Best video editing and joining tool?

[bjgrad1]

Hi,
I’ve been a lurker for several years (feeling a bit guilty) mainly because I have been a graduate student working on my doctorate and spent every waking hour doing research and working to put myself through school. Fortunately, FF has provided me with many much needed and appreciated study breaks over the last couple of years. Now that I am done with school and have more time I want to show my appreciation by giving back to the FF community. I have been a collector of facial material for many years dating back to the VHS days. My preference is just the large blast facials without much pre and post blast activity. Also the bigger and thicker the blast the better! I appreciate all the material people have generously posted on the FF board, but the Shape’s Tier 1, and the surprise and dislike facials threads are the closest to my tastes (so to speak). Still, I have found that even some of those excellent post have more pre and post material than I would prefer or the volume of the blast are unremarkable. Now I am not complaining, but rather sharing my preference and possibly some of other members of the community. So, what I would like to do is create a “facials only” compilation of my best material. Some of it will be from FF board posts and some of it will be from my own personal collection that I have not seen posted on the board. It will be comprised of clips between 30 and 60 seconds long (which is about the typical length of most facial blast; I will of course include the entire blast if it is longer or if clip that includes multiples) and in all will be about 10 minutes long. That’s a lot of clips and will take me some time to put together, but well worth it for me to show my appreciation. My question is what is the best and simplest tool I can download for free or purchase (note: I’m still on student budget) to edit clips down to just the money shots and then to join them together in a Mega “just the facial” compilation. The editor/joiner has to be able to accommodate all the different formats (wmv, mpeg, avi, mov, etc.). HJ split won’t work because it does not allow editing.
Thanks for the help,
Doc !

[safn1949]

Hi,
I’ve been a lurker for several years (feeling a bit guilty) mainly because I have been a graduate student working on my doctorate and spent every waking hour doing research and working to put myself through school. Fortunately, FF has provided me with many much needed and appreciated study breaks over the last couple of years. Now that I am done with school and have more time I want to show my appreciation by giving back to the FF community. I have been a collector of facial material for many years dating back to the VHS days. My preference is just the large blast facials without much pre and post blast activity. Also the bigger and thicker the blast the better! I appreciate all the material people have generously posted on the FF board, but the Shape’s Tier 1, and the surprise and dislike facials threads are the closest to my tastes (so to speak). Still, I have found that even some of those excellent post have more pre and post material than I would prefer or the volume of the blast are unremarkable. Now I am not complaining, but rather sharing my preference and possibly some of other members of the community. So, what I would like to do is create a “facials only” compilation of my best material. Some of it will be from FF board posts and some of it will be from my own personal collection that I have not seen posted on the board. It will be comprised of clips between 30 and 60 seconds long (which is about the typical length of most facial blast; I will of course include the entire blast if it is longer or if clip that includes multiples) and in all will be about 10 minutes long. That’s a lot of clips and will take me some time to put together, but well worth it for me to show my appreciation. My question is what is the best and simplest tool I can download for free or purchase (note: I’m still on student budget) to edit clips down to just the money shots and then to join them together in a Mega “just the facial” compilation. The editor/joiner has to be able to accommodate all the different formats (wmv, mpeg, avi, mov, etc.). HJ split won’t work because it does not allow editing.
Thanks for the help,
Doc !

Couple of ways to go,boilsoft video splitter and joiner is what most of us use,also Ultra video converter is what I am using to convert to different formats.Look on the web and they are easy to find.PM if you have any questions.

[The Shape]

Yeah, good advise Safn, I have been using boilsoft splitter and joiner for sometime now and I would say it's the most used tool I have, well almost the most used tool

[bjgrad1]

Thanks Safn and Shape for the quick reply. I will get the most current version of boilsoft and get to work. I'll have to do this in short shifts, but hopefully, I'll have it done in a week or two. I have a ton of material to sift through to get the very best facials I have and and then edit them down to only the money shots. Any tips are welcome.

doc

[SimonKemp]

Really look forward to seeing it bjgrad!

[Fingers]

Yeah, good advise Safn, I have been using boilsoft splitter and joiner for sometime now and I would say it's the most used tool I have, well almost the most used tool

I have a couple of video editors (from Corel and Serif), but neither is very pleasant to use, and everything seems to take a very long time. I guess it's the Bloatware Factor, pioneered and perpetuated by Micro$oft.

Boilsoft is much easier and quicker for this kind of work. Thanks for the tip. Great value for $0, but not ideal (small image, no multi-clip ability, dragging pointer causes pause, etc.). I guess the pay version is better. Anyone here using it?

[Admittedly I've only used the free version for a few minutes, so perhaps I'm being a bit hasty to judge, but I'd still like to know about experiences with the pay version.]

[alkie]

...only used the free version for a few minutes, so perhaps I'm being a bit hasty to judge, but I'd still like to know about experiences with the pay version.

Must admit I have never had any of these probs with Boilsoft joiner and splitter, I have found it to be very stable and very quick.

As for a multi clip ability, if you mean taking one clip and editing into several chunks, the only one that I have come across is packaged within the MOVAVI Video Suite.

Also if you are looking for a comprehensive file converter look no further than FormatFactory is deals with just about every file type, (both video, audio and photos), that you will ever come across, plus it is free.

On the subject of converting, although a little slower you can also try TMPGEnc 4 Xpress, this has the added bonus of editing your clip ie cutting frames out and also uses a varied selection of handy filters that help to improve the overall look of any clip.

I use all of these apps on a regular basis and would highly recommend them.

[Fingers]

Thanks, Alkie. I guess you must be using the pay version. The Boilsoft split and join stuff I just downloaded says it's on a 60 day free trial. I suppose it locks up after that.