I make a few digital camera skating videos each week, and don't have much experience with video editing software. Between the time I turn on the camera at the boards and get onto the ice, there's a lot of dead time I'd like to trim out.

Here's an example made Monday...

waltz_jump_3-5-07.avi

It shows a waltz jump that pleases me, but also shows my big a** skating away from the camera once I turned in on.

I'd like software that...
*lets me trim the video (cut out the beginning, and perhaps the end)
*lets me save as an AVI file for the web
*lets me save save it in the original frame rate and dimensions (320x280 @15fps)

My current software is Roxio Video Wave, but the trimmed videos are larger than the original one. Close, but no cigar.

Now I can't purchase Adobe Premier or other fancy $oftware, but if there's something good and cheap, I'd like to hear about it.

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Bill Schneider

pinnacle is really good. I've used it many times and its not expensive either.
good luck


Jayne

nice skating, by the way!

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Level one Field Moves......PASSED 05.06.08
Level one Free dance.....PASSED 02.10.08

GOALS FOR 2009

• Level One Compulsary dances.......PASSED 19.02.09
• Level One Elements.....................PASSED 10.07.09
• Level Two Free dance.................PASSED 19.02.09
• Level One Free...........................
• Level Two compulsory dances.......

Loving it, Loving it, Loving it!!!!!

Bill,

I just want to say that I got yelled at in my lesson last week for doing that same outside mohawk before the crossovers. Ditto for the skater who was next on lesson (also an instructor). Since the Director's the one teaching both of us, we have to conform to her wishes. I'm glad to see it's not just me!

Nice waltz jump! I liked the power pulls after the landing - I'm going to try them later today. I've been struggling with too-deep landing edges; maybe this will help.

Since you work for a college/university, you're eligible for some (if not all) of the software discounts available at www.journeyed.com. Their discount prices are very reasonable - just make sure that the software license allows personal use. Some require the purchase for teaching use only.

I've used Nero for editing video, but I'm absolutely not an expert.

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Very cool.

Do you have a Mac? Or a friend with a Mac? iMovie comes bundled with the OS and will let you edit footage from your digital camera. You just plug in the camera and the computer will recognize it, the keyboard will play, rewind, etc, and you can then use the little scissors to trim away what you don't want.

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August 22, back on the ice!

What about windows movie maker? Free (download from microsoft), very easy. Yes, you can encounter hick-ups with it, but for small clips, shouldn't be too bad - I found it doesn't like big files (I tried to feed it >1 GB files). Enough to start out with.

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--renatele

If all you want to do is trim some video clips, you should be able to do that with Windows Media Maker if you're using a PC. Or, you could keep downloading free trials of software. I think Ulead has a 30 day trial, and if after the 30 days, you delete the downlolad and the folders, then you should be able to keep downloading it. I know doing that works to keep letting me download Snood over and and over again.

I've experimented a bit with the free Windows Movie Maker software, but it appears that I can't save in any format other than a WMV.

The WMV files are very compact, and editing is easy, but I've found browsers that can't display the resulting movies (the Macs at work, for example). Even my older Windows machine at work doesn't know how to handle the WMV files. If it only let me save as an AVI...

I've heard good things about Nero for other applications so I'll check into that. The Pinnacle software suggestion is one that I had forgotten about, and worth checking into also.

Thanks for the suggestions, and also for the nice comments about the skating.

Isk8NYC... why did your coach dislike the forward outside mohawks before backward crossovers?

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Bill Schneider

Hey Bill, FWIW one thing you might want to get for vidding skating stuff is a 0.5x lense to widen up the field. This not only shows more of what you are doing but you can also skate closer to the camera and still see yourself!

Now how do you get your camera next to the ice - a tripod or is it attached to the boards?

Lyle

I just rest the camera on the top of the boards. Nothing fancy.

It's just a little Cassio 6 MP happy-snap camera that has a simple video feature. I don't own a fancy video rig.

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Bill Schneider

She's the boss!

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use virtualdub

it even lets you insert music into your videos, cut them, and watch them frame-by frame if you like

http://www.virtualdub.org/

and it's free

Now THAT'S interesting! Open source video editing software.. like Audacity for sound which is widely used.

Since it's free, and they claim AVI files are used, I've already downloaded it. I'll find a little time soon to play with it.

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Bill Schneider

Just make sure to select "direct stream copy" when you're cutting up your avi's. In case it goes wrong.

Also, it doesn't work with Windows Vista yet.


I edited this video with it this morning, cut out the parts where I was running around fixing camera and computer settings and added the music on top (my camera doesn't record music)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-bszu_y7DQ



My favourite function however is scrolling through the video with the mouseball. You can see things frame-by-frame and analyze your errors or how other people do their jumps correctly.

It also doesn't take up half your harddisk and it doesn't take much memory or anything to run - I'm on a 1 Ghz laptop, so figure.

Very nice!

Thanks for sharing the results of your experiments.

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Bill Schneider