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What's a good free Windows video editor that crops out data in the MP4 video frame?
What's a good free Windows video editor that crops out data in the MP4
video frame? Googling is *almost never* the best way to find the best freeware for certain things because someone who is trying to sell something isn't always neutral on the pros and cons of the freeware. We all know there are plenty of freeware gotchas, from watermarks, to time limits, to missing features, to registration requirements, to spyware insertion, etc. so that's why I ask you this question. Of course, I googled, but Googling is only useful when *every* review says the same thing, which almost never happens. *Testing* each piece of software for the target function is the best way, but that's expensive in terms of time (but is often needed because it's often impossible to find someone who knows the answer). Hence, I ask the question here if anyone here has used Windows freeware to crop out portions of an Android screen-recording MP4 video where this screenshot below shows the portion of the MP4 video that is needed to be cropped out on a one-time need. http://i64.tinypic.com/27xi5hf.jpg I'm seeking the canonical Windows 10 freeware video editor of MP4 files that can blank out areas of the video. Googling, this is what comes up so far, which isn't really helpful for the stated question: - Top 5 Video Editing Software for Windows 10 http://www.techkhoji.com/best-video-editing-software-windows/ * WINDOWS MOVIE MAKER - The best free video editor 2017 http://www.techradar.com/news/software/applications/the-best-free-video-editor-1330136 * Lightworks * Shotcut * Hitfilm Express * VSDC Free Video Editor * Avidemux - Video Editor for Windows 10: Best Movie Editor for Windows 10 http://www.techisky.com/software/video-editor-for-windows-10-best-movie-editor-for-windows-10.html * Windows Movie Maker - 21 Best Video Editors For Free https://www.ezvid.com/21-best-video-editing-software-for-free-download * Ezvid * VideoEasy * Cyberlink Free * Aura Video Editor * Full Motion Video * Moviestorm * Avidemux * VirtualDub * t@b ZS4 Video Editing Software * Blender * Wax * AVIedit * Jahshaka * Movica * Zwei-Stien Video Editor * AVI Trimmer + MKV * Windows Movie Maker * Xilisoft Video Editor * VideoPad Video Editor - Top free video editing software for Windows 10/8/7 http://www.thewindowsclub.com/free-video-editing-software-download-windows * Avidemux * VirtualDub * VideoSpin - Best Video Editing Software for Windows 10 https://filmora.wondershare.com/windows10/video-editing-software-windows10.html * Windows 10 Movie Maker * Filmora - Top 5 Best Free Video Editing Software for Windows 10, 8, 7 https://www.iskysoft.com/video-editing/video-editing-software-for-windows-10.html * Filmora Video Editor * VirtualDub * Pinnacle VideoSpin * Sony Vegas Movie Studio * Windows Movie Maker And the list goes on and on. The *testing* I can always do, and I do test *many* freeware programs. I'm looking for someone who has actually edited videos when I ask the question. If you don't know the answer, that's OK, there's no need to respond. All I want is the answer. So if you know the answer, meaning you've actually done the video editing task on Windows using freeware, then you're the type of person who will have a helpful suggestion. All I'm asking here is for someone who has done this type of editing what they feel the best free Windows 10 video editor is for cropping out information in an MP4 video. |
#2
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What's a good free Windows video editor that crops out data in the MP4 video frame?
"harry newton" wrote
| The *testing* I can always do, and I do test *many* freeware programs. | I'm looking for someone who has actually edited videos when I ask the | question. | | If you don't know the answer, that's OK, there's no need to respond. | All I want is the answer. | So you want someone else to do all that testing for you? I've used Avidemux after trying some other things, including Windows Movie Maker. I was very impressed. To me it's like a graphic editor for video. But I'm not an expert and I haven't tested all of the other 30 items on your list, so I hope I haven't wasted your time. |
#3
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What's a good free Windows video editor that crops out data in the MP4 video frame?
He who is Mayayana said on Thu, 28 Sep 2017 09:46:20 -0400:
So you want someone else to do all that testing for you? C'mon Mayayana. What you're saying is, in effect, "I know the answer but I won't tell you", since it was *extremely clear* I was asking for someone who has already expended the effort to perform the task to just let me know what the answer is. The only effort I'm asking is *obviously* for someone who has done the task already, and who has found the software already, to tell me what he found is the best. Just as if you asked me what's the most reliable free FTP server for Android, I'd tell you it's "FTP Server (Free)" and if you asked what's the most reliable FTP client for Windows I'd tell you it's "FileZilla". How do I know that? Because I've *already* done the reliability testing of tons of software for that purpose. If you ask a question where I don't know the answer, I don't answer; but if you ask a question where I have *already* done the testing, then the only effort that is needed to be expended is to explain the answer. I've used Avidemux after trying some other things, including Windows Movie Maker. I was very impressed. I've used FFMPEG-based editors for years on Linux & Windows for the simplest of things like cropping the timeline of a video and I've bought and installed Pinnacle Studios something like ten years ago and still have the boxed software somewhere - but that's *overkill* for what I want to do as a one-time task, which is block out the areas shown below in this still screenshot in an MP4 video from Android: http://i64.tinypic.com/27xi5hf.jpg To me it's like a graphic editor for video. If I have to dig into the attic to find and unbox my Pinnacle Studios software, I will - but I already know that's tremendous overkill for what I want to do - but it will probably do the job - but it might not handle modern file formats since it was last used on Windows XP years ago. But I'm not an expert and I haven't tested all of the other 30 items on your list, so I hope I haven't wasted your time. Freeware isn't free. The cost of freeware is knowledge. The knowledge is gained at the expense of time & effort. I'll find the answer, and do the task, somehow ... but I was hoping that this ng had at least one person who has already edited video in the way that I need, using Windows freeware. If that person doesn't exist - then this thread will be thankfully very short as I respond to every serious query ... where all I want is the answer to the question: Q: What's a good windows freeware video ed that redacts screen portions? |
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What's a good free Windows video editor that crops out data in the MP4 video frame?
He who is Mayayana said on Thu, 28 Sep 2017 09:46:20 -0400:
So you want someone else to do all that testing for you? I've used Avidemux after trying some other things, including Windows Movie Maker. Hi Mayayana, I finally figured out how to blank out any number of specified disjoint sections of a video using Shotcut freeware which is better than Windows Movie Maker and AviDemjux and VirtualDub for a ton of reasons (not the least of which is that the open-source Shotcut runs on all platforms). So far, this is the *only* video I've found yet that doesn't make the mistake of assuming you already know how to use the entire Shotcut GUI. https://youtu.be/sphcVAUWM4Q Where the video shows how to add text to desired sections at time 430: https://youtu.be/sphcVAUWM4Q?t=430 Following that video, and a few other videos, I put together a text tutorial that will help others get up to speed in just about 15 minutes, if they follow the steps I outlined for them in this thread. If you test out my tutorial, which was designed so that others didn't have to go through what I had to go through, let me know how it works out for you. |
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What's a good free Windows video editor that crops out data in the MP4 video frame?
He who is harry newton said on Thu, 28 Sep 2017 13:40:55 +0000 (UTC):
All I'm asking here is for someone who has done this type of editing what they feel the best free Windows 10 video editor is for cropping out information in an MP4 video. Or, if you have never edited videos for cropping out areas, a suggestion of better search terms (like "redact") would also be useful since searching for cropping or blurring is too vague to get anything other than stock video editor reviews, none of which cover the topic at hand. This gets too generic a result: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=best+freeware+video+editor+crop+blur+tool+Windo ws+10 https://duckduckgo.com/?q=best+freeware+video+editor+redact+blur+tool+Win dows+10 What is the technical term for the cropping of video data like this? http://i64.tinypic.com/27xi5hf.jpg |
#6
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What's a good free Windows video editor that crops out data in the MP4 video frame?
In article , harry newton
wrote: What is the technical term for the cropping of video data like this? http://i64.tinypic.com/27xi5hf.jpg paranoia. |
#7
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What's a good free Windows video editor that crops out data in the MP4 video frame?
"harry newton" wrote
| | What is the technical term for the cropping of video data like this? | http://i64.tinypic.com/27xi5hf.jpg You mean the black areas? That's painting. Or pasting. Cropping is trimming the image. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cropping_(image) If you want to paint in each frame that might be a challenge. A good editor will do things like crop and resize, sharpness, color adjustment, etc. But painting specific items would of course require a separate operation for each frame. In theory you could have a video where you want the exact same area of each frame painted black, but I'd be surprised if any editor provides that functionality. It would require adding drawing tools to the software for functionality that would rarely, if ever, be used. |
#8
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What's a good free Windows video editor that crops out data in the MP4 video frame?
In article , Mayayana
wrote: If you want to paint in each frame that might be a challenge. A good editor will do things like crop and resize, sharpness, color adjustment, etc. But painting specific items would of course require a separate operation for each frame. In theory you could have a video where you want the exact same area of each frame painted black, but I'd be surprised if any editor provides that functionality. most, if not all can do that. It would require adding drawing tools to the software for functionality that would rarely, if ever, be used. not rarely. |
#9
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What's a good free Windows video editor that crops out data in the MP4 video frame?
"nospam" wrote
| If you want to paint in each frame that might | be a challenge. A good editor will do things | like crop and resize, sharpness, color adjustment, | etc. But painting specific items would of course | require a separate operation for each frame. In | theory you could have a video where you want the | exact same area of each frame painted black, but | I'd be surprised if any editor provides that functionality. | | most, if not all can do that. | I'd be interested to know of even one free video editor for Windows that has drawing tools like line, rectangle, etc, that can be applied on a per-frame basis, or even to the whole video. I spent an afternoon exploring at one point and Avidemux was by far the best option I found. So... do you actually know anything about this? Do you know of even one such product? In the Win7 group someone just recommended VirtualDUB. I downloaded it. First it wouldn't open mp4. So I gave it an AVI. It allowed me to copy a frame and paste it into Paint Shop Pro, but I was unable to paste the edited frame back into the video. That function is not on the menu. |
#10
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What's a good free Windows video editor that crops out data in the MP4 video frame?
In article , Mayayana
wrote: | If you want to paint in each frame that might | be a challenge. A good editor will do things | like crop and resize, sharpness, color adjustment, | etc. But painting specific items would of course | require a separate operation for each frame. In | theory you could have a video where you want the | exact same area of each frame painted black, but | I'd be surprised if any editor provides that functionality. | | most, if not all can do that. I'd be interested to know of even one free video editor for Windows that has drawing tools like line, rectangle, etc, that can be applied on a per-frame basis, or even to the whole video. I spent an afternoon exploring at one point and Avidemux was by far the best option I found. the usual way is to add any image as an overlay, usually one with an alpha mask (but that's not a requirement). that image can be whatever you want it to be, whether it's a boring black filled rectangle or something more interesting. it could also be a title, either static or scrolling. if you've seen tv news reports, the lower thirds are overlays, and done in real time. for example, this could be added to a live newscast: https://i.pinimg.com/474x/ba/55/b5/b...0c7c491932--lo wer-third.jpg more advanced video editing apps can track motion, so you could, for example, put flower petals over someone's body parts (or just blur it), and it will track as they move, moving the overlay (or blur) as needed, without having to manually alter each frame individually. or, you could have the overlay track whatever path you want if that works out better. So... do you actually know anything about this? Do you know of even one such product? quite a bit. i used to do a fair amount of video editing long ago using adobe premiere and adobe after effects. today, more capable apps than what i used back then now run on smartphones. adding an overlay is child's play. In the Win7 group someone just recommended VirtualDUB. I downloaded it. First it wouldn't open mp4. So I gave it an AVI. It allowed me to copy a frame and paste it into Paint Shop Pro, but I was unable to paste the edited frame back into the video. That function is not on the menu. user error. |
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What's a good free Windows video editor that crops out data in the MP4 video frame?
He who is Mayayana said on Thu, 28 Sep 2017 11:00:52 -0400:
In the Win7 group someone just recommended VirtualDUB. I downloaded it. First it wouldn't open mp4. So I gave it an AVI. It allowed me to copy a frame and paste it into Paint Shop Pro, but I was unable to paste the edited frame back into the video. That function is not on the menu. Yikes! The only suggestion so far was VirtualDub, from Pooh, who is well known to be helpful (unlike nospam who has zero honorable intentions). Here's what p-0''0-h the cat (coder) said on Thu, 28 Sep 2017 15:00:22 +0100: VirtualDUB. Worked for me. And this was my response today: Thanks for that suggestion of VirtualDub because if you've done the task, then that drops out dozens of failed freeware tests right off the bat! Freeware isn't free. The cost of freeware is knowledge. The knowledge is gained at the expense of time & effort. So I appreciate that you put in time and effort in the past, with VirtualDub freeware, so I will check that out when I get home later today. Googling for the canonical location, I find this: http://virtualdub.org/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/virtualdub/ |
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What's a good free Windows video editor that crops out data in the MP4 video frame?
He who is Mayayana said on Thu, 28 Sep 2017 11:00:52 -0400:
I'd be interested to know of even one free video editor for Windows that has drawing tools like line, rectangle, etc, that can be applied on a per-frame basis, or even to the whole video. I spent an afternoon exploring at one point and Avidemux was by far the best option I found. Hi Mayayana, I haven't tried what you ask above with Shotcut since I only needed an assortment of variously sized rectangular blocking boxes on arbitrary sections of the video, but... From what I have learned about Shotcut, I think it "should" be pretty easy to do if you can create the drawing outside of Shotcut in any drawing editor. Then all you do is overlay that drawing onto the section of video that you want to obscure. Shotcut "says" it can do this, no matter what format the drawing is in (PNG, BMP, JPG, GIF, etc.). |
#13
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What's a good free Windows video editor that crops out data inthe MP4 video frame?
On 09/28/2017 10:03 AM, Mayayana wrote:
"harry newton" wrote | | What is the technical term for the cropping of video data like this? | http://i64.tinypic.com/27xi5hf.jpg You mean the black areas? That's painting. Or pasting. Cropping is trimming the image. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cropping_(image) If you want to paint in each frame that might be a challenge. A good editor will do things like crop and resize, sharpness, color adjustment, etc. But painting specific items would of course require a separate operation for each frame. In theory you could have a video where you want the exact same area of each frame painted black, but I'd be surprised if any editor provides that functionality. It would require adding drawing tools to the software for functionality that would rarely, if ever, be used. I did a lot of editing years ago with a paid version (yes I know, the OP wanted free, but..) of Magix Movie Maker in Win7 or 8(?). It allowed multiple video layers (as well as audio). It had no ability to edit the video as you want, but I would think you might be able to make a transparent PNG image of a black rectangle(s) and put it in a 2nd video track or overlay or whatever the programs term is. It would be an engineering feat to get the black spots to fit in one PNG but... I've used Avidemux lately but only to convert formats, trim and brightness levels. HTH, al |
#14
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What's a good free Windows video editor that crops out data in the MP4 video frame?
He who is Big Al said on Thu, 28 Sep 2017 10:49:08 -0400:
I did a lot of editing years ago with a paid version (yes I know, the OP wanted free, but..) of Magix Movie Maker in Win7 or 8(?). It allowed multiple video layers (as well as audio). It had no ability to edit the video as you want, but I would think you might be able to make a transparent PNG image of a black rectangle(s) and put it in a 2nd video track or overlay or whatever the programs term is. It would be an engineering feat to get the black spots to fit in one PNG but... I've used Avidemux lately but only to convert formats, trim and brightness levels. One of the two great advantages of Payware is that Payware tells you the possibilities of what can be done with freeware. The second great advantage of Payware is that it gives you a *technique* for solving the problem (and usually lots of good search keywords). So this overlaying of a black PNG rectangle technology makes sense for the task of blocking out or blurring out certain areas of a video. |
#15
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What's a good free Windows video editor that crops out data inthe MP4 video frame?
On 09/28/2017 12:05 PM, harry newton wrote:
He who is Big Al said on Thu, 28 Sep 2017 10:49:08 -0400: I did a lot of editing years ago with a paid version (yes I know, the OP wanted free, but..) of Magix Movie Maker in Win7 or 8(?).Â* It allowed multiple video layers (as well as audio).Â*Â* It had no ability to edit the video as you want, but I would think you might be able to make a transparent PNG image of a black rectangle(s) and put it in a 2nd video track or overlay or whatever the programs term is.Â*Â* It would be an engineering feat to get the black spots to fit in one PNG but... I've used Avidemux lately but only to convert formats, trim and brightness levels. One of the two great advantages of Payware is that Payware tells you the possibilities of what can be done with freeware. The second great advantage of Payware is that it gives you a *technique* for solving the problem (and usually lots of good search keywords). So this overlaying of a black PNG rectangle technology makes sense for the task of blocking out or blurring out certain areas of a video. But would only be successful if the video does not move around on the screen. Or at least much, as you could reposition the PNG now and then but you'd like it to be as simple as possible. |
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