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I recorded a conference with my Sony camcorder that saves files as MPEG2.

Since I only had a single camera and the speaker didn't provide the PowerPoint slides afterwards, every time a slide was shown through the projectori, I had to move the camera from the speaker to the slides and back a few times during the talk.

So now I need to edit the file to get rid of those movements, and display the shots of the slides long enough each time so the video is steady; I don't know how it's called ("video overlay"?).

Is there a newbie-friendly, free NLE that can do this, such as VirtualDub or AviDemux, or do I have to buy a commercial solution such as Sony Vegas Studio?

Thank you.

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  • You can probably do it with either VirtualDub or AviDemux, certainly AVISynth could but I'm not sure I'd call any of those three "newbie-friendly". More like, "almost not obnoxious for a power-user."
    – AJ Henderson
    Mar 14, 2014 at 0:45
  • there are other better and cheaper options than Vegas available to you. Vegas (at least the pro version) is overly complicated for your needs as well and thus not particularly newbie friendly either. I've personally however not been in the newbie friendly scene for about 15 years, so I'm not sure, personally, what works well in that space. We do have some other posts that talk about beginner friendly video or cheap/free editors.
    – AJ Henderson
    Mar 14, 2014 at 13:10

2 Answers 2

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iMovie comes free with a Mac and can easily do what you want. Here's how I'd do it, for each section you want to replace with a freeze frame:

  1. Decide where you want to start and stop the freeze frame. Cut the video clip at each of those points (right-click and select "Split").
  2. See how long (exactly) that section is.
  3. Within that section, click on the frame you want to use for the freeze frame. Right-click it and select "Freeze Frame". That will create a 4-second freeze frame.
  4. Double-click the freeze frame and set its length to exactly the length of the clip you're replacing.
  5. With the freeze frame clip still selected, click on the "Crop" tool. The crop will automatically apply animation (called "Ken Burns"). I would change it to "Fit".
  6. Right click on the first half of the clip you're replacing with the still frame. Select "Detatch Audio". Drag that detatched audio over the first half of your freeze frame. Select the now-silent clip and delete it.
  7. Do step 6 again for the second half of the clip you're replacing.

That should do it! Let me know if you have any questions. (And please mark this question as "The Answer" if it's useful!)

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Even Windows Movie Maker could probably handle what you are looking at doing. If you export a still of the slide from the video, just about any software can insert a still image in to a video.

There are also a number of other cheap video editing solutions targeted at consumers that would meet your newbie friendly requirement while still accomplishing your needs. Most of the free options on Windows are a bit difficult to understand due to the very limited controls. On the flip side, most professional software (Vegas Pro, Premiere Pro, etc) have so much complexity and power that they become overly difficult to use due to the breadth of controls and the number of options.

You really want something in the middle.

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