bobkat

There is a free edit system. Rather high powered. It's Davinici Resolve. They have two versions, a free one and the Studio version which costs $300. This is a high powered system and will take a learning curve to figure it out but the results are awesome. This platform is used in Hollywood for it's color correction ability.

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

Windows Movie maker. Can be downloaded free at the Microsoft site. Can trim scenes, join them, do titles, export in a variety of formats and resolutions. Imports multiple formats. I've been using it for a fast import and export to another format on Win 10, but it should work on all windows versions.

don26812 Loc: South Bay of Los Angeles, CA

It's my understanding that you cannot get MM 2012 anymore from Microsoft as of about a year ago or so. I believe you can get it here.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windowslive/forum/gallery-program/where-to-download-windows-essentials-2012/7665b354-4f2b-445d-811e-9d8c98e8f872?fbclid=IwAR2RjXBAqvRwkgk8WL47lMnxfn4itNJFkq_khaw8Jab1h68KzXNbUa1chlc

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

The link just goes to a page where people say they can't get it. I sincerely apologize to all for suggesting dealing with MS for anything. I just tried to download the new Movie Maker 10 in the MS app store and after getting a confirmation of my free transaction, I was then unable to download it. Spent a half hour in chat with a live MS person, did everything he said and nothing worked. The store is not on my menu of apps and when I do a wsreset command to reset it nothing happens. I can go to the store in the browser but can never actually download the software I just "purchased" for free. I get a message that I need a new app to open the MS Store. Looking at google I see countless people have had this problem since 2016 and no one has solved it. I've been using MS windows since DOS 3.1 and have never gotten any help from anyone at MS with anything on their system that doesn't work properly.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

ROTFLMAO.

This is why I use a Mac for my serious work.

jjanovy Loc: Lincoln, Nebraska

I've used several versions of Wondershare (now Filmora), and am exceedingly happy with it, although it's not really free because you have to pay to export your edited video to a file that can be used in other platforms. But the price is reasonable and worth it, in my view, because the software is powerful and relatively easy to learn.

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

I've never used a Mac. Windows has worked fine but I'll stay away from the Microsoft Store and MS websites and any MS support. The free downloads on the MS website are gone. Now it's all free or paid apps from the MS Store. And you need to logon with an MS account to get into the store. My store wasn't working so I needed to find the powershell command to reinstall the store on my menu and I did. But I keep my updates turned off and if your updates are turned offf (like mine are) you can't download anything from the store. I could turn the updates back on and get the free software from the store but it's not worth it to me any more. I'll stick with Adobe CS6 for life I guess.

skywolf

Nothing free that is worthwhile, in my opinion. Windows Movie Maker will work, but is very limited.

If you use Adobe Photoshop for still editing, you can edit video in that as well. It has its limitations and there is next to nothing you can do about audio except delete or replace it or adjust level. Adobe Premiere is better. and both programs are available for a small fee per month (PS/LR is $10 a month).

ChrisRL

So here's another example of GAS in the software age.

If you've been following this, you'll see that I've been mentioning Lightworks quite a bit here.

Now back in the day, Lightworks, and its big sibling Heavyworks, ruled the roost. Everybody was cutting on it, it was Windows 98 at the time, D/Vision had just come out and life was good. I remember mixing one of the first feature films on four Mac Quads with their boards wired together running one of the first versions of Digidesign's Pro Tools, to get 16 channels of audio working, but that's another story - and life was still good.

Okay, fast forward to 2012 or so, about 20 years I believe, and I read in the trades that Lightworks is coming back - and for free. I see in the list of distributors that my local Lightworks dealership is back on the list, so I get in touch for the first time in awhile (remember the days of personalized service? Rather than deal directly with the manufacturer?) and they said they'd never stopped representing Lightworks. In fact, some of the leading Hollywood editors, working on A list movies, had their very same Windows 98 machines running Lightworks from back in the 90's, daily, ever since.

A quick check through the Lightworks site confirmed this - movies that were made between the 90's and the '10s were on there too. If Lightworks had gone out of business (which it had), how come these movies were still being made? And edited on Lightworks? How was that even possible?

So what happened there is, I believe, a siren song for the folk on this site. Obviously the people using Lightworks took the time to learn the system, and learn it very well. Then they used the system. And they used it very well.

Since feature film movie-making has, by and large, remained mainly cuts, fades, and dissolves for more than a century now, and all the rest is bells and whistles, why change the basic editorial process because someone wants you to buy, or worse, rent, something "new" that basically does exactly the same as it always has done?

I'm sure those top top editors in the studios who are still using Lightworks from the 90's have daily visits from Avid, Apple, Adobe and the like, saying "upgrade, upgrade". And once you get on that band-waggon, it's the top of their tiered marketing program, that goes hand in hand with phased redundancy, product lifespan and all those neat phrases invented by, you guessed it, marketing, sales and accountants, instead of the engineers who want to design things, and make them well and to last. At least that's what it was in the 90's, when we were still trying to be excellent at what we so, instead of being millionaires. But those stalwarts just minded their own business, that of making A-grade Hollywood studio movies, and probably told the others to go off and mind theirs, which is software sales.

Not so for the rest of us.

Now, the editing, or the photography, or whatever it is, has become secondary to fame and fortune, on all fronts. Fame is now accessible with a Tweet or two (say no more). Fortune in all the "passive income" models - like software rental, and forced-redundancy upgrades when none are actually necessary.

So yes, thanks, Adobe and Apple. You may be this day and age, and you certainly have the bucks to "prove" that screwing your fellow human works for you, and you can call this business, but it's the manufacturing business, not show business, and not the business of film and TV and photo production or post-production.

Let's not confuse the one with the other.

Yes, this sounds like a rant. But with the manufacturers being practically the only ones expounding their views into our eyes and ears every day, I thought that speaking out for the people who were quietly minding their own business and making good art, might be in order this Christmas season, just to balance things out a little.

The UHH motto seems to be "find the gear you need to do what you want to do; then learn it well, and use it well." This still, after coming up to half a century doing this, sounds like a good idea to me.

Happy Happy Merry Merry to one and all.

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

Just a follow up on my MS Store rant. I decided to restart my updates so I could get access to the store and try out the free Win10 Movie Maker just for curiosity sake. I installed this as an app on my PC and it took about 5 minutes to realize it was total garbage, a platform for MS store ads and offers to upgrade to a version that actually works. Unlike the formerly available Windows Movie Maker there was no timeline, no apparent way to stop the video or insert clips, no audio editing. It reminded me of when MS put out a free version of excel which was so packed with ads I promptly changed to Open Office and never looked back. In my mind this is verification that while I enjoy using Windows in it's most crippled form, no updates, none of the bells and whistles working, I have no use for anything else MS.
The OP hasn't been back but there are lots of low and no cost products available to do the simple cut and paste editing, joining and cutting of clips, simple transitions and adding titles he is looking for. But he may have to find them by googling, reading reviews, etc.

ChrisRL

Or. just learn and use something like a free Lightwave or a Resolve, done deal, no looking at entry-level anything, upsell anything, adsell anything, upgrade anything, add-on anything. Just get on and edit.

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

I have been using Premiere Pro CS6 for about 5 years. I tried Resolve a few years ago, but the learning curve was too steep for me. It came with a thousand page download manual. I couldn't figure out how to use the simplest functions, otherwise I would have kept it.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

When I used Final Cut Express, the manual was 1100 pages. Now I use Final Cut Pro 10.4. It’s completely different and so intuitive I don’t need a manual. It’s like iMovie. (PC users probably don’t get it. They seem to think it should be ten times harder...)