I aplogise for making what might look like a duplicate thread, but the other thread is old, and my purposes are very specific. I have CyberLink Power Director 9 and I hate it. I spent a few hours trying to learn it and it's the most convoluted and unlabeled piece of garbage I have ever seen, and the only reason why I have it is because everything I read indicated it was supposed to be the "best". Maybe they are the best at marketing, IDK. Am I supposed to hate this piece of crap, or is there something wrong with me? So, unless someone with some experience and skill tells me to go back to Cyberlink and keep trying eventually I'm going to be able to use it, I'm looking for a better alternative that will do my very specific tasks, which are: I'm downloading mostly .flv files from YouTube and using a software called "YouTube Downloader" (which I really like) and what I need to do is clip a small (60 seconds or less) piece of it out of the larger file, save it in a sub-folder of the "saved" directory, and give it a name that is the same as the original file. (I want to name it something similar, but do not want to laboriously type-out every single character of the new file name, I'd rather modify the pre-existing old file name into something different.) I may be doing hundreds or even thousands of these, so this point is critical. I also would like precise, frame-by-frame control, so that I can fast-forward & reverse to the general area I am trying to save, move to the exact start frame I want, mark it, move the exact stop frame I want, mark it, preview the selected clip, make any adjustments necessary, "Cut" out the selection, save it as another file, then move on to the next one. Maintaining video and audio quality is very important, and having the ability to do this operation on any and all YouTube videos is also important. (I don't know if they are all .flv, or if there are other formats on YouTube.) I've done a small bit of professional video editing back in the "olden days" using VHS tape, and I've played around with VirtuaDub a few years back. I just read the Virtuadub site and it seemed to indicate that the software is limited in the formats it can handle. "Mostly .avi" it said, or word to that effect. And I have about 3 hours of aggravation with CyberLink Director. So, given all the above, are there any recommendations. I'm adept at "acquiring" just about any software, so I can try out anything that is suggested. Thanks in advance.
I don't know of anything off-hand that can edit FLV and save it in the same format. VirtualDub does have an available flv plugin that lets you open these files. You can scrub through them with frame accuracy - but as you know, it's geared to saving in the AVI format and re-encoding is required.
Avid Studio might be worth a look when it comes to video editing.... I read a review here where it wins an award and gets full marks. Apparently it has an excellent set of training tutorials, some 20 of them, and is a powerful 'prosumer' suite - though I don't know if it directly supports FLVs. There's a free trial of the program anyway so doesn't cost to give it a whirl... When reading about the Sony Vegas suite on another forum, I did read some advice to simply change the file extension FLV to something the program does read such as MP4, and that allowed Vegas to read the files (it didn't do FLV otherwise). Admittedly that does sound improbable...
Hi, I am looking also, and I think I found a great program VideoPad Video Editor. I seems to cover just about any file type, conversion and output type. I have only had it for a few days but so far it has done everything I have asked combining the usual file types and converting them. I tried all the "recommended" programs at cnet and a couple of other sites, but this one is the most functional I have found. I am looking to capture my VHS and Hi8 tapes onto my laptops and output them to external DVD writers, but have not begun that as yet. Any thoughts on how to do will be appreciated. Carl
