How to edit (and save) Avi's

[M's girl]

So..... we have a lot of Avi files (yes, porn ) on the computer and we are looking for a program (software, preferably free) that will allow us to cut and save particular scenes to make a compilation of our favourites. We have tried several (sometimes free trial versions) but so far nothing works.

Does anyone know what would be the easiest/cheapest software to do this? Thanks in advance!

M's

 

[SweetErika]

I've used Windows Movie Maker to do this before, if you have that on your computer already (or, it might be free to download). It's pretty user friendly, and there's lots of support for it.

I googled 'free video compositing software' and found this blog that gives a little review of the main free programs that allow you to edit (which includes creating compilations/compositions, generally). From what I can tell, nearly all video editors deal with the .avi format.

If that helps, you can send me a sample of the final product.

 

[M's girl]

If that helps, you can send me a sample of the final product.

Thanks and I will....

 

[M's girl]

So.... we have the program (came with servicepack 2, what do you know ) and tried several times. We keep getting a pop up that says we don't have the right codec or something. The program suggests you mark the box where it says it will find the right codec on the net, but it still does not work.

We closed the program as was suggested and then tried again. Still nothing.

I'm thinking of dying my hair blonde to match my skills...

 

[Weird Harold]

The program suggests you mark the box where it says it will find the right codec on the net, but it still does not work.

We closed the program as was suggested and then tried again. Still nothing.

If it did download a new/updated CODEC, you may need to reboot the computer to activate it.

 

[M's girl]

WE downloaded some codecs and although, while installing them on the PC, the installer said "codec xxx will not be working" several times for different codecs (and we had to click "YES" to the warning those codecs would not be working to be able to continue) our AVI file worked when we tried to open it in Windows Movie Maker.

So far so good.

But then it took a 728 kb file (half of the movie, which was cut in two already) 6 minutes to open. Probably because WMM cuts the file in "a zillion" little fragments (which I don't want). Anyway, then you start piecing your scene báck together again: 54 pieces/fragments for an 18 minutes scene.... It takes a good few seconds to click and drag each piece into the timeline so it takes you a few minutes to put your scene back together, and I'm thinking: there must be an easier way....

So then I had my scene back in one piece and so I tried marking where the scene should stop and/or fade. At that point the editing options from the menu turned grey so I could not use them. Grrrrr.

So.... I'm thinking "okay, I will just safe this scene as it is and see what I can do with it afterwards and it takes 27 minutes (!!!!) to be safed as a new file onto my computer! Maybe because the new file is 77,3 MB (81.074.502 bytes). Plus it is now a WMV file. M is trying all options too on a different computer, but same difference. He saved the file as an Avi, but it still was huge in size. I feel like the quality of the movie has faded also in the proces with my try.

Sigh

I know, I'm probably being way too impatient and my thinking is probably way too simple, but why can't I just open the file in a media player (we use and like VLC); mark where the scene should start and stop and (for instance) throw away the rest of the file?

 

[M's girl]

If it did download a new/updated CODEC, you may need to reboot the computer to activate it.

We closed WMM and then opened it again and then we could open the file into WMM fine (unlike before). But thinks are still not working (see my previous post).

Or.... it works but I can't believe there isn't an easier/better way. Any thoughts?

 

[M's girl]

Uhm... we now installed VirtualDub and that seems to do the trick better.....

 

[Weird Harold]

Or.... it works but I can't believe there isn't an easier/better way. Any thoughts?

I don't do very much video editing because of the time involved using my (much) less-than-state-of-the-art computer. Video editing takes a LOT of memory, disk space, and CPU clock.

You can speed things up a little bit by making sure your HDD is as unfragmented as possible and by shutting down as many background processes as you can. However, the only real way of speeding things up is to upgrade to a system optimized for video editing.

I do like Showbiz and MyDVD which were bundled with my DVD-RW drive; they don't seem to be very picky about input file type and offer a couple of output formats -- the basic working format seems to be MPeG. Still, on my system, I've spent as much as eight hours waiting on a short DVD's worth of vacation footage to process into a single edited video!

 

[kindashy]

VirtualDub http://www.virtualdub.org is what I use. It is free.

 

[M's girl]

......I've spent as much as eight hours waiting on a short DVD's worth of vacation footage to process into a single edited video!

Talk about extended holiday-fun-time

Seriously though, thanks for the input. I still have to 'play around' with VirtualDub some more but thus far it seems to do the trick best.

 

[kindashy]

Talk about extended holiday-fun-time

Seriously though, thanks for the input. I still have to 'play around' with VirtualDub some more but thus far it seems to do the trick best.

Yes, it is very nice. You can choose how you want the video compressed (I use DivX since it's codec is free), you choose the audio compression (mp3 for me, but you can do ogg, flac and others). There are also filters to scale things down, up and what ever other ways you like, I have only tried scaling up. Also, if you have a video capture card, you can use VirtualDub to record and digitize video. I have recorded some video shows and I have digitized some vacation video since the camera it was recorded on is not a digital camera.

 

[M's girl]

Update...

VirtualDub works fine! Easy to use, plus it's freeware ( ). We just made our first compilation!

 

[kindashy]

Update...

VirtualDub works fine! Easy to use, plus it's freeware ( ). We just made our first compilation!

Congratulations!

 

[MEinSoCal]

So..... we have a lot of Avi files (yes, porn ) on the computer and we are looking for a program (software, preferably free) that will allow us to cut and save particular scenes to make a compilation of our favourites. We have tried several (sometimes free trial versions) but so far nothing works.

Does anyone know what would be the easiest/cheapest software to do this? Thanks in advance!

M's

i hope you plan on sharing some of these videos (porn) with your fellow Litsers

 

[M's girl]

Well....... I cheered a bit too soon. I burned the files on a CD ROM which we played the other night and it turned out that the sound did not keep up with the video :-(

Looks weird.... and is distracting, at least, to me. So we have to dig into the manual to see how (and if) we can make adjustments there. If anyone knows already...?

Oh, was I planning on sharing with other Litsters? Well, not really. For starters, it's illegal ( ) .... If people want to know some of the scenes we favor I can make a list, though...

 

[bighornedsatyr]

Well....... I cheered a bit too soon. I burned the files on a CD ROM which we played the other night and it turned out that the sound did not keep up with the video :-(

Looks weird.... and is distracting, at least, to me. So we have to dig into the manual to see how (and if) we can make adjustments there. If anyone knows already...?

VirtualDub can definitely do that. I've done it before, but I forget the specifics. A Google search suggests using the "Audio > Interleaving" menu item.

Good luck.

 

[M's girl]

VirtualDub can definitely do that. I've done it before, but I forget the specifics. A Google search suggests using the "Audio > Interleaving" menu item.

Good luck.

Thanks. Yes, I downloaded a manual (PDF) and saw something about this "interleaving"... we still have to play around with it. We will get it right...



Some day