Have you wondered about how difficult and expensive it would be to edit your home video movies? Anyone who has held a video camera for more than a few minutes has had the experience of shooting something you really don't want to share; that shot of Uncle Joe picking his nose at a wedding; the time you accidentally hit the button while carrying the camera and shot 30 seconds of your shoes; the big football game where somebody jumped up right in front of you and all you got was the back of their head...
Perhaps you just want to add some background music or some narration, or maybe a few captions and credits. The great news is that video editing on your home computer has become relatively easy, and some of the tools to do it are FREE.
Most people today have computers equipped with the Windows XP operating system. If you have Windows XP or the new Vista, you have a tool already called Windows Movie Maker. If you have an early version of XP or have never upgraded to Service Pack 2, you may have version 1. Windows Movie Maker version 2.1 can be downloaded from Microsoft at no cost.
Windows Movie Maker can be used to do all kinds of basic editing including cutting, trimming and rearranging your shots (called "clips"), but is also capable of adding a surprising number of professional looking special effects like transitions and dissolves. Windows Move Maker is intended to be a simple, basic tool that covers everything that most casual home video editors might want or need, and it succeeds. You can work with an audio music or narration track, and there is a simple "Title and Credits" tool that allows you to place lettering on the screen.
For perhaps 90% of casual video editors, Windows Movie Maker does everything you want or need. For the rest of us amateur Steven Spielberg wannabees, there are several boxed software products available for under $100 that expand your abilities to include things like split screen/picture-in-picture effects, multiple layered audio tracks, and flexible animated credits and graphics.
Keeping it simple, the first challenge you face when you decide to edit your home videos on your home computer, is how the heck do you get the video into the computer? If you have a camcorder that records on mini-DV tapes, you may search all you want, but you are not likely to find a slot anywhere on your computer where you can plug that tape in. If you have an older style camcorder that uses VHS tapes or if you have old family movies on VHS you want to edit, you are in even more of a pickle. What do you do?
Capturing the Video
The first step to being able to video edit is to transfer the movies and sound onto your computer's hard drive. Generally, the movies and sound also have to be converted into a standard type of computer file called "AVI" which stands for "Audio-Video Interleave". This process of transferring and conversion is referred to as "capturing". It may be necessary for you to spend a few dollars to buy a hardware interface device to hook up between your computer and your video camera or VCR. Most modern DV camcorders come equipped with an interface called IEEE-1394, also referred to as "FireWire" or "Sony iLink". If your camcorder has that and your computer also has an IEEE-1394 plug-in, all you will need is a cable to hook them together.
If you are transferring older VHS video into your computer to edit and save to DVDs (for example) you may need to buy an analog to digital converter box. They are widely available and inexpensive. Some dual-door VCRs are available that allow you to copy your non-copyrighted home videos to DVDs which can then be placed into the standard DVD player on your (newer) computer. You will still have to capture the video from the DVD to convert it into an AVI file for editing.
Using the Timeline
Nearly all computer video editing solutions, even professional versions costing thousands of dollars, use some kind of "timeline" screen to assist you in ordering and organizing your video shots. After you capture your video into the computer, you need to organize it into pieces called "clips" by cutting out bad shots and things you don't want like out of focus or very shaky parts. The remaining clips you arrange on the timeline in sequential order. They can be in any order you want and you can even mix clips from different sources. Your creativity is your only limit here. The timeline is where you can add your optional narration, musical background, and simple or fancy transitions. There are add-on packages available for Windows Movie Maker to permits you to apply more advanced effects to your videos as well.
Publishing
Publishing is the term used to describe saving your edited video in a form where you can share it with others. Windows Movie Maker includes the ability to save your edited movies as files in several forms, including those favored by internet self-publishing services like YouTube and Google Video.
Typically people want to save their finished video home movies to a DVD, and unfortunately that is a key function Microsoft chose to leave out of simple little Windows Movie Maker. You will need a DVD publishing program to burn your movies to DVD, and those generally have to be bought. Of course, you also need to have a DVD recorder, and if you don't have one you will need to buy one, typically for under $100 for an internal unit you install inside your computer case in place of (or in addition to) the existing CD player. Many DVD recorders come packaged with a basic DVD burning software package such as Sonic Solutions MyDVD, which can be used to author DVD's from the movies you have created and saved as files with Windows Movie Maker.
Editing your home video movies in your home computer can be a lot of fun, and cheaper and easier than you may have imagined.
For more information:
Secrets to making better videos
Free introduction to computer video editing
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