I have some Mpeg2 files that I wish to edit. These are files converted fom .avi by TMPGEnc. They are home videos that I didnt have enough space to backup the AVI files at the time.
Unfortunatley you dont seem to be able to copy these type of files into Windows Movie Maker.
In Nero the option to edit the films (using the sciscors icon ) seems cumbersum.
Can anybody recommend any other way / free software out there that can do this ?
If you can figure out the bizarre interface it might work.
I think that TMPGEnc DVD Author has a trial period without the usual crippled features.
If it's simple remove-a-clip type of editing, then DVD Shrink (in Reauthor mode) can handle it.
The one drawback is that the video has to be in a DVD compliant folder (VOB files).
TMPGEnc DVD Author is user friendly & great for editing. Doesn't have all the bells & whistles that some authoring programs do, but I wish I had purchased it instead of the Nero package (problems, with no support response from them after 4 emails). Windows Movie Maker is restrictive as to what you can successfully import. I was only able to produce one elementary DVD using that program. Try the TMPGEnc free trial.
Many thanks for the tips. I did end up downloading a 30 day free trial of a piece of software called MPEG-VCR from www.womble.com.
Not one I have had recommended from anybody , it was just a Google job ! Anyway , it is a nice n easy editor, and it appears to have done the trick.
I will look at the TMPGEnc editor, as I have bought the encoding software.
Nero is hopeless at editing , as you from what I can see, you have to keep moving the sliding line to skip through the footage, and there is no button to just click forward one frame at a time for example (Unless anybody can advise me otherwise ? ) .
Hopefully , I now have the ability to backup my AVI fiels , so hope I wont have to do this too often.
FYI - I've been using the full Womble editor for about a year (one step up from MPEG 2 VCR). I'm very satisfied with it, in spite of the strange interface...
Another good choice for a simple "cut & splice" MPEG editor is VideoReDo. (About the same price as MPEG 2 VCR.)
Note that whenever you do any "real editing" (transitions, color adjustments, cropping, etc.) the MPEG has to be de-compressed & re-compressed. This degrades quality. So, MPEG is not the ideal archive format if you intend to edit or re-code later.
There's a freeware MPEG editor called Cutterman. It only works with elementary streams, so you'd have to Demux first. DGIndex will Demux for you and is also free.
I highly recommend VideoReDo, and I know a few people who swear by the Womble products. Both have free trials.
Thanks for the tips guys. Hopefully I wont need to edit my mpeg files very often as I do all my editing in Windows Media Player on the .avi files, before encoding into .mpg files via TMPGEnc.
The quality doesnt seem to have noticeably dropped on the file Ive edited using the Uncle Bulgaria software (Wombles for you youngsters ! ). And its for somebody else anyway in this instance , so ...
