Video Editing Software

If you have a Mac (with iMovie or Final Cut) or if you have a purchased Adobe Premier or Sony Vegas for your PC then you are way ahead of us (and on your own). The tutorials below are for the basic video editors that come with Windows. There are two versions, one for XP and Vista (Movie Maker) and one for Windows 7 (Live Movie Maker). Please view the tutorials for your version below. Once you have learned the basics you can get advanced advice here.

Windows Movie Maker (XP and Vista)

Obviously the first thing you need to do is transfer your recordings from your camera to your computer. If you have a newer camera is will probably use a hard disk drive, built-in solid state memory or removable memory cards to store the data. If this is the case then simply connect your camera to your computer using a USB cable and you will be able to access the data directly using Windows Explorer (skip the first two tutorials).

If you have an older camera that uses DV or mini DV tapes then your computer will need to "capture" the video from the camera. If will probably not have a USB connection on the camera, but a connection called "Firewire" or "i-Link" instead. You will need to a computer with a Firewire port and a cable to connect it to the camera...

How to connect your DV camera to your computer.

How to capture video from a DV camera.

How to edit a video.

Windows Live Movie Maker (Windows 7)

This version of Movie Maker assumes that your camera stores data on a hard-drive, built-in solid state memory or removable memory cards. If this is the case, simply connect your camera to the computer using a USB cable (or insert the memory card into the card reader connected to the computer). If your camera uses DV tape then you will need to download and use this tiny application to capture the data: WinDV. Sorry there are no video tutorials for this, but you can learn how to use it here.

How to edit a video.