A week or so ago I posted a list of free utilities to help for those of you using your general purpose computer for video editing. In the course of doing something mindless today I suddenly remembered two more that I completely forgot at the time.

Not sure really how I could forget these because both of them are great tools to have.

The first one is an audio editor and audio manipulation software. I know I already recommended Audacity in the last post on this subject but this one is a little more user friendly.

The program is called Power Sound Editor Free and is just crammed with features and functionality… and beside, ya can’t beat the price!

You can take a look at it here at Power Sound Editor Free

The other free software I forgot to mention is specifically for those of you doing DV.avi video capture from standard definition tape based camcorders.

Most video editing software is actually four or more types of software crammed into one. Video capture, video editing, video titling and video output of some kind like DVD or whatever. Most of the consumer level video programs tend to be “jacks of all trades and masters of none.”

DV.avi capture can sometimes get a little problematic because the sheer size of the files being transferred and more importantly, the sustained rate at which the data has to be transferred. The video capturing part of the software can’t stop the process of transfer to catch up if the computer is struggling.

If the video editing software does fall behind then the program starts to “drop frames.” That means it just skips a few frames to catch up.

The correct and tolerable number of dropped frames is actually ZERO! Ifyou do get dropped frames then in the editing stage or the rendering stage you will have problems.

The answer to that is another very small and very simple little utility called WinDV. It is a standalone program so you don’t actually install it, just plonk it down on your hard drive wherever you want…don’t forget where!

Because it is purpose built for only capturing DV.avi it manges the Windows memory system very well and I think you have to be kicking your computer while you are capturing video to get it to drop frames.

You can download it at this link here: WinDV

Ok, this time I think that’s all… but then again I may think of something else!

Sometimes its not about the video editing software you choose alone. Most of us don’t have a dedicated video editing computer and have to make do with the one we have. These are ten of my favorite free utilities that I use to make the job of video editing a little less stressful…on me and the computer!

1. CCleaner

Starting off life many years ago as Crap Cleaner (my preferred name for this program!) CCleaner remains one of the great freeware programs available for Windows users today. Video editing is a resource hungry activity and it is not helped in any way by piles of useless temp files, folders and goodness only knows what other…well.. crap that builds up over time.

CCleaner run once a week or even just before you start a video editing session will go a long way towards a stress free experience. As a bonus CCleaner also has a rather nice Windows Registry cleaner in it as well.

www.CCleaner.com

2. Smart Defrag from IObit.com
Once you have used CCleaner to take out the garbage then the next order of business is to get organised. Give that hard drive a good defrag and keep it defragged.

Smart Defrag is a full-featured disc optimization tool with a well-designed interface. It has an auto defrag function or you can schedule defragging for when you are not likely to be using your computer.

On the downside the first run through your hard drives may take a little time but it is a good idea to use the “deep optimization” for this first run then leave it in “set and forget” mode from then on.

It may be a good idea if your are a little short on computer resources to suspend the program while running your video editing software.

Smart Defrag

3. Lupas Rename
Video editing software programs are a little inconsistent regarding how you can name the files you import or capture for editing. VideoStudio is the perfect example of no control whatsoever potentially resulting in hundreds of cryptically named video files that give no clue as to what they are and where they came from. Other programs differ widely.

Lupas Rename is a handy little utility that allows you to select and entire folder of files or more and have it rename those files with more meaningful names. It will respect the file sequence of the originals so you don’t have a bunch of files that are now renamed and out of order!

When you are working on large projects organization of your video, audio and still image assets is a must if you want to retain your sanity…Lupas Rename can help there!

Lupas Rename

4. Smart Close
Smart Close is a tiny little program that you can use to quickly shut down any unnecessary service or programs running in Windows prior to embarking on a video editing session.  Instead of searching around trying to find them all and shut them down you can do it with one step using Smart Close.

I have already mentioned the resource intensiveness of using your computer as a video editor so it is wise to shut down everything you can and give yourself a break.

Smart Close

5. CleanMem
CleanMem is a tiny app that once installed, calls up Windows every half hour and tells Windows to release the memory being used by any programs that are idle. Just a great little program all round. Not just for video editing but for general computer use.

Once you download, install the program and it automatically sets itself up to run. You never have to touch it again and it will keep as much memory free as possible while you are working on your computer. I have had this on my workstation for a few months now and the difference in speed is noticeable. Especially good for video editing when you need all the memory you can get devoted to the video editing software functions.

CleanMem

6. LightBox Advanced Digital Image Editor
Blown your entire budget on a video editor? Afraid to approach the wife/husband/partner/credit card/bank manager or other financial overlord for additional funds for a good image editor? Fear not!

LightBox is a great digital image editor with lots of features to tidy up your shots before placing them in a video project. The free version should be all you need and although you can unlock more advanced features by buying a license, the free stuff should be enough.

LightBox

7. Audacity
Simply a great free audio editor. For those times when the built-in audio capabilities of your video editing software isn’t enough.

Audacity

8. Windows Media Encoder
Most video editing software will have the capability of outputting to WMV files. They generally do this by calling up the Windows Media Encoder in the background and instructing it what to do. Now Windows is not exactly renowned for their…cooperative software! The usual result is slow encoding with reduced options and control.

A faster and far more controllable process is to install this encoder yourself and you directly tell it what to do. More often that not you will get better, faster results and let’s face it, WMV is still a very widely used format for many distribution situations.

Windows Media Encoder

9. Super
Super is kind of a strange piece of software but either way it gets the job done. It will input and output to a wide range of file types and these days this is very often what you may need.

The new highly compressed files of today are not that great for editing and sometimes you may need to convert them to a more editor friendly format. Super gets the job done. It does have a rather confusing interface which presents a vast array of choices. Worth the time to get to know it.

Super

10. CamStudio
Not up for paying $300 to buy Camtasia? Your existing video editing software doesn’t do screen captures for all those “how to” screen casts you are planning…no problem! Camstudio is small and effective allowing good control over screen capture and will output to .avi or .flv files.

CamStudio

So, how about you? Know of any great (or not so) free programs or utilities to use when you are stretching the home computer with the rigors of video editing?

Video editing software programs need plenty of memory, processing power and free disc space in order to run smoothly.

The ideal situation is that you and I have dedicated video editing computers that we don’t use for anything else….yeah right! I don’t know about you but that’s not going to happen at my house!

So…there are some simple steps you can take to greatly increase your chances of success with video editing on your multi-use computer that won’t break the bank and will help keep your blood pressure down.

One of the keys to successful video editing is to understand exactly what you are dealing with and what your computer is trying to do when it is handling the various video file formats you may be dealing with. Now I know the video editing software makers promote everything as “point and click your way to success” and “any idiot can do it!”

My experience over the years has been that the truth is this: any normally intelligent person can be made to feel like an idiot because they have been lied to about just how much they need to understand about the process they are undertaking.

Just a basic knowledge of what your are doing and how the computer is doing it will open you up to a whole world of relatively stress free video editing!

First of all lets take a look at video file formats

One of the original digital video file formats was called uncompressed .avi. This format occupied about 65gb per hour of video and at the time it came out NO-ONE had that kind of real estate on their hard drives so although it provided the best standard definition quality it was near impossible for the home user to edit.

Next came DV.avi. This one is the standard definition video format that is used on all tape camcorders and has for years been the workhorse of home video editing. It is slightly compressed but in a way that makes recording, playback and, most importantly, editing a breeze. All common video editing software right now will eat this format up with relish! It occupies about 13gig per hour of video and requires very little processing power. It is recorded at 25Mb per second because that is the maximum the tape recording system can handle reliably.

A few years back MPEG2 came into being and this is important because it marks the departure point of where it all went haywire. MPEG2 was solely developed as a distribution format. There was never any consideration given as to how it could be edited because the assumption was that the original format would be DV.avi or uncompressed .avi.

A little later Sony came up with the idea of DVD camcorders using MPEG2. Sony rather stupidly assumed that people would just record to the DVD in the camcorder, bang it in the DVD player at home and watch it. The general public ate up this idea and Sony sold gazillions of them as did all the other DVD camcorder manufacturers.

Of course it was only a matter moments before the public started to call for the ability to edit their DVD camcorder files and the fun began! What followed were about three years of “tears before bedtime” until the video editing software programmers finally nailed down the ability to edit those MPEG2 files reliably on home computers.

The inherent problems with MPEG2 were that it was never designed for editing and that it’s method of compression involved actually throwing away repeated data from the original captured images. That was balanced out by pretty good video quality at standard definition and vastly smaller file sizes, around 6 to 7 gig per hour of video.

Finally we had an explosion of very highly compressed video file formats that are typically MPEG4. They come under many names like DivX, Xvid, H.264, .mov and on and on. These once again were not designed for editing and the way they get that incredible compression is by throwing away huge amounts of data. To achieve playback and rendering of those files an enormous amount of work is thrown on to the CPU (processor) of the computer.

The slow trade off over time has been video files that have been getting smaller whilst maintaining quality but requiring greater and greater processing power for playback and most importantly editing. Then along came High Definition and the demands on the computer went through the roof!

There two types of High definition video files at the moment. HDV which is just MPEG2 recorded at a higher resolution and very high data rate. I like to think of it as MPEG2 on crack!

AVCHD, which is an MPEG4 variant again recorded at a higher resolution and a very high data rate that requires big, big processing power to playback and even more to edit!

When we add to all of that the complexity of other programs already existing on a computer and other functions the average home computer has to perform sometimes it seems a miracle that we can edit video files at all. But edit them we can…and do.

Even if you don’t want to understand all of this there are some basic steps you can take to help your computer deal with either the huge file sizes or the heavy demands placed on it for video editing.

1. Disconnect From the Internet.

There may be any number of programs on your computer, including Windows, that at any time wish to do an “E.T.” They may suddenly decide it is time to “phone home” and check for updates or whatever. Normally this is fine but if your computer is halfway through handling some huge amount of data transfer or some wildly complex calculation then this may just be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

2. Switch Off All Unnecessary Programs

Prior to an editing session go through the computer and shut down any programs that may be running in the background. This can include anti-virus programs, screen savers or any program that pre-loads itself just in case you may need it.

This will free up memory and your video editing software will thank you. You can also go into the task manager in Windows and take a look at the “services” that are running. Very often you will see programs running here that are unnecessary but make sure you know for sure you don’t need it. When in doubt…leave it.

3. Take Out the Garbage.

It is frightening the amount of crap that accumulates on the average computer especially if it is used for browsing the internet. One of the keys to successful video editing is to have acres and acres of hard disc real estate available for the video editing software to use. When the computer and operating system are under stress they will just slap data down onto the hard drive wherever they can in order to keep going. The more space you provide for them the smoother it all goes.

My favourite for cleaning up is CCleaner which used to be called Crap Cleaner for a good reason. It cleans out all the crap! It also has a nice registry cleaner as well and the price is just right…free! Do a search for it.

4. Defrag, Defrag, Defrag.

The operating system over time has a tendency to spread pieces of data all over the hard drive. This means that your hard drive may be showing a certain amount of free space but that may not be usable free space because data is littered everywhere. Defragging the hard drive results in the actual free space being grouped together and this takes an incredible load off the operating system in trying to decide where to put data on that drive.

Generally I defrag before capturing/transferring video files from an external source and then once I have completed the capture/transfer I defrag again. With that done I know that all my original video file assets are nicely packed together and all my free space is packed together. Finally just before I am ready to render my completed project to a DVD or final video file I defrag again.

5. Patience is a Virtue.

There are many steps in video editing that require either huge amounts of data to be moved from one location to another or to be processed by the computer. It is common for you to do something or tell the program to do something and you think nothing happened. This is where patience comes in. Get used to the idea that this can sometimes take time and give your computer a minute or two to catch up before you start hitting other buttons or trying to escape. This only makes things worse and may cause the program to crash or freeze when really all it was doing was what you wanted. Slow down, it’s not a notepad file you are dealing with!

Hope this helps!