Suggestions for a program to do some very simple music video editing

[Trollheart]

I'm not trying to create the next "Avatar" guys, just want to make some very simple music videos, using some nature-like video clips, add music and put titles (to fade in/out if possible) at beginning and end: you know the sort of thing, like you see on any normal music video.

The main problem I'm having is with the titles. I can use VDUB to cut the video, add the music etc but finding a decent prog that will add the titles correctly is proving difficult. I'm trying trials of Vegas and Premiere Elements at the moment, but tbh they're both way over my head and probably too advanced for what I want to do. Windows Movie Maker (yeah, I know) does the titles but they can only go in the centre of the video, and really don't look that well.

I don't mind spending a little, but this is a purely personal project so I don't intend to splash out hundreds on a suite of programs I'll probably never scratch the surface of.

If anyone knows of any decent program, free or reasonable, I'd appreciate hearing from you.

Just to be clear, it's not subtitles I'm talking about, nor credits. It's just text lines (don't have to be animated or anything) that fade in at the beginning of, or close to the beginning of, the video (title, album, artiste etc) and again near the end.

Thx guys

TH

PS If I've left out any important information let me know: I'm a total newbie at this sort of thing....
PPS Windows Vista and also Windows 7, 2 gig ram and about 250 gig hdd, if that matters.

[netmask56]

If it's just titles and basic editing like one video time line and 2 audio timelines then Womble http://www.womble.com/products/index.html will do what you want. You can create titles (text) and stretch it to fit etc. Vegas is a lot better with the number of tracks and effects you can achieve.

[guns1inger]

Use Movie Maker, but create you titles as still images in GIMP or paint.net and use Movie Maker to fade them in and out. Simple to do and uses tools you know.

[Trollheart]

Thx for that. Womble seems to be working fine, so far (although for some reason I cant change the colour of the text for the titles: click on the icon and it does nothing....)
Other than that, I will look at gunslinger's suggestion above, but tell me, when the titles are done, how do you fade them in and out? Is it applying video effects or something? Sorry, I said I was a novice...

Thx guys
TH

[hech54]

I use Magix Movie Edit myself. I find it much easier to learn than the others I've tried.

[Trollheart]

I use Magix Movie Edit myself. I find it much easier to learn than the others I've tried.

Tried this but found it very hard to find proper information. For instance, it tells you there are three modes you can work in (Timeline, Storyboard and I can't remember the third one) but not how to access them. There's supposed to be a lower toolbar with the title editor on it, but I can't find it. If I use the "title editor" on the TOP toolbar (ie effects), it gives me the most very basic typing options and not at all satisfactory.

I guess it must be me, as there are many posts of praise for the prog, but I can't figure out where I'm going wrong.

[Trollheart]

Having some real problems now! Using VDUB to edit the video and replace the audio track, but since I'm using VOBs ripped from the DVDs with DVD Decrypter, it will only let me save as AVI, which runs to huge files for some reason. My drive being FAT32 it won't accept a single file larger than 4 gig, so I have to save them as MKVs.

Not every prog will read MKVs. I'm now trying to fade out the video clip at the end, since the clips I use from the ripped DVDs are too long in and of themselves, and have to be cut down. But I'm trying to find a prog that will allow me to fade out the video while leaving the audio untouched. Have so far tried Womble, VDub, Video redo, Video Edit Magic and also Windows Movie Maker (Vista) which tends a) not to like MKVs and b) crash halfway through playback, before I can see if the "fade" effect has in fact worked!

Any ideas for something to do this fading effect, preferably that will work with MKVs? I must say I love VDub but find it very limited in the file formats it will save, and read, thereby making the usage of a whole lot of progs necessary. I would of course prefer to be able to do all this in one prog, if that were possible.

That would be: rip file, edit (cut) files, replace audio track, add titles and fade ending.

Any suggestions at all?

Thx

TH