Movie Maker

[Magna]

I am trying to find a program (preferably freeware or shareware) that will allow me to do simple work with mpeg movie/video files. I would like to join a few together, eliminate some frames, fade-in and fade-out. I really don't need anything more complex than that.

The freeware joiners I've tried (Camel's MPEG Join, CombiMovie) are hit 'n miss, and among other problems they don't properly display the "new" combined total time in the joined file. As to freeware editors I'm not familiar with any although I'm sure there's some out there.

Microsoft's MovieMaker is exactly what I'm looking for, but in typical Microsoft fashion while it will open mpegs (and other movie/video formats) it will only save in the Microsoft .wmv format. At lease those guys are consistent.... that is, consistently a pain in the ass. Anyway, does anyone know of a good joiner or simple editor that will open mpegs and save as mpegs. Thanks.

 

[ArchAngel]

Check Ulead's and Sony's websites - there's a program that ships with the Vaios I believe that'll do what you're talking about and last time I was looking, Ulead had some reasonably priced non-linear video editing software. Also check out cnet.com and search their software reviews.

 

[Magna]

Arch,

Thanks for the cnet tip, interesting assortment of reviews. ULead has a few products, might give one of them a try. If you set aside Microsoft's continual attempts to force everyone into their proprietary formats, there's gotta be another simple video editor/splicer out there that will work with (and save to) the standard mpeg format. All I need to do is clip off frames and join pieces together, nothing fancy. Does anyone else have any suggestions?