If you try to browse the internet, you will notice that there are lots of perks. Nothing comes for free these days but you know what, you can find a lot of freebies online and that includes video editing materials such as video editing software programs.

Free video editing software programs

Video editors these days can take advantage of free video editing software programs which allows them to do editing tasks at home. Of course, there are paid software programs (most of them are too complicated for newbies) but why pay for something that you can get free of charge

Years ago, editors had a difficult time in doing their jobs. In fact, they also need to spend a lot of money in editing a short film. Things have changed much over the years and now, editors can do their work at home as long as they have a powerful computer and useful video editing software.

Video editing tools are often expensive and complex. A very good example is the Adobe Creative Suite. This video editing software offers complex manipulation tools and after effects. Similar to this software is the FCS (Final Cut Studio) but you will need to purchase an Apple computer in order to use the program.

Who wouldn’t dream of creating a blockbuster movie? Well, thanks to modern technology, even home-buddies can create interesting videos and movies. Perhaps you’ve already used camcorders, right? There are lots of gadgets out in the market that allows you to capture special events or scenes on video. If you try to view the raw video recording, you will easily see some flaws. This is where video editing comes in.

With the use of quality video editing software, you can remove the flaws and enjoy quality videos or movies together with your family.

Here are some of the things that you will need aside from the software and video recording gadget mentioned above – capture card, a computer with large storage space, a camcorder or VCR or just your computer monitor to view the final video.

Process of video editing

The process of video editing is simple. With your capture card, transfer the video from the camera or any other video recording gadget to the computer. Edit the raw recording using quality software. Remove unnecessary parts which make the video boring and too lengthy and add some effects. After the final touches, you can download the video or movie and burn (VCD, CD, and DVD) or tape it.

Video editing can be linear, non-linear, and vision mixing. Most of today’s videographers use the non-linear system wherein they use software and computers; linear uses videotape while vision mixing is more on live video signals.

Video editing is similar to film editing. Their goals are the same. Segments of video are modified or re-arranged to form a final video. Unwanted footages are isolated from the desired ones. After editing, the desired footages are arranged to create a new and more interesting video.

Videographers used to spend a great deal of time and money in editing videos or movies. Quality degradation was also one of their biggest problems. Every time the video is copied, its quality is diminished. Videotapes were cut with razor blades, guillotine cutters, used with ferrofluid, and spliced with tape. However, with the many improvements in technology, existing tapes were inserted cleanly into a new tape (preserving its quality at the same time).

Linear and non-linear video editing

In linear video editing, when one scene is lengthened, later scenes are added again. Simultaneous play back of multiple sources can be done through the use of vision mixers.

Some individuals are very much interested in video recording. Once you’re satisfied with the recordings, you will usually want to have it on DVD, so that you can share it with your relatives and friends. Well, home-made videos can be appreciated by your family and friends, but what about other people? If you want to share good quality videos or even your very own movie, you should know more about video editing.

Why don’t you ask for honest opinions from your family and friends? Tell them that their opinions are important so that you can create better videos in the future. Some of the most common comments in home-made videos are

• The video is too short/long

• It is slow

• No captions or titles

• No soundtrack etc.

These things are important in order to create a good video and you can incorporate them in your future videos if you make use of good quality video editing software. Through a good program, you can easily polish and enhance your videos. Not all the shots in your video are needed and if you want, you can delete some of them. You will surely end up with a final video that looks more professional.

Back in the nineties, it was already possible to do some video editing tasks at home but it’s nothing compared to what you can do today. Modern software available in the market can already give anyone the edge to perform complex video editing tasks at home, just like the pros.

Linear and non-linear editing

To get the most out of your video editing programor software, you should know some basics. The applications that most video editors use today are called non-linear video editing. It is different from linear video editing which consumes a lot of time in rewinding or fast forwarding.

In non-linear video editing, you can easily work on certain parts of the material; for instance, if you want to work on the middle part of the material, you can easily do it with a few clicks or you can also jump to the beginning or end of the material. Modern video editing is no longer a tedious task and because of this, many individuals are interested in creating their own video clips or even short movies.

You can easily install Adobe on your Mac or PC without encountering much difficulty. You can use a demo version first so that you can assess if the program can meet all your video editing needs.

When you start Adobe, you will instantly see a dialog box. The dialog is important because it will tell the program about your camera and how it records raw recordings.  The equation has two parts – audio sampling and video resolution.

For those who have camcorders that uses DV-CAM or mini DV tapes, the images recorded are at 720 by 480 resolution. Is your camera PAL or NTSC? Depending on your answer to this question, you will select between DV-PAL and DV-NTSC.

NTSC is used mostly in Canada and US while PAL is used in Asia and Europe. Did you take the footage in widescreen format (169) or standard format? After you answer this question, you should now pick the audio sampling rate. Premiere uses a default but if doesn’t apply to your situation, choose another option. All these things are done in the dialog for Project Settings.

Adobe’s working screen

After the dialog, you will now see Adobe’s working screen. The five areas on the screen are the following

Prior to the invention of the computers, video editing was not an easy task. It would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars just to put up a professional video editing room equipped with all the components like tape decks, effects generator, switcher, audio mixer, character generator, multiple monitors, and signal enhancers.

To be a video editor, it will take years to learn how everything works. If you’re not knowledgeable enough, you can’t operate the equipments inside the room. The computers changed the world of video editing. Now, even novice video editors can perform the different tasks at home.

Computers and video editing

Shots taken for several seconds take a couple of hours to edit and if you’re renting out an editing room, it will cost you a lot of money just to edit a shot taken for a whole minute. Instead of renting out an editing room, you can spend the money to buy a complete video editing system and good software.

Through the use of computers, video editing is a lot cheaper and easier. Besides, it’s really a lot of fun to edit or create videos in the comfort of your home. The possibilities are also endless in today’s modern world.

The Windows Movie Maker is already built in PCs with of course, the Windows Operating System. So even if you don’t download any video editing software, you’re already equipped with good quality editing tools. When you capture videos from your camera or camcorders whenever there is a special event, your videos often have ‘junk’ portions.

These junk portions should be eliminated if you want to create professional-grade videos or movies from the comfort of your home. Home movies are mostly boring because most of the materials are not very interesting. Well, one way to create interesting videos is by editing the raw footage using the Windows Movie Maker.

Newbies often use the zooming function when capturing videos. Your audience will feel sea-sick if you do a lot of zooming, so try to minimize the use of this function to framing shots only. You’re in luck because through Windows Movie Maker, you can easily edit the zooming scenes in your raw footages.

When filming a family member or a narrator, you will often video the part when they say ‘am I on’ or ‘should I speak now’; don’t worry because you can now easily take that part out.

Disasters are common in the world today, from nature to car wrecks. In the computer industry, disasters aren’t any different. They can come in the form of an office fire, computer crashes, hard drive failure, missing IT documents, stolen hardware, and many other forms. Disasters can be very traumatic and stressful, although there are actions that you can take.

Even though disasters can occur at any time, recovery planning doesn’t cross the mind of business owners or individuals. For recovery planning most of the people just carry out their normal day to day routines, never aware of what could result from a disaster. Then, when disaster does strike, most tend to freak out and wonder just what they can do to fix the situation at hand.

You can do recovery planning in the following way:

With the help of recovery planning you will be prepared for a disaster or hard drive failure, and then your business will be able to deal with anything that happens. The first step in recovery planning and preparing for disaster is to analyze your business or operations.

Backing up and protecting data should be something that every business or individual strives to do. Data is very important, especially for businesses or individuals who make a living using their computers.

If you have never looked into backing up your files or haven’t backed them up before, you should really look into it before it is too late.

Following are the best things about online data backup:

Among the many ways to back up your files are online data backups. Online data backups are great for businesses, as they will protect your data. You can think of online data backup method as being a server and a host, as the company stores your information over the Internet. For online data backups you can log in at anytime, and access your data.

If your hard drive crashes, you can easily access the information of online data backups that you need without having to wait until your data is recovered by a specialist. Although online data backups are great, online data backups do have some concerns with security. Although the server is indeed encrypted, online data backups isn’t completely safe.