hello, I'm new to all this editing digital video and need some help here. I have a bunch of video which I will need to cut down to about 120 seconds. I have access to Premiere, would that be my best bet? Is there something easier? Thanks!
Are you adding transitions or special effects? Try Windows Movie Maker. The version in Vista is pretty good, but even XP's works OK.
If you just want to cut sections out and make clips, example just a pure video editor. for mpegs use videoredotvsuite or womble mpeg-vcr, both are frame accurate and doesn't reencode the video. This makes it quick with no quality loss. Also theres the free mpeg2cut that can cut mpegs, but more complicated to use. For avi (xvid/divx) use the free avidemux, it also cuts avi without reencoding.
The premiere is one of the most sophisticated, most expensive and not the easiest software you can get hold of. Many professionals use it but unless your home movie is going to the next Sundance festival, I would not spring for it. I'd recommend SPAM. It can do clean cuts, fades and a variety of transition effects. And it is always preferable to avoid reencoding, as the picture quality is always degraded.
May be you can try MPEG Video Wizard DVD, I have been used it for a very long time, it edits out segments very fast and will not re-encode the whole video except the edited points which just meets your requests.
Thanks for the heads up about all the programs. Finally I turned to Womble MPEG Video Wizard DVD to accomplish my task. Womble is really efficient and does really good what I want to do. Thanks again for taking the time to answer.
