What editor to use

[ryanprins]

Hello, I have a very old and slow computer. My video card has the same amount of ram as the computer itself and if no other programs are open i can play my dashcam videos. However the one free editor i tried was too slow for editing. So i just discovered that i could copy the videos to my phone and edit and combine them on there. However my phones video editor seems to destroy the audio and converts the file from .avi to .mp4.
My computer cant handle the mp4 files aftwr they are converted, its just choppy.
So i was wondering if there is a very very light video editor thats free which i might try on my computer. Its windows 7. All i need is the ability to crop, combine videos and add text.
Here is an example of a file thats been cropped on my phone. Its not bad but the audio sucks.

I am trying to make my first dashcam compilation from my years of having them. I have actually already edited a lot and have them on my phone ready to combine and upload to youtube. However if it can be done on my computer to save the audio that would be cool.

Sent from my SM-G920W8 using Tapatalk

 

[Gibson99]

no video editor will be super fast in my experience. my machine is a core i7 w/ 32gb ram and when it's time to render the final video, it usually takes at least as long as the total video time, but usually more, esp when i add effects like transitions, text overlays, picture-in-picture, pan/tilt/zoom, etc.

personally i use kdenlive (originally for linux only but now has a windows version). i've used vsdc in the past but not recently. i've also heard that windows movie maker isn't too bad for simple compilations.

 

[GTA Driver]

If you only want to get a few seconds from a lengthy video clip - VLC can do the trick. I see no reason in keeping a video clip on my computer when I only need a short portion of it. I was using VLC to extract only the incident of interest instead of opening my slow editor, but I found a much better way.

. All i need is the ability to crop, combine videos and add text.

FFmpeg, which is a command line tool and not an a graphical editor, can do one out of three of what your are asking for and its result time is very fast. You can combine several one minute clips together and get a result seconds later. However it can also extract video from specified time frame and also do so in a matter of seconds.

Extracting a time frame
ffmpeg -i InputName -ss HH:MM:SS.mm -to HH:MM:SS.mmm -c copy -copyts outputName

Where

• InputName is the source file
• Outputname is the output file
• -ss the startTime
• -to the end time
• HH – 2 digit hour (1 hour is 01)
• MM – 2 digit Minutes(0 to 59)
• SS – 2 digit seconds (0 to 59)
• mm (lower case) – 3 digit microseconds
• c copy -copyts is used to improve the performance of the command.

ffmpeg -i 2017_0711_064055_128.MP4 -ss 00:00:46.00 -to 00:00:54.00 -c copy -copyts  2017_0711_064055_128_cutsInMylaneduringTurn.MP4

If I have several files that I want to trim out down only to the video I need, I would redirect

(for %i in (*.MP4) do @echo ffmpeg –i %i –ss 00:00:00.0 –to 00:00:00.0 –c copy –copyts output\%i) > timecut.bat

You may need to substitute MP4 for avi.

An edited version of timecut.bat would look something like this.

ffmpeg -i 2017_0711_160417_164.MP4 -ss 00:00:19.00 -to 00:00:34.00 -c copy -copyts output\2017_0711_160417_164_crossFromLeft2exitat401.MP4
ffmpeg -i 2017_0711_160517_165.MP4 -ss 00:00:38.00 -to 00:00:58.50 -c copy -copyts output\2017_0711_160517_165_shoulderDriverGainsNothing.MP4
ffmpeg -i 2017_0711_160816_168.MP4 -ss 00:00:00.00 -to 00:00:21.00 -c copy -copyts output\2017_0711_160816_168_crossFromLeft2lanesBrakesExit.MP4
ffmpeg -i 2017_0711_160917_169.MP4 -ss 00:00:02.00 -to 00:00:10.00 -c copy -copyts output\2017_0711_160917_169_exit.MP4
ffmpeg -i 2017_0711_161816_178.MP4 -ss 00:00:22.00 -to 00:00:47.00 -c copy -copyts output\2017_0711_161816_178_lastMinuteEntry401.MP4
ffmpeg -i 2017_0711_165033_211.MP4 -ss 00:00:35.00 -to 00:00:40.00 -c copy -copyts output\2017_0711_165033_211_mc_laneSplit.MP4
ffmpeg -i 2017_0712_061018_288.MP4 -ss 00:00:23.00 -to 00:00:42.00 -c copy -copyts output\2017_0712_061018_288_recklessPass.MP4

I extracted video from 47 video files to produce

In addition to 47 videos, it consumed 8.29 gb of hard drive space. I was able to produce files with clips I wanted in 58 seconds and consumed 1.54 gb of hard drive space. However that was on my Linux box. Linux and Mac has ffmpeg. I find my Linux box can produce results faster than my Windows Laptop. However, I still find most ffmpeg command can produce a result on my Windows box in a short period of time.


Combining videos

In a folder with containing the video you want to join together

(for %f in (*.MP4) do @echo file ‘%f’) > input.txt

The above will take all MP4 in the folder make a file called input.txt and put the word file and a single quote. In your cases, as your files are AVI,

(for %f in (*.avi) do @echo file ‘%f’) > input.txt

That will produce something like this

file '2017_0605_154644_761-RunsREdfromGasStation.MP4'
file '2017_0607_160234_072-ShoulderDRiver.MP4'
file '2017_0608_063335_204-DistractedDriversInWhiteVan.MP4'

Above is an actual example from my A119. Edit input.txt and run the following commands depending on whether you want MP4 or AVI

ffmpeg -f concat -i input.txt -c copy output.mp4

ffmpeg -f concat -i input.txt -c copy output.avi

 

[Nigel]

FFmpeg, which is a command line tool and not an a graphical editor, can do one out of three of what your are asking for...

Actually it can do all three, "crop, combine videos and add text.", for adding text it is one of the easiest editors however fast your computer is if you use it to overlay a subtitle file.

Cropping and adding text both require a re-encoding of the video so are a lot slower, but on a slow machine it is still a good tool to use, even if the final high quality encode requires leaving it overnight.

 

[GTA Driver]

Actually it can do all three, "crop, combine videos and add text.", for adding text it is one of the easiest editors however fast your computer is if you use it to overlay a subtitle file..

That's good to know. I am working on instructions for the several things I am familiar with, working on a document "Using FFMpeg on Dash Cam Files and Making use of File Redirection" and I will include that a line that it can crop and add text. I may not have the time to experiment with that and am just going produce instructions on what I am familiar with for now.

Here is what I am familiar with

1. Provide video information
2. Converting formats (say mp4 to avi)
3. Removing audio
4. Extracting a smaller time frame file
5. Split channels
6. Altering speed
7. Merge (concatenate) two or more files into one