The Best DVD Editing Software

Footage Firm has done it again. After going overboard giving away royalty-free HD looping background stock footage clips, they have now released 10 brand new HD stock footage collections. Featuring clips from US and Europe cities and countryside, to exotic locations with paradise like natural scenery, these new HD clips are the missing tool in your kit to produce better and brighter media.

Getting the stock footage that you need for your project might be cumbersome or just too expensive to even consider, but these guys have already done the work for you, and as a promotion they are giving it away for a limited time only. Be it a commercial, short film, product presentation or music video, a piece of stock footage can give it that much more impact that you need.

These 10 collections come loaded with pieces of footage in both HD ad SD format and work out of the box with any computer and any software you use for your projects. They are properly categorized for your unique needs. You can even check out the sample clips from every collection right here.

As with the previous campaign, Footage Firm is giving these DVD’s to you free of charge, they only ask of you to cover the S&H expenses by yourself. That means that for less than $9 a disc you can get this $2500 collection. Hurry up though, they are only giving out a limited number of copies and if you don’t act fast enough you’ll be stuck with the regular price. So head over there now!

Footage Firm has released 11 new royalty free HD looping background stock footage collections. As an introduction scheme they are giving the DVDs away for free for a limited time. They are a total of 250 HD backgrounds, which come in both SD and HD formats packaged into a DVD. The whole set usually runs for close to $3000 (about $250 per DVD), but today you’re in luck.

In the DVDs, you’ll see that you can preview the clips on their dedicated pages. There are scenes like EKG screens, fire pieces, musical instruments, and sports gear. They’re all rendered in 3D, which as you can imagine, simply looks spectacular.

When I first heard of this promotion, the first question that came to my mind was the most obvious one: What’s the cactch? There is actually no catch, but we do live in a world where no physical product can be completely free. In this case you will have to pay the shipping & handling fees for the delivery of the discs. This is about $8 per disc, which doesn’t even compare to the real value of this footage.

Now I know that there are some people that will flinch at the sight of even the smallest of fees, but rest assure, this is the real deal. You can check around with other companies, and you will see that a discs like these, even from the cheapest of sources (which should also say a lot about the quality) go for $25-$50 plus S&H each.

So what are you waiting for? They started with a 500 copies stock, but by now I can only imagine there are but a few copies left. So get there already and claim yours. They won’t be around for long

With Movavi VideoSuite, you can easily burn any video to DVD to be played on a DVD player. To convert your video and create a DVD disc, follow the next simple steps:

• Step 1: Download and install Movavi VideoSuite
• Step 2: Run Create CD/DVD module and add original video file(s)
• Step 3: Choose a preset for converted video
• Step 4: Insert a DVD to your drive
• Step 5: Burn a DVD disc

Technorati Tags: avi, burn, dvd, flv, h.264, mov, movavi, mp4, mpeg2, mpeg4, simple, suite, video

JayCut is a new free web service that allows you to upload an unlimited amount of clips, music and pictures and then mix them into a clip. This is done through a web based editor. The final clip can later be uploaded to your MySpace and Facebook profile among other places.

It is a very simple process and the video editor is as easy as it gets. Just upload your clips, images and music, mix them in the editor and export. 3 simple steps!

Here is a small introductory tutorial:

The upload might be unlimited, but apparently the clip output is limited to around 2 minutes. This is not yet confirmed.

Technorati Tags: editing, editor, free, jaycut, online, service, video, web

Just ran into this video by Chris Pirillo where he gives his opinion on the ZS4 free cross platform video editor.

If you want to check it out for yourself, here is the download link ZS4 Video Editor

Technorati Tags: cross, editing, editor, free, nonlinear, platform, software, video, zs4

Here is a compilation of the free video editing software that is available. It is not particularly ordered in any way other than to highlight the ones that I consider mainstream for the available Operating Systems and then those cross-platform. These are Windows Movie Maker (not the best, but comes preinstalled), iMovie (possibly the best free video editing software around) and Cinelerra (the one that makes professional video editing as cheap as the cheapest computer you can buy*)
Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: atomic, avedit, avidemux, blender, cinelerra, ddclip, dub, editing, editor, engine, free, hyper, iMovie, ino, jahshaka, kdenlive, learning, lives, maker, movie, pro, software, solveigmm, stein, storyboard, video, virtual, wax, zs4, zwei

Have you heard of this new service called Animoto? It takes your images or photos, mixes them with some cool soundtracks and creates a slide show in motion. You might be thinking, “Sounds simple. Not too exciting…” Well guess again. This service rocks! Ever had a family pictures collection you wanted to send to your relatives? How about adding some Christmas carols to the mix? Excellent for replacing those old e-cards. How about a ballad for that series of pictures of you and your significant other you have been meaning to send? The possibilities are endless!

Look at what I did with ZERO experience and a bit of trial and error:

Total work time: 10 minutes!

With your free account you get UNLIMITED 30 seconds shorts. That is about 15 images. There is a paid version that comes with a lot of features, but for most the free version will suffice. Click the image below and start making amazing videos TODAY!

PS: For a limited time, if you click the link above you can get a 20% discount on a year long All Access Pass with unlimited FULL LENGTH VIDEOS, unlimited downloads and more!

Technorati Tags: animoto, card, dvd, ecard, greeting, holiday, images, music, pictures, presentation, show, slide, slideshow, soundtrack, video, youtube

I just heard of the AVS Video Editor (and the AVS Suite in general) and decided to give it a try. The concept seems great, register one of their products and get all of them immediately. At almost $60, it seems like a reasonable price. I played with it for a while and here is the result (made with the default sample clips and audio):

This was uploaded directly after rendering without any extra processing

You can download your free copy here.

The features are not the greatest, but they seem to work fine. There are many prepackaged effects and transitions that add a lot of eye candy to your videos. There were some features missing, specially for more professional video editing jobs, like the lack of a precise time and frames control. For example, if you want an effect to last for 5 seconds, you have to calculate it yourself looking at the timeline and just approximate it. The user interface is not all that intuitive, but without looking at the help I was able to get most of it done and I believe I tried almost all of the features for the editing part. When it comes down to video editing, I would like a little more flexibility, but if you do not mind just going with the presets for the most part and just want to get a decent looking video in a short amount of time, this might be the software for you.

There are other features you might be interested in, for example, it has a wide variety of exporting formats, from straight to DVD quality to straight to YouTube and everything in between. I did not try for a full HD video, but it might be possible. The video above is in fact rendered in 720p. Of course the quality is not that great because it is made with low quality clips, but it is possible to do HD with this software.

I was pleased with the rendering speed and the support for h.264. Overall it looks like a good possibility for the price. If you are looking to upgrade from Movie Maker to a nonlinear video editing software, this is for you. If you want to make your home videos spicier without spending a fortune or a lot of time, this is for you.

OVERALL SCORE: 3.5 out of 5

Technorati Tags: 720p, avs, cheap, editor, fast, h.264, home videos, nonlinear, video

A new technology developed at Stanford University called ZunaVision is able to insert an image onto any flat surface in your videos, effectively turning them into a possible revenue system. The technology analyzes the video and compensates for camera and object motions.

This effect is nothing new for the professionals. However this technology has never been available to the open public before. It allows the average youtube video uploader to insert an advertisement image or video directly into their video. This could revolutionize the ads based revenue business model completely.

Technorati Tags: ads, editing, Stanford, university, video, ZunaVision