Hi harro

I've been using Windows Live Movie Maker for the clips I've created. It allows you to add stills and movie footage together and offers quite a few editing options, too. You can trim the start and finish time for each clip, add audio tracks...either just one or many, and you can crop them, too. Also offers a selection of transition options, as well as easy titles, captions and credits for that professional touch.

It seems fairly easy to use, but I have noticed that my Canon compact digital camera produces clips in MOV format and Windows movie maker creates movies in WMV (Windows Media Video) and I've sometimes had gremlins appear when I save my work. To get around this, I use Free 3GP Video Converter that allows me to convert my MOVs to WMV format before I start the editing and compilation process.

I've not done any editing and compiling of DVD based clips yet (what I get from my Sony handicam), but that's what I'll be trying next. Hope this helps.....I look forward to hearing what other members here are using.

regards
rusty...

thanks heaps mate for ur reply,trying out camtasia, and a cple other options, i knew windows had one but wasnt too sure if it worked so good, thanks bud

cant go past sony vegas pro :)

camtasia is a real treat so far,

instantly publishes the production for web,you tube or personal and much more, figured out the music overlay and slow motion now, its great,

i might check out that cheers

ill upload this short clip , shows a hook up but fish not landed on jig, first ever effort doing this,

 finall cut pro promise it wont let you down

ill crack it open.. wottya been up to bud?

final cut or even the standard imovie works well if you embrace the fruity computer.

After using Windows Live Movie Maker with limited success, including some frustration with it crashing my computer a couple of times, I've ditched it in favour of AVS Video Editor 6.1. This was a free download but had a subscription component for either 12 months of backup and tech support or for a bit more, you were offered a lifetime of tech support.

I am also considering Corel VideoStudio Pro 5, but in the short term, I'll give AVS a go.

This program is pretty easy to use, offered an easy to follow 'timeline' or 'storybook' layout and once I got the hang of adding text, it was pretty easy. I was surprised at how small the completed file was, compared to Windows Live Movie Maker....without a loss of apparent quality. This made uploading to YouTube a lot quicker.

I created the 'Swimming with a whaleshark' clip using AVS after having Windows Movie Maker crash my computer on 2 occasions while I was trying to save my movie clip, so enough is enough. So far, the only thing I don't like is the quality of the text that I added to the beginning and end of the clip....seems a bit jagged around the edges, but so far, I'm pretty happy with it. Their onlne video guides and inbuilt Help is pretty helpful, too.

I found Windows Movie Maker didn't like working with .MOV files, but AVS doesn't mind, so that's a plus for me, as my Canon compact records in .MOV. I have tried converting the .MOV to .WMV or .AVI but that becomes a pain after a while.

Anyone else using AVS and have any comments about it?

regards
rusty...