What to do when you outgrow moviemaker

[mermaidbazaar]

The short version:
Ack, help! I think I've outgrown movie maker, but I'm not sure where to go from here. I don't need anything too terribly powerful. I would like to be able to increase the audio volume of different pieces of video I'm cutting together. Free or cheap would be great.



The long version:
My middle-school aged relatives have begun making a "tv show," and I have been editing it for them. It's a lot of fun, and I enjoy encouraging them in their creative endeavors. They pretty much shoot the show themselves, but I upgraded my camera earlier this year and have been using it here and there to shoot supplemental footage. A couple of times I've used it to shoot several scenes for an episode. When I try to edit videos taken with the new camera in Movie Maker, it takes. for. ever. It has to load them, which is fine, but any time I make a cut or try to rearrange something, it has to go through the process again, and can take several minutes. I'm thinking the new camera's videos are too large, or that the quality is too good or something. It's driving me nuts, and I don't know what to do about it.


Any suggestions?

[TreeTops]

I too have graduated from Movie Maker. I went first with Adobe Premiere Elements but that program didn't seem to play well with my computer. I then tried Vegas Movie Studio and have been using that for the last several years. Both are not free but you could try their trials and see if you can grasp them. Lots of tutorials on the web for both programs.

Try posting your camera name and model and type of video it produces and you will probably get more helpful answers.

[Brainiac]

And also provide more details about your computer. Processor type, number of hard drives, which drive used to store video, laptop or desktop, etc. Basically any information you can give.

Brainiac

[theewizard]

check your cameta manual and settings
see if you can reduce the settings to match the camera they are using
lower res less bitrate etc..
since you have to work with the lowest common denominator aka match their settings and the cpu doesnt have to work as hard

[duhmez]

I just picked up Sony Vegas Movie Studio PLatinum HD 11 for $40. It is very powerful for its price and I have been enjoying it very much.

[TreeTops]

Lord knows what happened to Mermaid...hate it when we offer some suggestions for his/her problem or questions and then they never respond back. We never know if our suggestions worked or not!

That was a good buy duhmez.

[budwzr]

When I read "Mermaid", Ethel Merman always come to mind. Not sure why.