Recomendations for video editing software?
 

I recently got the http://www.atc2k.com/. It's a little bit bulkier than I thought and battery life kinda sucks but it's ok for the price (free in my case). I've been using it on the handlebar and videos come out way to shakey. Maybe if I use it on the helmet... but it will look odd and I'm very shy. :(

So, I'm looking for some video stabilization software. There are a lot of those out there. I'm hoping some of you could give some recomendations about wich ones do a decent job.

thx

PS: No, I can't get a better cam... wifey doesn't approve any more bike-funds for this quarter.

RubenX,

I go through and teach the video editing process on a Macintosh using iMovie. Pretty basic and pretty much all plug and play. IMovie is very inexpensive as it comes as bundled software with other multimedia development software iLife series put out by Apple corporation. And of course it runs on a Macintosh. The camera I use is a Canon zr series mini-dv. Attaches to the camera via firewire for editing purposes.

I have used various home-made camera mounts for my OCR2 and am experimenting with mounting the camera on the horizontal cross bar so that I can eliminate the swinging back and forth across the path of motion. I am not into "Blair Witch" videography. If this works to my satisfaction, the mounting, will be doing a bit of taping out in the pathways of San Sebastian Preservation area behind the school where I teach.

If you have a PC it's best to use a dedicated Video/Audio production Operating system. Ubuntu Studio is a Linux derived OS specialty designed for professional Video and Audio production. You might think this is overkill but it's free so you might as well download and install it. If your running Vista on your PC you should use a separate hard drive for your Linux OS. Microsoft has made it very difficult for the non-technogeek to install separate partitions on a hard drive with Vista. Microsoft does not play well with others. Just get an external USB hard drive and load Ubuntu Studio on it. When you want to use Ubuntu Studio just plug in the hard drive and select it for boot.

http://ubuntustudio.org/

http://ubuntustudio.org/files/US2.png

Yeah, Computer Management is so difficult to find. You'd only find it if you right-click on Computer and chose Manage, which is terribly difficult. And then shrinking the C: partition and making a new partition would take, like, several more clicks and some keystrokes. An outrage! ;)

IMHO, no matter what the vendor, multi-boot setups can be a hassle. I suggest a little different approach: yeah, install a second hard drive, but first disconnect your other hard drive(s) temporarily, install the additional operating system onto the new hard drive, then reconnect the old hard drive(s) afterward. Now they're independent of eachother. No bootloader convolutions, no hassles if you decide to get rid of one of the OSes later or one of the drives dies. Use the motherboard's boot-device selection menu to choose the drive (and thus the OS) you want to boot. For my motherboard, an Asus, that means tapping the F8 key at the POST screen. This is how my WinXP / Vista dual-boot is set up.

To the OP: if you'd like to try Ubuntu, you could also install the free Microsoft Virtual PC 2007, then install Ubuntu inside of Windows. A no-risk proposition :)

Also, you might want to emphasize more clearly that you're specifically looking for software that has stabilization capabilities. I used to use Adobe Premiere Elements quite a bit, and liked it once I got past some of the learning curve, but the version I used didn't know that trick. Maybe the current version does; you could download a trial version if you want to give it a whirl.

After you download the Ubuntu ISO and burn a live-DVD you can boot the computer without writing anything to the Windows hard drive. Just install Ubuntu on the external Hard drive. No need to open the computer and physically disconnect the Windows Hard drive. I use a 4-gig USB flash drive with the desktop edition of Ubuntu on my Lap-Top. There is no hard drive in the Lap-Top at all. I keep the flash drive around my neck when the Lap-top is not being used. If the Lap-Top is stolen they get no information or data.