Hi all,
been trying to finally do something with a whole bunch of windsurfing and SUP footage. When using Windows Movie Maker it keeps closing down.
Ive found out that the files Im trying to load are way too big. Newby mistake, fair enough.
But is there anyway of extracting certain bits or am I wasting my time??
When i go out for a sail I just turn it on and leave it, is the best way to keep stopping and starting the camera???
Thanks,
Larko.
Shell out a decent video editing software, well half decent, for around $100....
You also need to make sure you have enough RAM for video editing and HD space..... the minimum specs at least for the program.....
Takes a lot of resources to edit footage.....
I do most of my editing on a cheap laptop and have no issues, You might just have too many programs running in the back ground killing your CPU. Try turning off all the stuff you don't use(a lot of services/programs start when you boot up) then go into "task manager" (if using windows) and change the priority setting for the software you use to "high". Don't change it to "real time" unless you have a kick @ss computer, but if you did you wouldn't be having this issue anyway.
It does not matter what software you use, Just save after every few minutes so when it freezes you don't loose so much work. Every editor I've ever used crashes at some point. You can get good software for about a hundred bucks, Online versions are much cheaper then buying it from a retail store. I've used all the generic ones, which do a good job but if you get the video bug you will need better software.
I used Sony Vegas(www.vegascreativesoftware.com/us/?utm_source=sonycreativesoftware&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=redirect&lang=us&prdt=vegassoftware)when I started out which I've found to be easy to learn and you can do some good effects(download a trial from there website). I'm hooked on it now and so have upgraded to "Sony Vegas Pro". It's 10X better but also 5X the price, You get what you pay for.
Did I mention....."Save your project on a regular basis".
You can cut sections out of Quicktime Pro so the clips are smaller than 2 GB - any bigger and Sony Vegas not worky, but as Toody said the easiest way is to start and stop the camera every few runs.
The following are some H264 trimmers that don't re-compress the footage (basically keeps the trimmed footage looking perfect)
Free:
Mpeg Streamclip (requires certain versions of Quicktime Player or Quicktime Alternative to be installed)
Avidemux
there are quite a few other free apps too, with varying interfaces 
VideoRedo TV Suite is a commercial program that works quite nicely
I've had a good look at my gopro files today and it looks as if the gopro itself splits the files at 3.66gb. Not sure if it's different from model to model but this would remove the need to stop and start your camera all the time.
Most programs have clip trimmers built in, use this to make sub-clips and then import them into your time-line. Make sure you have copied your video to the hard drive first, don't import from the camera or the memory card directly into the software. Also you should be able to adjust the movies preview quality, set it to medium or draft. It chews up a lot of power doing the rendering for the preview on the fly if it's set to high.
sorry if i'm stating the obvious here, but for those not in the know;
the 3.6-ish file split is generally due to the fat32 filesize limitation
it's worth noting that some of the trimmers bundled with cameras re-compress the footage after trimming, which generally leads to some quality loss (but not always noticeable)
(sorry if answered already)
Go on GoPro site, has a converter freeware for owners of a Gopro, etc.
Email me and I'll send you a couple of freewares that are tops to clip part of an AVI, which you can then re-feed into Maker. Maker is limited.
