Spectrum Videofilms © All Rights Reserved.  Privacy Policy | Terms of Trade

Spectrum Videofilms

Seeing Today for Tomorrow

Clients often ask if  it is possible for them to edit their cine themselves. You will need appropriate software installed on your computer, which will be a video editing programme, ‘codecs` (specialised software) for video handling and, if you intend to produce disks of your work, a disk authoring programme. You will then also require a DVD writer. Your cine will have been transferred to DVD by Spectrum Videofilms, and you will have received your free cine data disk

There are many good editing programmes freely available on the internet, and excellent ones at modest price. Some of them combine editing and disk writing (commercial ones normally do). Your initial

programme MUST be able to able to handle .mpg files. These two sites list video editing software.

                                      Free Software                                 Free Software 2                       

It’s a good start to begin with a free programme. There’s one available in Windows - Movie Maker.

It’s a simple programme which can load your .mpg file, and divide it up into ‘clips’. You can then edit with Movie Maker’s basic editing tools. When you’ve finished you export your film to your chosen medium.

The drawback with Movie Maker is that it’s an old programme and only allows writing low quality video to CD (not DVD). The upside is you can also export best quality video from Movie Maker as an AVI file, either with its original soundtrack or with one you’ve replaced it with or as silent, and this Audio Video Interleaved file can be used by most programmes, even if they are unable to use the original .mpg file.

Careful though - AVI files take up a huge amount of hard disk space (around 13 GB for each hour).

Careful too to set up Movie Maker for British (PAL) television and that you export in DV-AVI 720x576.

Having put your toe in the water with Movie Maker, now you’re ready for the big boys! Maybe you’ve found a good free programme, or perhaps you’ve decided to lash out and buy one of the excellent ones from Magix, Pinnacle, Serif, Ulead, Canopus or the like. Import the .mpg file into the timeline of your programme - (or if it won’t accept the .mpg file then the AVI you’ve created in Movie Maker). Now think like Cecil B. DeMille - you’re in charge.

If you find a problem you can always ‘phone us. We speak plain, understandable English

‘Phone us anytime for advice - we are happy to speak plain, simple, understandable English.