Question on video editors...

[BTM]

So, here's the thing, all I want to do is take a clip I burned from a DVD, and turn it into a smaller clip with the audio and video attached as normal.  Sound simple, right?

Weeell...

I've got two video editors, Windows Movie Maker and Ulead Movie Editors 8.0

Here's the crazy part, the VIDEO plays just fine in Ulead, but there's NO sound.

In Windows Movie Maker, the sound plays just fine, but there's NO video.

AHHHH!

Does anyone know why this might be?  For the record, when I play the file in Windows Media Player or RealPlayer, but sound and video show up just fine.

Or does anyone know any other program I might be able to use to do some simple editing?

Thanks.

[ghouck]

I use 'Virtualdub'. It's free, and although it can look intimidating, it's really easy. You may need to install a Divx codec package.

When you say a 'smaller' clip, in what way do you mean smaller? Shorter duration, smaller picture dimensions, or smaller filesize? No matter what the answer, virtualdub can do it, BUT, you'll end up with an .avi file. If you need some help, look me up on yahoo messenger, I'll try and be on later.

[BTM]

I use 'Virtualdub'. It's free, and although it can look intimidating, it's really easy. You may need to install a Divx codec package.

When you say a 'smaller' clip, in what way do you mean smaller? Shorter duration, smaller picture dimensions, or smaller filesize? No matter what the answer, virtualdub can do it, BUT, you'll end up with an .avi file. If you need some help, look me up on yahoo messenger, I'll try and be on later.

Hmm.. think I have VirtualDub, but had some trouble with it... have to try it again.

Well, by smaller I mean, shorter duration.  It's like, I burn a whole movie onto my hard drive and I just want, say, a five minute clip from the film.  Sounds simple, but it's turned into a big song and dance.  

BTW what happened to your AfroMullet avatar?  Are you changing or is something wrong with the forum?

[ghouck]

Musta been a forum thing, I didn't change it.

Virtualdub isn't completely intuitive. Let me guess, you made a clip with it and it ended up like fourteen billion gigs? By default it is set up for no compression, so it makes a HUGE file that is largely unplayable. That's one of the first problems people new to it run into.

Clipping a video is pretty easy, you go to the frame you want to start with, and press 'home' on your keyborad to mark the beginning, go to what you want the last frame to be and press 'end' on your keyboard to mark the end. Then go to file -> save as to make the clip (once you've set up compression, if needed). If you don't want to re-compress the file, just make sure it is set to "direct stream copy" under 'video'.

[Jim H]

I use 'Virtualdub'. It's free, and although it can look intimidating, it's really easy. You may need to install a Divx codec package.

When you say a 'smaller' clip, in what way do you mean smaller? Shorter duration, smaller picture dimensions, or smaller filesize? No matter what the answer, virtualdub can do it, BUT, you'll end up with an .avi file. If you need some help, look me up on yahoo messenger, I'll try and be on later.

Hmm.. think I have VirtualDub, but had some trouble with it... have to try it again.

Well, by smaller I mean, shorter duration.  It's like, I burn a whole movie onto my hard drive and I just want, say, a five minute clip from the film.  Sounds simple, but it's turned into a big song and dance.  

BTW what happened to your AfroMullet avatar?  Are you changing or is something wrong with the forum?

You might try DVD shrink.  You can rip clips from a DVD with it, though it isn't super precise.  IIRC, you can specify down to 1 second when ripping.  And you can do multiple clips.  Just start it up, open a DVD in it, and do a "re-author" then drag the main title over, set start and end points, and rip it to a VOB file, not a DVD iso.  VOB files are the same as MPEG files, you can even rename a VOB to an MPEG (as some players won't recognize a VOB as playable). 

Hope that is helpful.