Thanks everyone for all your helpful comments. For now I'll stick with Movie Maker until I find one that suites my needs. Thanks!

THanks for the wikipedia link GG, some good stuff there.

Virtual Dub, but it only outputs in avi, of course I guess you could always use a converter if you desired anything else. It inputs mpg, bmp, and avi's.

Avidemux, this is mostly used for cropping your videos, but may be useful. Supports way more files than Virtual Dub though.

It depends on what your trying to do... oh, my, yes. if you want to do nonlinear editing (that's what womble mpeg wizard dvd did- full control over what order and timing your video and (separately) audio shows up- well, if you got that.... *use it!*) there are some free- but most with gotchas or heavy learning curves.

Zwei-Stein Video Editor v3.01 is still available.

for more to check out, look at the Closed-source freeware part of the List of video editing software at wikipedia.

dunno where VirtualDub 1.9.7 Stable fits.

if you want to clip commercials or parts of home video that didn't come out right and then stick the rest together- depending on formats- you've got some decent choices that are easy to use- and faster generally since they split and join without re-encoding. and without quality loss.

the ones I use most are Easy Video Splitter and Easy Video Joiner from doeasier.org

dvdvideosoft has a nice set of freebies, including Free Video Dub.

also root around places like the Video Players/Editors section of freewarefiles.

It depends on what your trying to do and what type of computer you have. I finally broke down and got cyberlink power director ultra version8. There are tons of reasons for each editor, but I got this cause it runs on cuda. This lets it run on your gpu. I used to have powerdirector 7, which didnt have this feature and it was so slow, even though I am still using a intel I7.
Now with Power8 and and it using my 285gtx along with my I7, this cuda powered program screams.

The first consumer video editing software to be optimized for Intel Core i7, NVIDIA CUDA, and ATI Stream technology, Power-Director delivers up to 5X faster performance for rendering effects and trans coding videos, with vastly improved editing and previewing speeds.
Learn more about faster performance

Actually anything cuda powered will be faster regardless if your using a 285gtx, just because of how the programing architecture is utilized. Badaboom mediaconverter by nvidia can convert whole movies in about 30 seconds with superb quality using cuda.

check it out- hope this helps in your search
------------------------------------------------------------
oops- sorry its not free
---EDIT---

Ok, I rarely post on these forums, I just moderate. But I could use some help on something. I usually use Windows Movie Maker for editing videos. That's ok but the quality isn't that great. Does anyone know of good, free video editing software? I can't afford to buy anything and already know of trials. But if you could point me in the direction to some good software for this I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!

-Chip

EFB ist einfach nur eine abkürzung für das freeware board, wo ich die info herhabe: http://www.essential-freebies.de/

es ist eines der ältesten deutschen freewareboards, und mein täglicher Stop, genauso wie die giveaway Seite.

und standalone heisst, das program muss installiert werden, und kann nicht von z.b. einem USB stick benutzt werden. (standalone = portable)

Was heißt EFB?
Was heißt Standalone Nein?

für die unter euch, die nicht täglich das EFB besuchen, und gerade eine Videobearbeitungssoftware brauchen:

Name: Magix Video deluxe silver
Version: 15
Grösse: ca. 110 MB
Homepage:
http://www.bild.de/BILD/news/leserreporter/2009/01/06/schnitt-software/fuer-video-clip-erstellung.html
oder
kürzer http://www.magix.com/bild
Lizenz: Vollversion
Screenshot: Nein
Standalone? Nein
Lauffähig ab: 2000, XP, Vista
Beschreibung: Ihr Einstieg in die Welt der Videobearbeitung: Mit MAGIX Video deluxe silver können Sie Ihre Aufnahmen schnell und einfach schneiden, mit Effekten versehen und bequem auf Disc brennen.

Ausgewählte Schnitt- und Nachbearbeitungsfunktionen geben Ihnen einen Vorgeschmack auf die Leistungsfähigkeit der "großen" Video deluxe Versionen wie MAGIX Video deluxe Plus oder MAGIX Video deluxe Premium. Steigen Sie jetzt ein und holen Sie alles aus Ihren Aufnahmen!

http://www.essential-freebies.de/board/viewtopic.php?t=14646

You'd be surprised how many times I commented/posted about VirtualDub on here ;>

VirtualDub is a video capture/processing utility for 32-bit Windows platforms (95/98/ME/NT4/2000/XP), licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It lacks the editing power of a general-purpose editor such as Adobe Premiere, but is streamlined for fast linear operations over video. It has batch-processing capabilities for processing large numbers of files and can be extended with third-party video filters. VirtualDub is mainly geared toward processing AVI files, although it can read (not write) MPEG-1 and also handle sets of BMP images.

Changelog

[features added]
* Added display option for showing display debugging info.
* Frame rate adjustment can now be entered exactly, including as a rational fraction.
* Jobs can now be reloaded for tweaking.
* Capture: Added several options for fine-tuning timing issues with DirectShow-based capture drivers.
* D3D: Improved bicubic algorithm for ps1.1+ capable cards.
* D3DFX: Extended annotation and semantics support -- see help for details.
* Hex editor: Now supports drag and drop.

Link -->> http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=9649&package_id=9727&release_id=536408

A video editing software would be nice
we got enough converting programs already
It is obvious that Adobe won't be on GOTD, but there are a lot of video software that might join GOTD

Hempman
Thank for the information about some good video editing software.

What happens to my Windows Movie Maker is ... it shuts down on me. It will stay open for around thirty seconds, or until I browse for a file. Then it just cuts off with no error warning. I have tried Windows Update, I tried uninstalling and reinstalling, and it still does the same thing. When I went in search for help on this problem, I read that many others have problems with it as well and the editors of some of these sites where they give ratings, rated Windows Movie Make low, because of the problems it gives so many people.

Even though I can not afford such prices as those you mentioned, I will still take a look at the sites to see what these programs offer. I was hoping that maybe GiveAwayoftheDay would be able to offer some decent editing program.

Thanks again.

If you are speaking about FREE video editing software, there really is not any worth recommending that is totally free.

There is a decent kinda free multi-format editor named Multiquence offered by a company that also offers a top shelf audio editor Goldwave. http://www.goldwave.com/

The kinda free thing is that you can use the program for free, but unless you buy it, a nag screen pops up every so many edits. If you save yous stuff when it pops up, close the program and open it again, it works again for a while until so many edits go by (I forget how many).

If you mean - the best video system you can get - then I recommend Avid Express Pro, which runs about $300 if you have a legitimate student in the house, lists for about $1,500 otherwise. You get disks for Windows AND Mac (runs on both) and a dongle. You could load the software on as many machines as you want, but it only runs with the USB dongle.

Some people like Final Cut Pro, but it is fairly primitive next to Avid Express Pro, and only runs on Macs. It costs about $1,200.

A much less expensive system is the Pinnacle Studio system. It does not have the power of the AVID system, but is perfect for the home user. Very stable and worth the bucks. I recommend watching CompUSA or BestBuy and get the Moviebox system that works for you computer. Around $150 for the top shelf includes all the connectors you need to plug in a camera, tape deck, DVD whatever. Supports all editing and burning tapes or DVD's.

mistree, what error does it give you? Or does it simply give the 'This program has performed an illegal operation...'-type box?

Also, I'm not sure what type of video editing you want to do, but you may be interested in VirtualDub.

Yes, I have already tried that too. I even tried to re-install it to see if that would help. I found out however that I am not the only one who has trouble with it. While I was looking around for a re-stall, I read articles about the problems others have with it. On my grandson's computer, his works okay ... but it just don't want to work on mine.

oh mayb u could try updating MS programs thru the Windows Update service. there may be patches for Movie maker.

I could if it wouldn't always shut down on me everytime ... :<(

u could use windows movie maker :D

http://www.deskshare.com/vem.aspx

How about a good video editor program? Don't know how good this one is, but was searching and found this one. Would love to have something by Adobe, but know that is out of the question.

well if GOTD gave away AVS Video Editor or Adobe Premiere, then you could be just fine

I'm looking for some video editing software thats a little more versatile than windows movie maker, and that has a few more options/effects, because WMM gets pretty dull...

Free is always good :)