Recommendations on software to edit and/or convert movies?

[p.echols at comcast.net]

----- "Fred Roller" <froller at tnclimited.com> wrote:

> Kevin O'Gorman wrote:
> > I've got a "footage" from a couple of digital cameras, and i want to
> make
> > sense of this stuff.
> > One produces .avi files, which work fine when I send them to family
> members
> > with Windoze machines.
> >
<snip>
> > Can someone recommend conversion software, and maybe editing?
> >
> > ++ kevin
> >
> >   
> Don't do a lot of video but tried my hand at a few.  Kino was the 
> simplest and most intuitive software to me.  And it is in the repos:
> 
>     sudo apt-get install kino
> 
> Liked it because the editing, like I think you are suggesting, was
> easy 
> to cut the unwanted parts.  Title function was nice too.  The software
> 
> imports and converts everything to .dv and exports to any number of 
> video types.  Again, pure amateur point of view.
> 

A lot of folks like kino.  When I first tried it, I was not willing to wait for it to convert a smallish .mp4 to a very large .dv, edit the footage, then convert back.  Maybe it is faster in the initial conversion now.

If you just want to cut down to size and convert, you might try avidemux.  Also in the repos.  It does a solid job, but is not a non linear editor like kino.  Avidemux also requires a bit of fiddling to get the right settings to export.  Fortunately, once configured for the output you want, you can save the settings and reuse.  It can also filter for color shift, sharpness, and a number of other things.

For straight conversion, w/o edits there are several CLI tools.  ffmpeg and mencoder come to mind.  

I use all of them for one thing or another.

Cheers
--P.E