joining + trimming + subtitle creation + volume normalization All-In-One?

[sincostan45]

To the point:

Is there a program where I can import clips, join them with other imported clips, trim them down, and add subtitles with absolute positioning and control over the font, size and margins? If the program normalized the audio of all of the clips, that would be freaking sweet. The program must also be able to save in x264 and Xvid, configured the way I need it.

I don't need anything fancy, that's pretty much all I want. (Though having the ability to throw some transitions in would be nice, but not necessary.)

Basically, what I'm asking is if there is a program like Windows Movie Maker with the flexibility that Aegisub has with subtitles?

Thanks in advance to any information anybody can give me!



The story:

So for the past couple of years, I've been working on a series where I create videos out of many, many smaller clips with subtitles in the video to explain what's going on. To do this:

0) Clips that I capture are in x264 in an .m2ts container. So I have to change the container using MediaCoder on these clips.

1) Take clips from multiple sources, edit them down to -close-* to what I want out of each clip, then resize (letterbox if necessary) and encode them so they are all of the same codec, resolution and framerate. This is done in VirtualDub and everything is encoded to Xvid, quantizer = 1.

1.5) While doing #1, I'm writing down what I want to say in Notepad and save it as a .txt file.

2) Run Avi Gain on all of the clips.

3) Start joining the clips together either in VirtualDub or Avidemux while trimming the clips up a little bit more* and looking at the text file to ensure I fit the clips to the subtitles, and get the timing right so nothing is rushed or dragged on.

4) Save the compiled video, once again, Xvid, quantizer = 1.

5) Open the compiled video in Aegisub and then create the subtitles from copying and pasting each line from the .txt file into the program while remembering where each line goes in the compiled video.

6) Hardcode the subtitles using the TextSub filter in VirtualDub. Sometimes I encode in Xvid, other times x264. Depends on the length of the video, etc.

*As I inferred, I work with clips that are captured in x264 from my capture device (among other sources of clips), so additional trimming is needed for these originally-x264 clips to get rid of the garbage frames at the beginning of each clip.

Now then, I understand I won't be able to combine all of these steps into one, and that I'll still probably need to have all of the clips be the same resolution, etc., if such an "all-in-one" program exists... But if a few steps could be eliminated, I could save SO MUCH time when I edit videos. Right now, it takes HOURS to compile a video. Even though I enjoy it, it still is quite time consuming, and I have a lot of videos that I still want to make.

Again, if anybody has any information they'd like to share, I'd really appreciate it!

Thanks!

[Michael33]

Believe it not, VideoPad does these things. It's a pretty remarkable piece of free software (underrated if you ask me), that can take in the H.264 HD clips from my Kodak cam and do a lot with them (even stabilization) and burn the project out to DVD. Sure, the DVD (MPEG2) encoder is not "great", but it is OK. Try it, I think you'll be impressed.

[sincostan45]

Awesome, thanks for responding! I was just thinking about bumping this thread not too long ago, actually.

I'll check out that program and report back how it works for me. I might even get the Pro version if I really like the free version and if the Pro version has features I could use. $35 sure beats the price of some of the more expensive programs, like Adobe Premiere.