editing / converting .mov files

[Roaders]

Hello people - I am a bit of a newbie at this and am not sure if I am postin gin the right place but here we go...

I've got a digital camera that also records movies as .mov's. I have put these on my site but they are very big and can't be streamed so I would like to turn them into wmv's (smaller, can be streamed ect).

I would also like to be able to edit these movies by chopping the start / end off ect.

I would also like to be able to turn the videos into animated gifs for avatars for example.

Is there one, easy to use program that will do all this. Free would be fantastic but I don't mind paying as long as it is not hugely expensive.

You can check out one of my vidoes here . (although honestly this thread wasn't jsut an excuse to post a link to my video!!)

[megamachine]

TMPGEnc has an optional plugin that enables you to convert MOV files. For details, have a look at this guide: http://www.divx-digest.com/articles/mov2avi.html

[megamachine]

Sorry, just noticed you are interested in making WMV. The above is for AVIs. Ulead Video Studio accepts MOV files, and can convert to WMV, along with many other formats. It often comes bundled with video cameras and capture cards, so maybe you can locate a CD to try it out.

[Roaders]

Thanks, I am downloading the trial jsut now. Is $100 though - suppose about £50. At least I get to try it first so I'll know if it really does what I want.

Thanks

[shiny#3]

your requested task could be performed by software which is free
go to the site www.divx-digest.com

go to the software section
download mov2avi this tool can extract the movie and audio files
from your *.mov file and safe it as avi.

then you can download the Windows media encoder from Microsoft's home page which is for free
with this you can convert your avi file to any size in *.WMV or asf corresponding to the bandwidth of your customers or preferred target group.

note that the QuickTime Professional edition is also able to export your mov file to mpeg 4 or avi or even *3gp for mobile/cell phones.

if you would like to produce animated gifs for the use with avatars
I would suggest the program Ulead gif animator version 5 or higher.

the quota (maximum file size) provided on boards for avatars
is strictly limited. so a reduction of the file size of the animated gifs
is crucial. Ulead does that excelently because you can down sample to used colors only as well as creating a frame for moving parts in that animated gif only.
that makes them pretty small