transcoder that can help you convert your audio and video files from one format to another. It supports many popular formats such as AVI, XviD, DivX, MP, CD, VCD, DVD, Windows Media audio and video, mpeg, Mp4, among many others. For support options it has a Wiki with conversion tutorials and other related information.
DVDStyler is a free and open source DVD authoring application based on dvdauthor. It allows you to create your own professional looking DVDs that can be played on almost any standalone DVD player and your computer. You can create menus, buttons, add pictures, music, chapters, etc. You can even add your own subtitles to the movies. It has a simple uncluttered interface. Support is available via mailing list, user forum and Wiki. While downloading make sure that you download win32 version for your windows computer. DVDstyler is a cross platform application so you would also see links to downloads for other operating systems aswell.
I love Videohelp Forum for all my video editing related questions. It already has many well written guides to do just about anything with your videos. They also have tools directory that lists hundereds of audio video editing tools categorized as freeware, adware and non-free labes. So if there is something you want to do with your movies but don’t know how to do it and don’t want to spend money on expansive video editing software then videohelp forums is the place for you.
I’ve got to say I’m not as big a fan of Windows Movie maker as you are, but this is mainly because I know there are a huge number of tools out there that are as good – and usually better:
1) Jahshaka
Jahshaka is a free multi-use offline editing tool. Although it is still fairly new on the market.
2) T@B ZS4
T2B ZS4 is a free video editing and compositing tool from Zwei-Stein. Its not for everyone, but it could be for you.
3) Wax
A free tool with powerful editing and compositing abilities.
4) Video Spin
Video Spin is the free video editing tool from Avid.
5) Vivia
Vivia is a basic editing software which is currently being developed and is in Beta testing. If you are using Linux or Windows you might want to check this out
6) Avidemux
One of the more stable and complete free tools available.
7) Blender
Blender is a powerful, multi-use editing/compositing and modeling tool. It’s one of the best on the market and it’s free.
A tool to deal with MPG and flash video. It’s simple, it’s powerful and it’s free!
Information about these and more can be found on this web site:
http://www.free-video-editing.com/fve
Thanks
Gary thank you for this update. I have used Avidemux on my Ubuntu Linux, it is indeed a very useful tool. I tried installing videospind a couple of days ago but its review on the PCworld stopped me doing so. The review says that it runs advertisements and lots of important features are available for paid version only.