Video editing FAIL
I love the Greater Grafton camera. It’s a Canon Powershot SX10IS, with a sweet 20x zoom, and I’ve practically had it surgically implanted since I bought it earlier this year. One of the many reasons why I chose it: it shoots video.
I edited a lot of reporter-shot video at my last job from cameras that were a lot smaller than mine. I figured doing it from this one would be a piece of cake. Sure, I did my editing on a Mac rather than a PC, but Windows Movie Maker looked similar to what I had been using and I also had the Canon software that came with the camera — how hard could it be?
Cut to last night, around 10:30. I had just finished putting in a gallery of Little League photos at GraftonTimes.com (culled from over 200 photos!) and filing my story. Time to tackle video!
The first clue that I was in for a rough night came when I couldn’t drag and drop the .mov files into Movie Maker. What’s up with that? I did a little more fiddling and whoops — Movie Maker doesn’t support .mov files. Fantastic. Of course it doesn’t. I swore quietly at Microsoft for another fantastic product.
I turned to the Canon software. It played the video beautifully. There was even a little button with a pair of scissors that said “cut movie,” which certainly indicates that I could edit video using that software, right?
Nope. I clicked “cut movie” and it informed me that wasn’t an allowed function. What the heck…
I looked on a digital camera forum and, sure enough, discovered other users complaining about the issue. I downloaded a free conversion program to change the .mov to .avi. The new footage was full of glitches. I tried another one. That took forever and in the end? More glitches.
I’m told that the version of Photoshop Elements that we use at the office may support this format, so I’m going to try again a little later.
Yeah, bad me for not attempting video editing sooner. But what the hell? Who sells a camera with a video editing program that doesn’t support the video the camera actually produces? Apparently Canon.
Not as unusual as you might think!
Sony were distributing a version of Pixela something… with their original mini-DVD camcorders a few years or so back.
Most never got to the actual editing part because the software would totally (and I mean totally!) crash the computer upon installation. Nice one!
For your situation there is a free program called Super available if you just search for it. It should be able to convert the .mov files to another less compressed format. My choice would be DV.avi as it is the most editor friendly. Once you have completed your masterpiece you can then output to your distribution format.
Good luck!
Oh yeah, MovieMaker is utterly worthless.
The VideoHelp website has nearly everything in the freeware and shareware category with download links. I’ve found it to be the best place to go for finding video editing solutions like the one you slammed up against here.
As far as converting the .mov to another format with a free tool – my first try would be Handbrake. Free and available on both Mac and Windows.
Gracias. Will try any and all of them should Elements fail me.
I’m both stubborn and not afraid of technology, which is why I’m functioning on only five hours of sleep right now!
I think, if I’m not mistaken, that this meaningless comment will put me into the record books. But seriously, I am looking forward to seeing some video here. Can’t wait.
OK, Handbrake converted it beautifully but… the picture is jerky. I think it’s a speed issue. I’ll fiddle with it some more later today, but I really need to add a bunch of stuff to GraftonTimes.com now.
I am so not happy with Canon right now that it’s not funny. And I usually think devoted, cherishy thoughts about my camera. What’s the point of including video you can’t freaking edit? Do they not understand I’m a one-woman media show here? Sheesh!
Take a cannon to the Canon!!