Recommend a 1st time editor & How to "insert blank frames/slides"?

[stebobibo]

Could you recommend me a user-friendly, free editor that can do these very simple edits? It doesn't have to be completely free. So long as it it has a free trial/free version, that's fine. And could you please explain how to do these things, or point to a short tutorial/help page?

Making my first video that will have frames added. I for sure want an intro, which will be composed of multiple slides with text on them. For example, the first slide might say "Hello, everyone" and the second one "Today I'll be sharing a video about...". They are completely blank slides, except for the text. And at the end have a slide that says "Thanks for watching". That's not actually what I'll be saying, just giving you an idea of what I mean.

Then the main part of the vid is prerecorded video. I want some text to "overly" it at some points. How to do that?

Please don't recommend an editor without explaining how to do these edits or pointing to a guide/tutorial - it's useless to me without the knowledge. Thanks for your help.

[DarrellS]

Could you recommend me a user-friendly, free editor that can do these very simple edits? It doesn't have to be completely free. So long as it it has a free trial/free version, that's fine. And could you please explain how to do these things, or point to a short tutorial/help page?

Making my first video that will have frames added. I for sure want an intro, which will be composed of multiple slides with text on them. For example, the first slide might say "Hello, everyone" and the second one "Today I'll be sharing a video about...". They are completely blank slides, except for the text. And at the end have a slide that says "Thanks for watching". That's not actually what I'll be saying, just giving you an idea of what I mean.

Then the main part of the vid is prerecorded video. I want some text to "overly" it at some points. How to do that?

Please don't recommend an editor without explaining how to do these edits or pointing to a guide/tutorial - it's useless to me without the knowledge. Thanks for your help.

I use VIRTUALDUB 1.10.5-TEST 7 to do almost all of my video editing.

If you are adding black frames then you would want to add (a very low) audio file to those frames and save to a file that matches your video since Virtualdub will not Append a file that doesn’t match your original video.

You would probably create a short video of a black frame with an audio file either saying what the text is going to say or leaving a very low volume audio file using Audacity (which is free also). You want to make the short video of the same file types as your original video. I haven’t recorded an audio file with Audacity but I’m told you can. If you can’t record an audio file of the text that is written then you can use any audio file.

Drag and drop the audio file into Audacity - Double click anywhere in the file and select Effect - Volume and compression - Pull the Amplification slider almost all the way to the left until you cannot hear the audio - click Apply and choose Select - Region and select a section the length of the file you want - choose File - Export - Export Selected Audio - Choose the same type of audio as your original file and click Save. Select what to call the file and where to save it - then click save.

Another option if you are trying to add black transitions between parts of your video is to use the Fill filter in Virtualdub with the Curve Editor. If you look in Help and click Contents and look for Processing and then Smart Rendering, then click on Search at the top and type Curve Editor. it will bring up a page on how to use the curve editor.

After placing the curves at the end of one section and the beginning of the next section you will then use the Smart Rendering.

To use SMART RENDER your video must be compressed and a video codec must be installed that matches your original video. Once your curves have been created then choose Smart Rendering. Then choose File and Save as AVI.


Here is a video tutorial for using a filter in blend mode and using the curve editor to create the curve for making transitions or effects in your video.

Applying Filters to a Range of Frames in Virtualdub
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MWoVY9mYbk

Below are VirtualDub help - Processing - Smart rendering.pdf and VirtualDub help - Processing - Video filter curves.pdf

[Alwyn]

If you want a simple editor, do not use Virtual Dub.

[stebobibo]

Hi @DarrellS. Thank you so much for taking the time to leave your extensive reply. You're actually the first to leave a solution, and I have asked this question in many forums. However, this can't be the easiest way. There's no way that much work is needed to accomplish such a simple task. And I don't think I could do it even if I wanted to, cause I don't have a mic to record an audio file in Audacity. And if what @Alwyn says is true, and it sounds like it, I would prefer to work with a much simpler beginner-friendly video editor.

I would think that such a simple and basic function of adding blank frames would be a mainstay feature of most video editors... Am I wrong here?
Again, thank you for your help, I really appreciate it!

[DarrellS]

Any program is going to take time to learn. I'll admit it was a lot easier for me to learn when there was a Virtualdub forum with a lot of experienced users to help you out and there used to be a lot of Virtualdub users here. I don't know where they all went.

As for Audacity, you don't need to record the audio. You can use any audio file (or video with audio) on your computer. Just drag and drop the audio file onto the program and pick a section that is as long as the clip you have and click your mouse. Then click the Select button and choose Region - Track Start to Curser. Then click the Effect button and select Volume and Compression and then click Amplify. A window will pop up with a slider to turn the volume down. Turn the slider all the way to the left to -50 and click Apply. Click File - Export - Export Selected Audio - Choose the file type and the folder you want to save it in and click Save.

[stebobibo]

Hi Darrell, thanks again for your support.

But I actually found a much easier way on my own. Its using a program called ClipChamp. It's browser-based and unfortunately only works in Chrome or Edge. I'll leave instructions here on how to do it, for others who want to know.

How to insert blank frames on Clip Champ

1. Go to Chipchamp.com, make an account. On the home page, at the bottom, click on the box "create a new video"
2. On the left side panel, third option down is "content library". Click that.
3. Scroll down until you see "backgrounds". Click that.
4. Choose any of the desired backgrounds at the top. There are: white, black, other color, gradient. Click and drag this to your timeline, or press the + button that appears on hover.
5. You can adjust the color by having the "background" selected in your timeline and clicking "color" in the right sidebar.
6. In the timeline you can adjust the length of the still by dragging the left or right handles. You can adjust time placement by clicking and dragging.
7. Adding text is the same process. Text is just under "content library"