Avidemux tutorials

[Fran Guidry]

I'm often surprised by the usefulness of the free software that floats around cyberspace. When I got my Flip Mino HD I could no longer use Windows Movie Maker to edit my videos, and I found Avidemux.

Not only does it handle loads of formats and bring all its own codecs, it can do useful tasks like trimming and audio replacement without mangling the video. It can do these tasks while working directly on the compressed file, leaving you with a video that's exactly as good as it came out of the camcorder.

I usually record audio separate from the camcorder, because I can get closer to the source and because my recording systems are quite a bit better than most camcorder mics. If you work the same way, this post demonstrates the steps to sync an external file to the video, then trim the clip to length.

If you don't have an external recording system, this post shows the process of trimming the video then extracting the audio file so it can be enhanced in an audio editor. Of course it ends with merging the enhanced audio back with the original video.

I hope these posts are useful and result in lots more great homemade music videos.

Oh, by the way, here's the final video I created by merging an H2 audio file with a Flip Mino HD video: http://www.vimeo.com/5067213

Fran