Basic video editor choices

[FatRakoon]

I have bought a small number of apps and I have tried a couple of free options, but nothing seems to do what I want it to do, not without some reason to hate the app.

For example,

I have a video file and I want to cut it in half. Niceand simply and have a part one and a part 2

I ismply want to lod that file into something, cut at a specific time and then save it.

At best, what I can do, is make 2 copies and load up the first and then cut the end off it and then do the same with the second file but then cut the first half of it.
Then, to make matters worse, I then have to wait several days for it to export ( Ok, slight lie, but it might as well be )

Similarly, I have a video file that the start and the end needs clipping off, and again, I have nothing to do a quick clean up of the ends.

I do a lot of home videos for our club, and I currently use TMPGDVDEnc and this is a very dated program, but, it VERY quick, however, it can only work with DVDs and sure, for the most part, this has been fine because the end results we have ended up with DVDs, but we lose out on so much quality when we have hours of footage and it would be best if we simply had load of MP4 or AVI Files instead.

More recently I have just bought Wondershare video editor, and thats a fairly poor app, but typically, it imports instantly, and allows me to do some basic editting instantly, but then when I export the file, it takes bloody ages to save it. Totally useles?

If I knew of afiletype it coule export instantly, then ?I could do that maybe and then convert back when Im done?

But, I cannot justify spending too much money, but has anyone any suggestion for somethign to try?

Thanks a lot.

 

[FatRakoon]

Davinci?
Rings a bell, and no, not just for his genius work, but I always thought that was Graphical and not video? I will give it a look then!

Blender?
Ah, another one I have heard of, btu never given a look. That will be another one to look to yes, thanks you.

WMM.
Hell, I remember that one... Quick check in my archives and sure enough, I have the installer for Win 7 & 8 and so Having 10, I thought Id give it a shot and its gone in, and its opened up withotu a hitch.

Tried to import a file but its notcompatible, so Im converting that to a WMV to have a play...

Side note :-
Boy WMV convertion is ridiculously slow? I have converted this same video file from MKV to MP4 and it took about 4 minutes.
looking at the WMV convertion, I have turned on this laptop, checked my emails, seen the email about these replies, clicked on that, had some whining about firefox, and Avast had to cleam up my browser stuff, I had to re-log in to firefox,and then close it and click on the link again to open it, and then I have typed down this whole reply and I am only on 42.9% on teh convertion!

How poor can you get?

 

[FatRakoon]

Ok, test No1 - Windows Movie Maker.

I have managed to cut the video where I wanted it cut, and I am now saving what I hope to be the bit I want.

That was easy enough.

Problem 1 = Speed. It imported it instantly, but its now saving it painfully slow.
Problem 2 = Video dimensions... It seems to have cut it down to 640x480, so I ahve lost the resolution?

The number of times I need to do this, means the speed may be an issue.
The Resolution might be a setting, so I will look into that.

Additional:
After watching the resulting file, the quality is massively dropped, and the video has gone from a letterbox to a square. So, Movie maker seems to be something thats not going to be good enough.
I will see about settings, but other than that, I will try Blender next.