Please help - just can't get my head around movie editing

[2funky]

Apologies in advance if this has been covered. I am a complete newbie to video editing/conversion. Basically I have a Sony Hard Disk Video Camera which I have been using for years, not the greatest of qualities to say the least ! but what I could afford at the time. So I have copied all my movie clips onto an external hard drive and the format of them are *.mpg files.

Npw all I would like to do, is to stitch the movies together and play them around the house. I'd like to be able to play them on my PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone and stream from my NAS through my PS3 onto my main TV. I'm not 100% sure (not even 10% sure!) what format the movies should be in ! I'm not into any sort of fancy video editing and was looking to maybe use Windows Movie maker, or IMovie to create some Titles etc... I have both a Macbook and a Windows8 laptop to try and stitch, edit and convert files.

Sooooo - is there any simple steps I can follows to sticth/convert/Edit my files into a single movie - whilst keeping the best quality I can (knowing that filesize is going to be an issue if I keep to high a quality). Below is a file info dump I took from one of my clips using MPEG Streamclip:

Duration: 0:01:28
Data Size: 62.62 MB
Bit Rate: 5.95 Mbps

Video Tracks:
224 MPEG-2, 720 × 576, 4:3, 25 fps, 9.10 Mbps, upper field first

Audio Tracks:
128 AC3 2/0, 48 kHz, 256 kbps

Stream Files:
20071225102928.mpg (62.62 MB)

Would really appreciate some guidance and simple instructions to get me to my end goal. Please bear in mind I am a novice!

Thanks in advance.

[classfour]

I can't offer any help...I use TMPGENC Authoring works (output to DVD or Bluray) for most work, VideoReDo for tivo videos (cut commercials and output an mpeg) - neither are free.

[Cornucopia]

You could truly "edit" them in a full-blown NLE (of which WMM and iMovie are the lowest forms), but since I notice that your clips seem (from cursory glance) to be DVD-Video compliant, it makes sense to just join them in in an MPEG editor (Cuttermaran, MPG2Cut2, TMPGEnc Mastering Works) and then author them to a standard DVD-Video format (using DVDAuthorGUI, DVDStyler, Encore, DVDArchitect, TMPGEnc Authoring Works, many more) where you could add subtitles and the whole thing would retain the quality of the original footage (excepting a few frames here or there).

However, this would obviously not be universal (wouldn't work on iDevices, nor streaming to PS3 - though it would play as standard DVD on PS3).

Thing to remember is: there isn't really ANYTHING that works universally. So you will have to decide what your priorities are. Do you want quality? Smallest reasonable filesize? Portability?
You may want to consider converting to more than one destination format (BTW: NEVER GET RID OF YOUR ORIGINALS! You'll be sorry later on if you do.)
In case you're going to be converting anyway, for best quality's sake, I'd suggest still joining with aformentioned tools. Then use a converter tool that supports various destination "profiles" (like your ipad, iphone, ps3). Handbrake is one such well-regarded FOSS app.
Downside: you may not be able to add titles.
If this is a dealbreaker for you, you may end up wanting to get a full-blown NLE after all. Then, I would suggest Adobe Premiere Elements or Sony Movie Studio as good starters that have a decent amount of features. Either should be able to fully handle what you've got and be able to easily do titles. Even with them, IIWY, I'd consider outputting to a high quality, high-bitrate Master clip and then use a preferred transcoding tool such as Handbrake. The encoding modules in those NLEs are often more middle-of-the-road in terms of quality, compared to some of the (possibly more arcane) freeware offerings.

Scott

[sanlyn]

just join them in in an MPEG editor (Cuttermaran, MPG2Cut2, TMPGEnc Mastering Works) and then author them to a standard DVD-Video format ...

I think you mean TMPGEnc Smart Renderer 4. which is a frame-specific smart rendering editor. Mastering Works is an encoder. It can edit/cut/join, etc., but one wouldn't want to re-encode.

[budwzr]

I agree that you really need to be in a decent NLE, but at a cheap cost. So that puts you into either Premier Elements or Sony Vegas Studio.

And "Editing" has become an extremely popular hobby amongst the more intelligencia community. It's good brain food.

So forget about stitching, and focus on how to make a mini-movie out of an otherwise boring-to-sit-through event. Something to be proud of, and that means BLING. It's the Bling Generation. So the fastcuts become transitions now, so here's where you get to roll your own style or brand.

And not to mention that the whole topic is deep deep deep. Bottomless. So it can become an obsession.

[Cornucopia]

just join them in in an MPEG editor (Cuttermaran, MPG2Cut2, TMPGEnc Mastering Works) and then author them to a standard DVD-Video format ...

I think you mean TMPGEnc Smart Renderer 4. which is a frame-specific smart rendering editor. Mastering Works is an encoder. It can edit/cut/join, etc., but one wouldn't want to re-encode.

TSmR is an editor, true, but TMW is billed as an editor+encoder.
Don't use it myself (when I edit, it's with Vegas Pro, AVID MC, Premiere Pro, or FCP7 depending on client/colleagues/workflow).

Scott

[sanlyn]

True, they are both billed as "editors" because both can cut and join, have some special effects, etc. But Smart Renderer doesn't re-encode the entire video. TMW does. TSmR is the successor to TMPGENC MPEG Editor v3, with expanded HD. Mastering Works is the successor to the TMPGEnc Express v4 encoder.

[Cornucopia]

Thanks for that info, I didn't know that.

Scott