The "Multimedia Suite" that came with my newish IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad turns out to be junk, it seems.

Can anyone recommend software that can do the following? A suite that does all is fine, separate applications, OK, too.

1. edit video: import video from a DVD, edit and burn a new version
2. burn CDs
3. copy DVDs
4. Copy CDs

I am not a pro looking for complex applications. I just have some videos of my own work - demonstrating various things in front of a class - that I would like to edit.

The copy function is also just to copy regular homemade videos on DVD.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Oh, yes, price is a bit of a factor.

For the burning side of it I strongly recommend ImgBurn. Free download.

It's also got the ability to read a disk and save it as an .iso image which you could then turn around and burn, thus giving you copy capability. I've done basically nothing with this capability, though, so I can't comment on it.

It does not have video editing capability.

Ulead, Roxio, Nero

Get a used or refurbed Mac Mini. It comes with iLife. So easy you don't even need a manual to use it. Great DVD menu templates. Good movie effects. All of the applications work together.

You could probably find a used Mac Mini for $300.

I went through and tried all of the paid and shareware/freeware software out there. Each had some problem with it (for my needs).

I settled on Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0 - which has been great. I got it for around $45 online.

Does anyone have good suggestions for the h.264/.mts files you get from a Sony HD handycam when shooting in HD?

Nero manages them, but holy cow, is it slow. And there doesn't seem to be a good HD output option; I can finish in good quality MPEG-2 or MPEG-4, but it's not HD.

What I'd like to do is edit in HD, save in HD, then downsample/convert to MPEG-2 for DVD's or Tivo.

Thanks!

Steve

Yes, I second the Adobe PE3 for burning VCD, and DVD. As a video editing tools, it is not quite as user friendly as Microsoft's PhotoStory 3 (free download for legit registered Windows user). Sometime you can find a bundled Adobe Photoshop Elements 5 and PE3 for less than $100. The former is a simple tool to clean up photos before exporting it to PE3 and turn it into a video (that is making a video with still photos). Of course, PE3 handles video inputs as well. The edited video by PS3 can then be exported to PE3 for burning.

Sony's Vegas Movie Studio or Ulead's VideoStudio for video stuff
Nero for burning (supports Lightscribe and LabelFlash drives)
PowerISO or MagicISO for tweaking ISO capability

What kind of editing do you want to do? Are you looking to just trim scenes, or do you want to do more -- titles, effects, transitions, corrections, etc.?

How ambitious are you? Is this something that you want to turn into a hobby, or is it more casual?

What source video will you be editing? Mpeg? DV-codec avi? HD?

What do you want to do with the DVDs? Will they just be for sending around clips to friends and family? Do you want menus? How much material will you be putting on the DVD?

If you can answer these questions, I can provide some guidance. Without it, it's just a game of, "what's your favorite software?"

My favorite software for video is:

Scenealyzer Live for capture.
Adobe Premiere Pro for editing and compositing.
Cool 3D Edit for animated 3D titles.
Tmpgenc for transcoding.
Adobe Encore for DVD authoring.
Nero for DVD burning.

That is just really bad advise. Someone looking for cheap video editing software for his new notebook should not be told to "buy a mac".

Nero at $50 would be just perfect for this and doesn't require an entirely new machine.

AND, on Ebay most mini's sell for around $350+shipping and most of them don't even come with a keyboard and mouse AND only have 512Mb of ram. Have you ever tried upgrading the ram in a mini? It's a nightmare, just like video editing will be with that little memory.

Seriously, the "buy a mac" advise just doesn't always apply.

I didn't read closely enough -- you answered most of my questions.

Premiere Elements is an excellent choice and, I believe, will let you burn DVDs from the timeline -- no additional software needed.

I would suggest:

1.
Premiere Pro - good but huge learning curve and big $$
Ulead VideoStudio/Pinnacle Studio/Sony Vegas Video - good programs for basic importing, capturing, and editing


2.3.4.
IMGBurn - great freeware burner. Nero is good but bloatware and IMGBurn is better at layer breaks for DVD-9's.

Other points:

• Agree with comment about NOT "just buy a Mac". In fact, in the early days, the Macs didn't even have a decent DVD burning program
• There's a lot more to "import video from DVD and edit". Actually quite complicated unless you built your own VOB structure
• Any noob authoring program will probably work for you to "author" your DVD. (eg. Ulead DVD Creator, etc)
• One of the best authoring programs out there is DVDLab Pro

Thanks to all for the information.

What is need to do is - I thought - relatively simple. In my classes some on videos demonstrations. I get these on a DVD.

I would like just to be able to:

- edit out sections where not much is happening
- perhaps to insert sections containing explanations.

In a small business, one wears all the hats. I now do some edtiing of the sound files of lectures, etc. Removing a section, copy and past and all of that is easy to do with a program called GoldWave - shareware $45.00.

I don't mind spending $100.00 or so. It seems that Adobe Premiere Edition will allow me to do the simple operations I mention and has the most votes for beginner level and price.

Thanks to all.

I prefer Nero for burning. I've used Roxio, and I find it problematic. It also depends on what your operating system is.

DVD video is in mpeg2 format. Importing the video may or may not be straight-forward. If these are non-commercial DVDs, you may be able to rename files with a .vob extension to .mpg. I do not know whether Elements can handle mpeg, but it takes a lot of computing horsepower except to do cuts-only. Waht you're talking about doing isn't really editing. For cuts-only, take a look at VideoReDo or Womble, both of which can handle mpeg cuts.