Does anybody know of any free editing software that we can use to put together a highlight reel of past video footage? The idea is to have the highlight real available in our Corporate Security Office to show the value of security cameras/footage, and the general education regarding cameras, and also to show the kind of incidents that have/can occur.
Highlight Reel For Corporate Office
iMovie is great for this.
FREE editing software... For Corporate Security Office? To edit video into something worth showing in any office requires skill not only how to use the software but more importantly what to keep or discard.
If you are looking for free editing software I assume that you have not done this before, so if you value your time and sanity outsource this job to a freelancer on fiverr.com, elance or pph.
I will say one of my customers gained a higher budget for future projects after showing the corporate management team successful captures and attempts. It's certainly worth doing and if movie making isn't your strong point I would find a friend or co-worker that is good.
We are not looking to put together anything fit for broadcast or trying to win any awards. Tony and I already have all the clips edited and saved the problem is they are in all different formats. Pelco, OnGuard, Windows, etc. etc. etc. Problem is everything we saved is in the native format and some of the formats we have not used in years.
So when we need to do a little dog and pony show for HR or Senior management I want one file that the Officer can just click on and let it play for five or ten minutes as opposed to trying to find and open all these separate players and clips.
Ross, good explanation.
How about using a screen recording application, play each clip back from various vendors / players, and the screen recording app will record it all into one single video that you can then export with standard file / video player? If interested, try Camtasia (Windows) or Screenflow (Mac).
Thanks John! We will take a peek at those. Right now I would prefer to do it within the department and not have our AV services crew involved so the screen capture route would be perfect!
Thanks Greg we have tried VLC in the past and at that time it did not open Pelco's PNS format.
I've found that unless the VMS has built in editing capability (some do, like Geutebruck and IndigoVision), your best bet is to convert the clips to a non-proprietary format like MPEG4. Once that is accomplished, there are several free and/or inexpensive editing softwares, including Windows Movie Maker.
If you're looking to do this on the cheap, I would just sub it to someone on fiverr.com.
I like Fiverr and used it a number of times but I am not sure if I would be comfortable sending them my security video clips. That's obviously Ross / Tony's call here.
No chance we are letting these clips out of our control. If some of them showed up on online it would be a VERY bad day in the HMI Security department!
If you can't trust a 23 year old Albanian kid with a fiverr account, who can you trust?
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