Picture in Picture (or would it be Movie in Movie?)

[Unagi]

Hey there, new guy with some video editing woes, here!

I'm trying to figure out how edit in various video clips into one single stream (all playing simultaneously). Pretty much the effect of a DVD scene selection menu, more or less.

My computer has been recently wiped, so I don't have too many programs at my disposal currently. I'm mostly using AviDemux at the moment, and it does have a VERY limited filter that achieves this. It forces you to have 6 clips, and the background image never kicks in, among other things.

What I'd like to do is to achieve my goal with as little hassle as possible. Using one program would be great (free, please) and avoiding scripts in favor of GUI would be preferable.

Any pointers from you friendly folks out there?

[guns1inger]

You place a lot of restrictions on your requirements. If you are patient and save often, WAX2 or ZS4 might be possibilities. There is another effects tool called Jahshaka, but that last time I played with it I couldn't get it to much more than crash a lot. It may have come on since then.

If you just want rows and columns then a simple stackhorizontal / stackvertical avisynth script might be all you need, but if you need more control over the placement then you are in for a more complicated script.

[Unagi]

Well, the only requirement I have is that it should be open source or freeware. I just like to toodle around and don't need anything super professional. The other askings are merely preferences.

Is it really going to be that much trouble? I thought at worst I'd have to learn some sort of script which allows me to refer to "X" as a certain video and then specify the size and x,y coordinates for each video clip. Although, I was hoping that there would be a program that allows you to drop a video in the frame, resize it, and place it with use of the mouse primarily. I guess wishing that there was something free out there was a stretch, though, huh?

Thanks for the suggestions! I'll take a look and see if of them works out for me.