I didn’t buy a Mac. Last summer I needed a new computer and I wimped out and bought the Windows machine, a platform I’ve been using for many years. Now that we are making a video for class, this presented a challenge. Could I find some robust video editing software without having to pay. My Vista laptop came with Windows Movie Maker, but I wanted something that would give me more granular control of the different elements. I tried Muvee Autoproducer and that was OK but not great. I downloaded some apps from Divx. Disaster! It messed up the codecs on my computer and the images in other apps came out all black. Fortune smiled on me and I was able to uninstall it and regain the previous functionality. The winner of my little search turned out to be Pinnacle Videospin. This is a little side project from the folks at Avid, where they make the editing software they use for the real movies.
The free version, Videospin, gives you separate tracks for video, audio, music, sound effects, still pictures and titles. It lets you slice clips into pieces and rearrange them and change the sound volume on different segments. You can also choose differenct transitions.
For additional fun, I also learned how to rip a scene out of a DVD movie and change the format of commercial music to add it to the video. Am I a hacker yet?
