Video editing

In the coming weeks and months, we're going to be doing quite a bit on using video from the EOS 5D Mark II, looking at both the high end editing areas, as well as the consumer options. For now though, I just wanted to flag up a bit of software I found that makes it easier to edit videos. 

Streamclip has two things going for it:

1. It is available for both Mac and PC

2. IT'S FREE! Yep, you read that right, it's free. Free, free, free, free, free. And we like free stuff!

It's also useful. Basically it's a convertor, player and editor for video files. While it may not be the most full featured editor (in fact, calling it an editor is stretching the definition a little) it does trim movies. It also plays most of the files you want and more importantly, the EOS 5D Mark II files. It's real strength is in converting files though.

Now, the MPEG 4 files from the EOS 5D Mark II will play nicely with most editing software, but there are other formats that play better - the most common currently being used for editing 5D Mark II files is ProRes 422. This makes much bigger files (by way of example I converted a 461MB H.264 compressed EOS 5D Mark II file to Pro Res 422 and it came out at 2.42GB!) but they also work better when you come to edit them in software such as Final Cut Pro. 

So, we'd urge anyone thinking about playing with the movie functions of an EOS 5D Mark II to at least go and download Streamclip and have a mess around with it. Hey, it's free. What you got to lose?! 

-blabpictures-