2 Questions about video editing.

[Tornado]

This likely isn't the correct forum to post this, but I'm not sure where I should put it otherwise.


So I have some videos that need very light editing work, but I'm not sure if I can do them without reencoding them. There are two different problems that I want to solve.

• Some of the videos have audio that is off. Only a half-second or so, but off nonetheless. I was wondering if there was any way to make it so the audio lines up correctly with the video easily. I'd imagine that I wouldn't even need video editing software to do this, because I'm pretty sure I could simply split the audio and edit it separately and then join the two back up. However, I was wondering what the best way to fix it would actually be.
• The other video is simply something I'm removing bits from to get rid of some parts that I don't want. Now, I'm not sure whether it is accurate or not, but I was under the impression that you should be able to do subtractive editing to a video and not have to reencode it. Is that true?

Any suggestions as to programs that would work best would be appreciated as well, as I can edit them when I go to school with either Vegas Pro 9 or Premiere Pro CS3.

 

[arvin charles]

What you need to sync up the audio is an editor that allows you to separate the audio & video tracks. That way you can move the audio to where it would match the video. This is a pain in the butt. Trust me, I've learned the hard way.

And yes, you can edit down a piece of video without re-encoding anything, provided that it's already in the format that you want.

As far as what programs to suggest, I'm a big fan of AVID. I haven't used the consumer version, the Pinnacle, but I've used most of their products for work that has been aired.

Another one you can use is Adobe Premier, I don't have personal experience with this one, but I've heard good things about it.

Last but not least, if you have a Mac, you already have an editing software in Final Cut. I'm a PC person, so I'm not too fond of this one, but if someone pays me to use it, I won't complain...

FYI, AVID & Adobe Premier are pretty much industry standards and I don't think you can go wrong with either one.