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It would be useful for somebody who has no experience in video editing, but would like to cut together some footage taken on their phone. And yet, even the vide

It would be useful for somebody who has no experience in video editing, but would like to cut together some footage taken on their phone. And yet, even the video editing software aimed at beginners and novices are crazy complicated.

battery_cowboy 7y ago
Oh yea, today we can do so much more with less UI, but I'm not into video editing so I'm not sure of what's available. I'm sure there are simpler apps for regular people now.
- ScottFree 7y ago
  Please let me know if you happen to stumble upon one. Every once in a while, I get the desire to take a small clip of a larger video to use as a gifv. I've yet to find a single video editing program that makes this very simple thing easy for somebody who has no idea what he's doing.
  - mtrower 7y ago
    In the past, QuickTime (Pro?) was excellent for this sort of thing; you could just mark the section you wanted right in the player window and export a new clip. I don't know what the present situation is with QuickTime, and obviously that's an Apple solution. There are basically two classes of editors: * "pro" editors, like Premier, and (old?) Final Cut Pro * "home" editors, like iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, OpenShot etc. You want something from the latter category. The general idea is: 1) Add your source video file to a new project 2) Drag that video onto your timeline 3) Edit the timeline to crop your video (various methods depending on user preference) 4) Export your new clip You haven't mentioned your platform, so lets give a simple example using the free, cross-platform OpenShot: 1) Add your source video file to a new project 2) Drag that video onto your timeline 3) Grab the edges of your video clip in the timeline, and drag them to crop your video 4) Export your new clip Short YouTube video (not mine) demonstrating this visually (you don't actually need to select the razor tool): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8zmqfXXS60 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8zmqfXXS60 --- Is this an easy enough method? I think to get any easier than that, you may be looking at a purpose-built tool to do only the simple thing you want, rather than a general purpose editing tool. --- edit: I didn't see your file format requirement. I honestly don't know anything about .gifv; it appears to not actually be a file format at all, but some tomfoolery that Imgur is engaging in? You'll have to export to an actual video format (say webm or mp4) and figure it out from there.

battery_cowboy 7y ago

Oh yea, today we can do so much more with less UI, but I'm not into video editing so I'm not sure of what's available. I'm sure there are simpler apps for regular people now.

ScottFree 7y ago
Please let me know if you happen to stumble upon one. Every once in a while, I get the desire to take a small clip of a larger video to use as a gifv. I've yet to find a single video editing program that makes this very simple thing easy for somebody who has no idea what he's doing.
- mtrower 7y ago
  In the past, QuickTime (Pro?) was excellent for this sort of thing; you could just mark the section you wanted right in the player window and export a new clip. I don't know what the present situation is with QuickTime, and obviously that's an Apple solution. There are basically two classes of editors: * "pro" editors, like Premier, and (old?) Final Cut Pro * "home" editors, like iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, OpenShot etc. You want something from the latter category. The general idea is: 1) Add your source video file to a new project 2) Drag that video onto your timeline 3) Edit the timeline to crop your video (various methods depending on user preference) 4) Export your new clip You haven't mentioned your platform, so lets give a simple example using the free, cross-platform OpenShot: 1) Add your source video file to a new project 2) Drag that video onto your timeline 3) Grab the edges of your video clip in the timeline, and drag them to crop your video 4) Export your new clip Short YouTube video (not mine) demonstrating this visually (you don't actually need to select the razor tool): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8zmqfXXS60 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8zmqfXXS60 --- Is this an easy enough method? I think to get any easier than that, you may be looking at a purpose-built tool to do only the simple thing you want, rather than a general purpose editing tool. --- edit: I didn't see your file format requirement. I honestly don't know anything about .gifv; it appears to not actually be a file format at all, but some tomfoolery that Imgur is engaging in? You'll have to export to an actual video format (say webm or mp4) and figure it out from there.