Can I cut .avi's and make one movie in Adobe Premiere Elements?

[Dolcebella]

I've tried and tried, but can't seem to do it. I have a still camera that shoots .avi's but when I try to edit the different clips into one long one 9 by cutting a piece off the end or middle, I can't do it. So, with my foot in my mouth, I need to know if an .avi is an editable movie or not. I've been trying for about 3 weeks and getting nowhere.
Thanks,
Dolcebella

[guns1inger]

The answer is a qualified yes. My understanding is that Premiere Elements only likes a few formats. While one of them is AVI, is is DV avi. AVI is a simply a container. What you store in it is defined by the codec used to compress the video and audio.

Most still cameras use either mjpeg or mp4 for their movie creation. You need to convert from these to something elements likes if you want use elements. You can probably use virtualdubmod and the panasonic DV codec to convert the clips for you (you will have to resize them to DV resolution along the way). Then you can edit them in elements.

That said, if you just want to string them together into one long clip, you might just be able to use virtualdubmod's append function to do this.

[Dolcebella]

Thanks so much for responding. If I understand you correctly the .avi extension just holds a mpeg inside of it? I have to convert it in virtualdubmod and then resize it in the calculator before bringing it to Adobe Premiere Elements?

Thanks again for your help!
dolcebella

[edDV]

Thanks so much for responding. If I understand you correctly the .avi extension just holds a mpeg inside of it? I have to convert it in virtualdubmod and then resize it in the calculator before bringing it to Adobe Premiere Elements?

Thanks again for your help!
dolcebella

If this "movie" is from a still camera (Canon, etc) the format is most likely MJPEG. If Premiere Elements won't read it, you can edit in other programs like Windows Movie Maker and output in a format that PE understands like DV-AVI. Then PE can encode and author the DVD.

Most recent versions of the popular consumer video suites now support these still camera movie formats.